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[Music] this is LBC from Global leading Britain’s conversation with James O’Brien good morning it’s 3 minutes after 10 did you have a splendid weekend I hope you did um I I’m going to start the show a little differently today I can’t do this every day obviously because sometimes in that little 60c slot that I uh enjoy at the end of Nick’s show I tell you or I give you an indic of what is going to be coming up after the news and then during the news I changed my mind so sometimes my inbox will be full of texts that are not re relevant to the conversation that I have very unprofessionally and unfairly decided to have at approximately two or three minutes past 10 but today I think it works so Joseph’s been in touch he says it’s ridiculous how labor are failing to appeal to the young vote they have an opportunity here and just seem to be gliding to Victory James in Oxford says where is everyone this is the limp election ever the lib Dems have an open goal take us back into the EU work out all of our problems with our neighbors am I stupid um uh this is from Sue we should be teaching younger people who say they’re not interested in politics that every single aspect of their lives is politics tell those who say they will not vote that the most important thing is to get the Tores out so vote tactically for the candidate most likely to beat them once they are gone then the campaign starts to get proportional representation ation apathy is not an option says Sue um another I think possibly the same Joseph I’m a politics and economics graduate I’m excited to vote but my friends from all different backgrounds don’t want to vote because they think labor has already won and good Lord It’s 5 minutes after turn and we’ve already got an application for idiots Corner that’s is that a record okay how can you be how can you be getting into idiots Corner before I’ve even spoken but Rickard has been in touch to say are you actually going to ignore the European elections coward mate my show hadn’t started when you sent that how could you possibly be accusing me of ignoring anything before I’ve actually started speaking but anyway I I I’m you’re in the you’re in the idiot’s Corner before before 5 past 10 had even struck so I guess that’s a grounds for some form of congratulations we may well have a look at the results of the European elections shortly disasters for Emanuel macron calling an election taking absolutely everybody by surprise arguably an even bigger shock to the French electorate and indeed to Emanuel macron’s colleagues then rishy sunak calling an election here turned out to be for his colleagues um listen there’s a chance isn’t there that you sympathize with young people uh who are not planning to vote CLA puts it in a slightly different way from Campbell town I normally agree with much of what you say well I can only advise that you seek medical help as soon as possible CLA if that is the case but I find it startling that your response to the news of young people not voting is to give them a kick up the backside rather than putting your head in your hands that we haven’t found candidates or parties able to offer them any hope for a better future thank you CLA i i i to be honest with you if you hear that little Crescendo at the end of the minute that I get at the end of Nick’s show if you hear that kicking in and it sounds like I don’t know how I’m going to finish the sentence because I’ve just sort of been burbling uh in an unfocused fashion then you’re right so sometimes I just find myself reaching for the Finish Line dipping to use an athletic and congratulations to Dana Asha Smith dipping for the Finish Line to use an Athletics analogy Without Really knowing where the finish line is so give them a kick up the backside was a bit of a random reach for me and it may well be um that that is the last thing that we need what we really need is is is is calm and cool uh explication of of what this means but let’s look first at the numbers here’s the shocking one right and the research was commissioned by the Duke of Edinburgh award which is a wonderful scheme truly truly wonderful scheme um I saw one of mine uh actually at the palace quite recently which was a an absolutely magical experience for all involved but only four in 10 of those aged 18 to 24 said they are likely to cast their ballot next month and the number saying they’re not going to do so or that they are unlikely to do so is is 18% um but if the if the numbers of those as yet undecided were to um uh come to fruition on polling day you would have fewer less than half of young people arguably the younger you are the more important politics is I know we often see it from the other end of the telescope in this country because the older you are the more likely you are to have savings or the more likely you are to be seducible by pension uh policies the older you are the more likely you are to have a mortgage so the in terms of the uh in terms of the the engineering of electoral offers the more you’ve got the more you’ve got in the game the more skin you’ve got in the game the longer you’ve been in the business the more you have susceptible to to the engineering but if you think of it in Broad brush Strokes if you think of it in um contextual terms the younger you are the more you have at stake because this sets the time for the next 5 years possibly the next 10 or 15 who knows um possibly the next two given what we’ve learned in recent years about how flimsy even quite big parliamentary majorities can prove to be for the party leaders for the putative Prime Ministers but the more the younger you are the more you’ve got in play the more it sets the tone for for for you know significant SES of your life so the fact that the youngest cohort of potential voters is currently the least likely to vote should give us all pause it should give us all cause for concern and that’s where we’ll begin so we’ll begin with the why of it why why do you think this is or indeed if I I the trick problem I’ve got now is I’m probably not talking to many people in that age group who are thinking of not voting I would hope and this may be wrong in which case you will soon and quickly tell me I would hope that if you’re listening to this program certainly this radio station then you are probably politically engaged you probably do have a a level of Interest sufficient to make you more likely to vote vot than not vote but equally I I mean if you are in this category if you’re I am politically engaged James I am interested but I don’t think it’s going to make much difference what I do I’d be interested in hearing from you or I think the phrase that probably depresses me the most in modern politics is that they’re all the same and it depresses me for two reasons the first is that it’s not true and the second is that it offers an opportunity to the racists the people who are prepared to be publicly racist who are prepared to talk about people of color not understanding quotes our culture End quotes at which point I think you’re supposed to say whatever the hell that means but everybody honest knows exactly what that means and in fact quite a lot of dishonest people know what that means as well if you’re racist you love it if you’re not racist you hate it and um that’s something that we may turn our attention to in the next hour but the the the idea that you think all politicians are the same opens the door to the politicians who are not proper politicians the ones who don’t have to confine themselves to the parameters of reality the ones who can make promises that they will never be required to keep the ones that can indulge in demagoguery and and the lazy othering of communities most normal most mainstream politicians have to work within the parameters of reality and I guess sometimes I know brexit changed that a bit but sometimes that may create the idea that there’s no point voting because nothing’s ever going to really change these are the reasons given for not committing to a vote the belief that it would not make any difference not knowing enough about the parties and or finally that parties could not be trusted to keep their promises so there there are three categories there enjoying almost equal support from the cohort of young people minded currently not to vote or more accurately not currently minded to vote it won’t make any difference I don’t know enough about the parties or the parties can’t be trusted to keep their promises so what what reason have you got 0345 6060 973 and then for the rest of us well we’ll do it both ways around shall we if you’re not aged 18 to 24 that that can be a fairly fluid we talked about this a couple of weeks ago and it was absolutely fascinating the the question of is it our fault is is it is it somehow the fault of the media the fault of adults the fault of parents how can we have such large numbers of young people in such an uncertain World in a world where politics has made such enormous differences to um their lives I mean just brexit I guess because there’s a great piece by Ness Malik in the guardian today about nobody talking about brexit maybe that’s part of it even if you were politically engaged enough to understand the damage that’s been done to your future by being part of the first population in the history of humanity to vote to impose economic sanctions on itself there is nothing here there’s nothing in this election that offers you should we say um rescue or respite from the madness that’s been inflicted upon you by the grown-ups so that might be on the list so or or it might just be that there’s no the less the less social capital you’ve got the less likely you are to become a homeowner the less likely you are to find a job of security to find a a job that provides you with the sort of security that you crave the less likely you are to be politically engaged if you haven’t got enough of a AK in society to feel that Society has a stake in you then arguably the simple question of voting seems largely irrelevant I’d have thought that would be a bigger problem for the left than the right but who knows I mean in fact looking at where polling sits on support for the two major parties and we’ll talk about the others of course this morning this is much worse news for the leftwing for the labor party than it is for the conser conservative party because support for the conservative party in in some cohorts is down to about 8% among the youngest it’s coming up to 1014 you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC coming up later on the program we’ll look at the legacy of Michael Mosley that extraordinary tragedy which has captured the imagination of the entire country and the more you learn about Michael Mosley and and for me I I wasn’t a fully paid up member of his fan club the more you realize that his influence his impact on the population of this country is is close to unparalleled you can actually say as you as you mourn his tragic passing you can actually say that this is someone who changed countless lives you can do a radio phone and in fact I think we probably will now I come to think about it asking how Michael Mosley changed your life I heard Tom Watson this morning the former deputy leader of the labor party crediting him with pretty much saving his life certainly steering him back from type 2 diabetes and and that’s a heavy example there are little examples as well we’ll get into that and we’ll have a look at what it’s like as a as a person of color as a British person of color to have once again in public discourse the the nudge nudge wink wink suggestion that you’re not really British if you’re Brown which um Nigel farage has ushered back into the mainstream over the course of this weekend but we begin with the troubling statistic that only four in 10 of those aged 18 to 24 are likely to vote next month question one is why question two is what can we do about it 0345 6060 973 James O’Brien on LBC 17 is the time would you like to play a game I have two clips you know how much we collate we enjoy curating Clips on this program that makes us sound very fancy we don’t just play them out or collect them we curate our Clips we have a curated collection of Clips I am conscious of political per of paranoia when I talk about my curated collection of Clips but obviously my fond for alliteration overcomes any reservations that I have I’ve got two clips one featuring Richard Holden and one featuring Esther McVey if you’re familiar with them why don’t you have a vote on which one you think I should play out bracket spoiler alert I’m going to play both of them anyway but we can pretend that we’re having a radio competition or a sort of tension building exercise um I I know which one I found most remarkable but um I I shall let you have little votes on that we begin though with young people voting and the failure of the former apparently to recognize the importance of the latter or possibly the failure of the rest of us to understand why it is not important or not as important as we think it should be for younger voters Alex is in Southampton Alex what would you like to say hi James uh nice to be on your show I’m a big fan um I’m 19 uh I’m sort of Fairly politically engaged uh and I think what’s happening is I I know quite a lot of people who are sort of similarly politically leaning as as me but um do fall into the category of as you said sort of uh labor and the Tores are the same and so also as a result of this they think that you know voting green or live Dem might not make a difference anyway um and that that tends to be what the angle that I’m seeing is most interested I think in the um notion of them being the same I I because I I you know I do this for a living I’ve been doing it for 20 years and the there’s clearly quite a lot of clear blue water between the two parties at the moment possibly not as much as as there has been in the past but is it is it because of the personalities rather than the policies they just see politicians in the media never really answering quite questions directly or or or dancing on a pin head or walking a tight RPP and that creates an idea that all the people are the same and therefore the parties are or am I reaching for the star I think that’s I think that’s definitely um an aspect of it I mean I I agree with you I I think the differences are very very clear um I think uh potentially a lot of it is that um for example the greens sort of uh do tend to put themselves um or or at least advertise themselves as as being you know a a third party I I think they don’t they don’t well they don’t agitate as if they are pursuing power and when the liberal Democrats do it can often appear a little bit silly I I mean I don’t know if you even remember Joe Swinson but I think she was the last liberal Democrat leader to suggest that she was poised to become Prime Minister and I I doubt even many Li activists believe that what what do you say to them if indeed you do bother I’ve probably got more exciting things to do to try to to try to shake them into action well I I mean I think basically just sort of actually you know when for example labor policy gets announced just sort of trying to make sure as many people are aware of it I mean um okay I think uh last week uh sort of the announcement that recognizing Palestine um pretty early on would be in the manifesto was quite a good um way of doing this and sort of you know I I think again that that tends to be an area where people view labor and story policy as as too similar Maybe but you know that’s that I’m going to put that on the list then I mean regard because that should be dismaying to everybody that that that that supports either of the two main parties and you’ve reminded us of the relevance of the of the other parties as well in this context but if you are a you know a died in the worldall Tor um admittedly you’ve got to be clinging pretty desperately to to the to the party apparatus at the moment but things could easily get better in the course of the next few weeks if you’re died in the W Tor or a fully paid up member of the labor movement then the idea that your generation think the two parties are the same should be equally uh outrageous shouldn’t it it should be equally affronting and so I’d ask them I’d ask them to tell young people what the differences are between the two main parties what what should what should 19 year olds like Alex’s mates know about the two parties that constitutes that constitutes clear blue water final question I promise because I I I’m sure you got lectures to attend what um don’t laugh what is of the people you’re talking about not actually voting at all um I I I think it it ranges person to person I mean I I remember even in the the the local elections um sort of people I mean obviously local elections are different but um quite quite often you know I I was sort of telling people you know vote vote vote I’m I’m very much uh I mean I I I think compulsory voting should be thing but that’s another that’s another topic but um that’s a conversation for another day and and it may be I mean the excitement of voting I I I mean I took my 18-year-old to the polling station for the first time during the council elections and you know there is there is a magic to it there I know it’s a little bit Naf perhaps but in the shadow of dday particularly you remind people of the importance of democracy of course in the shadow of some of the results that have coming in the European elections over the last 24 hours you you you wonder whether voters on the continent were aware of what it was we were actually celebrating the defeat of um last week or at least the imminent defeat of as opposed to reintroducing policies or reintroducing ideas uh to Continental Europe that were seen off by the D-Day Heroes 23 after 10 is the time Alex take care Jacks in harleypool Jack what would you like to say h hi James time call hear from you welcome welcome thank you very much uh so basically I’m 19 and my friend group spans to about 15 like others of us and I’m the only one who’s actually politically inclined you know the only one actively looking into politics and when I actually ask them about this exact thing the main reason that they give is well there’s two reasons the first one is they don’t have to so they don’t really feel inclined to yeah H so I don’t know if maybe putting like a mandatory thing in would actually help the second 19yearold and only spoken to two this morning honestly are like buses aren’t they you wait ages for but but the the second one to talk about mandatory voting from from that exact perspective that you that people almost need to be compelled to exercise their Democratic rights that’s really interesting go on sorry to interrupt what was the next one no that’s fine um but the the other reason is because H the barrier for entry to S getting into politics I feel like is a bit too high because if you’re a young person right now and you want to get into politics there’s no real stuff starting point I mean you can look into each party specifically and they like unique manifestos and things that they say but there guaranteed there be some gray lines there and so whenever it comes to my friends and I ask them you know who do you want to vote for on July 4th yeah they always get me to sort of try and speed them up on how politics have been within the last 10 or so years I mean they have no idea about you know how long the Tories have been in and all of the stuff that they’ve done that’s quite depressing no I believe you got better things to do I suppose but I mean stuff like there used to be I think I can’t remember whether it was an advert or whether it was a sketch when I was your age or a bit younger and it was someone saying they don’t care about politics and then someone just lists all the things that are intrinsically politics so you know on a day like today you could look at police numbers you could look at class sizes you could look at Net Zero you could look at taxing Banks more to put cash into the NHS which is what um uh the liberal Democrats were talking to Nick about earlier you could I mean there’s so much that is obviously politics for your generation you’d think about the likelihood of home ownership is it just that that the the the dots are not generally connected a lot of it is yeah because it’s sort of everything’s everywhere no one’s telling them where to look first and what to sort of interpret from media failure possibly then a bit is it a media failure uh I suppose in some part but I mean there are definitely steps you can take I mean I’ve been reading your book myself I got it for Christmas and I think that’s a brilliant read but what you’re saying is that every school every 18-year-old in the country should be issued with a copy of how they broke Britain before the general election every 18 to 24 I could not agree with you more Jack that that is something that I think what you need is a friendly billionaire to come along instead of setting up a weird television station they could buy a copy of my book for every 18 to 24 year old in the country and then they’d all bloody vote oh exactly James exactly I appreciate that’s not quite what you rang in to say but you know it’s my job to what callers are in the process of sharing with me on some occasions speaking of which in fact at the other end of the scale thank you Jack I would talk again this is from an tra for which I say thank you and I I I sense from your name that it would be more correct to say f Harry Sto say morning James I love your program you make it easy to understand politics I’m supposed to be working but I’m texting you just to say that my son of 32 will not be voting as he believes that all politicians lie I told him to listen to you he said no this is my first time contacting LBC and that that is almost a poem that that text we did flirt with the idea last month of of trying to turn one text a day into a haiku didn’t we that’s too long for me to do that but there we go I told him to listen to you he said no how do you reach an trula’s son how do you help him understand that not all politicians are liars um I don’t know to be honest but that tickled me pink thank you 10:27 is the time Corey is in Paddington Cory what would you like to say well I mean I good morning at a start I I do agree with yourself we should give a copy of how they broke Britain to every think we should probably we flirting with ofcom regulations on self promotion no don’t worry there’s no such thing I’m just doing false modesty Cory carry on um I I feel definitely I mean I’m 21 so I would have been just kind of starting or at least the first half of my high school education when the brexit referendum happened yeah and I think kind of since definitely then and I mean across the pond in the US since Trump the kind of the way media has become a lot more it’s a hell of a lot more sorry it’s a lot more polarized it’s also a lot more kind of distrusting of everyone in power I mean so why is that do you think what what do you think that is brexit related or oh I I mean it’s I I think I I I think in all fairness if just a just a simple example would be the um the judges on the front of the Daily Mail it’s like like a collection of people essentially trying to push some kind of populist agenda which ends up with us trying to destroy all sorts of systems but this is but this involves a hang on this this involves a level of Engagement this would explain perhaps where you derive some of your convictions from but people who aren’t engaged at all have they been alienated by populism have they been pushed out of the picture a bit I would think kind of as populism is going more and more towards kind of I mean at the beginning yeah go back and you think of what Trump was promising and what like they were promising with the leave campaign it all seemed to be like like populism just simple simple like solutions to really complex problems I’d put Corbin in that category as well actually oh yeah and he did connect he did connect with young people Martin and do picking up on the fact that they he really did um Inspire young voters but as you say it was with Simple Solutions to complicated problems often I think it’s just kind of The Simple Solutions to look at your problems only really works so far because it isn’t it’s not a long-term solution and I feel like the politicians who have pushed these Simple Solutions who royally screwed up the execution of The Simple Solutions leading to more apathy within the populace oh that’s you’re because you’re looking at like these people who have said like oh we’re going to leave you we’re g to leave Britain I mean I i’ I’ve had clips of yourself talking to brexit is throughout the years just recommended to me in you on YouTube and you got these people talking you got these like brex about like oh we can just leave and do X and it’s like hold on doing X requires to go to like requires you to go through several like government International bodies it’s physically impossible I think people are kind of up with promises because they’ve won I I hadn’t thought of it that way around because populists have succeeded but I mean most obviously with brexit and because younger people were not caught up in the in the populism they didn’t necessarily but they’ve seen it fail completely they now hold all politicians especially the ones not mentioned it I don’t know I mean I obviously like your theory because it fits with my world view but it and it’s generous towards the younger generation as well because you’re describing something other than apathy you’re describing disillusion oh what’s the difference between disillusion and apathy isn’t it it’s it’s engagement and then alienation as opposed to no engagement at all great stuff Corey thank you half past 10 is the time Thomas wats has your headlines James O’Brien on LBC here’s a question I’m I’m about to pay you an extraordinary clip and I know I said I was going to try to use that word less and I am using it less but sometimes it’s the only word that fits an extraordinary clip of the checks notes conservative party chairman being interviewed by an old mucker of mine actually I used to make tea for him on The Daily Express or the Sunday Express John Craig now of course um applying his trade at Sky News um I I genuinely couldn’t quite process it last night when when it popped up in front of me I thought how has this actually happened I was going to do a joke about whoever is advising him having previously worked on Susan Hall’s maral campaign in London but I did that joke in the office and one of the young one of one of my younger colleagues which is pretty much everybody who’s not on air one of my younger colleagues said no it really is the same person his advisor because you can hear the voice of the adviser in the background and they said no he really did work on Susan H he was actually drafted in to rescue Susan Hall’s Campa I thought satire is dead in this country you have a conservative party chairman having an absolute nightmare in public on camera you make a joke about the fact well he must have the same advisers as that woman who ran for May uh after claiming that she’d been pickpocketed when she lost her travel pass and it and then the voice of the person in the background actually is is talking about the uh is is the same person so I want you to have a listen to this but in the context of the conver ation we’re having and I don’t want to ring in and answer this I just want you to think about you can if you want of course I want you to think about whether this sort of thing actually alienates younger voters it makes them think what’s the point I mean how can I get involved in politics when the quotes grown-ups End quotes behave like this does it because I would have thought that it detracted from the idea that all politicians are the same and it actually created an idea that that that one lot is better or worse than another lot and and yet it may have nothing at all to do with the alienation or or or the um dispossession if you like of of 18 to 24 year old voters but is it is it something to do with the caliber of appointments that rishy sunak and Liz truss and Boris Johnson have been compelled to make by the shallowness of the talent pool they have I don’t know but this I thought by any measure we’re playing you the full three minute version I thought by any measure this was an absolutely extraordinary exchange between John Craig of Sky News and Richard Holden the chairman of the conservative party let’s start with you how can you justify yourself chairman of the conservative party being parachuted into a safe seat 300 miles or so from your old constituency short list of one one not the normal three or more just um a day or so before uh nominations close how would you how do you answer the charge it just looks like an appalling stitch up and you part of a self-serving Elite this interview is about Emily thornbury’s comments today uh and when she admitted that it’s going to be our children across the country who pay the price for Labor’s decision uh to try and tax private schools if they get into office it’s quite clear to me that it’s it’s not just families who are going to be paying the price with £2,000 of extra taxes under the labor party it’s going to be our children with larger class sizes right across the country uh that I think is a horrendous price to pay children’s education to in order to deliver on Labor’s ideological Obsession this is a pool interview and uh other broadcasters have asked me to ask about your selection and we want to ask about it as well I come back to the question it looks like a stitch up chairman of the party short list of one uh just before nominations close how is that not an falling stitch up and anti-democratic uh Emily Thornbury today has uh completely admitted that Labor’s approach uh to taxing schools is going to mean larger class sizes for children right across the country particularly in the state sector their children are going to be paying the price for Labor’s ideological obsession with over £2,000 extra uh on tax for their parents and larger class sizes for children it’s children and families who are going to pay the price under a labor government so you can’t justify the way you have been parachuted into Basildon and biller Ricky you’re not denying it’s a stitch up and it’s anti-democratic Emily Thornbury today has admitted I’m going to stop you now this is ridiculous this is ridiculous you said in an interview earlier this year you were bloody loyal to the Northeast what happened to that John I’ve already answered these questions no you haven’t actually I have when uh when I did a channel 4 news interview uh last week oh right it’s one broadcaster isn’t it why is the prime minister hiding this weekend and not answering any media questions is that because of the Fiasco over D-Day uh the Prime Minister will be out on the road I’m sure over the next few days uh fighting for every vote right across the country and I think it’s quite clear when you’re seeing policies uh like Labor’s VAT on schools which are going to mean larger class sizes for children which are going to mean uh taxes on Working Families up £22,000 I don’t think British families can afford labors AG ideological Obsession and the Prime Minister will keep making that clear throughout the rest of this election campaign oh no I want the other bit as well I want the bit on the end where you can hear the you can hear the adviser interview is that on the shorter clip can we get that as well because that’s quite important too I’m going to read you the full list of candidates in Basildon and biller Ricky Christopher David baitman for the British Democratic party party Steven conell for reform UK Steven gosw for the green party Alex Harrison for labor Richard John Holden that’s him isn’t it for the conservative and unionist party Dave Murray for the Trade union and socialist Coalition Edward chrisan sainsbury for the liberal Democrats and you can find that full list of candidates on the LBC website um lbc.edu like that help us understand why 18 to 24 year olds don’t think there’s any point voting at all at refusal or failure to engage even with the most basic parameters of reality Andor um uh uh respect I suppose Joseph’s in leester to return us to the question about the younger voters Joseph what would you like to say hi James I talk to you at the top of this call how you doing very well um I’m a politics and economics graduate and basically none of my friends want to vote none of them even even other politics and economics graduates yes even other graduates yes it’s a bit of a shame I think it’s a two-pronged answer really first they think labors actually wer already um I don’t that’s down to the media or labor themselves but they’re complaint well the polling to be fair it could be neither the opinion polling is pretty unequivocal at the moment it’s so unequivocal Nigel far just started complaining about the polling which is um inevitable I suppose if it’s not gone the way that he was expecting But but so it could be a combination of things there’s a there’s a a feeling abroad isn’t there that labor were already over the line which would explain apathy yeah exactly the the apathy comes from that and they and they just don’t want to vote because they think it’s pointless they think it’s a waste of their time you know labor W so what’s the point and then the second point I suppose is the fact that labor aren’t doing anything for young people We’re The Lost Generation I’m 22 I voted in the last election but we’ve had covid disrupting our exams and our studies you know at a university I barely even went in because there was no you know stuff going on there and uh this you know this government or even the labor Shadow government haven’t really done anything for us um you know the big worries for me is housing and jobs and you know safety for us for us young people and I don’t think that’s being given and to be honest they would they they would argue that it is I mean there was stuff on for first time buyers at the end of last week wasn’t there there’s um stuff on the I suppose getting Nursery places for your children isn’t necessarily going to be a top priority for people uh exactly where you are Tor is today talking about more Community police on the streets young people often on the receiving end of antisocial behavior and crime so I I mean it’s not Landing it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not there yeah it’s not Landing but what I would say is this immigra this election has been painted as the immigration election but it should be painted as the Next Generation election I think it’s only been painted as that by by by farage I don’t but you’re right the other two parties don’t seem to be running away from it at 100 miles an hour do they no to be fair I think farage is controlling the narrative though because what I see on you know Tik Tok and stuff like that I mean it’s not appealing to me at all but I do worry that this is getting through to young people that we’re just not cared about that’s just my opinion on this blame everything on on immigrants and young people can be probably encouraged to conclude that they are they are being ignored and then of course you bring you bring evidence to the table as well what what what do you say do do you try and persuade people do you try and tell them all the time I literally I’m I’m on calls with them all the time I’m talking to them all the time and it doesn’t seem like anybody’s interested because they just think that nobody cares about us I mean I feel the same to be honest side his vot because I believe in it but I don’t think anybody cares about me that’s my opinion no and I mean that is something that party leaders I think care well I know we’re hearing from senior politicians throughout the um election campaign on on LBC possibly not on this show partly through Choice partly through necessity but they they will be very very worried to hear that I I mean actually Joseph while you’re here what about I mean what about the excitement of a 1997 style result because I was 25 in 1997 I hadn’t quite I was still selling suits on Regent Street doing a couple of shifts on Fleet Street so I had quite a lot to play for as it were and the the Portillo moments I don’t know if you remember well you won’t remember but you’ve caught up subsequently that the idea of of a historic moment that involved the defenestration of household name Tories who thought that they were in Parliament for life that that wouldn’t engage your mates that’s not something they’d get excited about I mean for me personally it definitely get me excited I don’t know if it would get them excited I think I think I think the fact that we might get new government and potential change is somewhat exciting to me but I don’t believe it no and you I mean all of you all of you all of you young people I sound like a university lecturer trying to get down with the kids all of you fellow youths all of you young people talking along similar themes I don’t know what the magic formula would be to get to get that connection I do know what the end of that remarkable interview with Richard hurn the chairman of the conservative party sounded like and in a few seconds time so will you this is ridiculous you said in an interview earlier this year you were bloody loyal to the Northeast what happened to that John I’ve already answered these questions no you haven’t actually I have when uh when I did a channel 4 news interview uh last week oh right it’s one broadcaster isn’t it this is a pool interview for all the other broadcas these broadcasters agreed with the questions of no nobody agree that at all well I’ve got a list here of questions from other broadcasters all three broadcasters agreed everyone on this nobody’s agreed no absolutely not absolutely this if that’s where it’s going to go then we’ll we’ll just leave because that’s not what we agreed to come here to take to discuss so if you only ask us the questions that we’re prepared to answer we will leave and and remember the chairman of a party is supposed to be the second most important campaigner really because he goes Super constituency as in above constituency a national National campaigns there’s a casee for arguing they’re the second most important I don’t know whether that adds to the sense of uh disillusionment shall we say I prefer disillusionment to apathy that we’re reporting on this morning but it it can hardly it can hardly help it’s 10:45 James O’Brien on LBC 1048 is the time I and I suppose adding to Tory travails the leader of the Scottish Tories as you’ve heard in the bulletin this morning Douglas Ross has announced that he’s going to resign and if he wins a seat at the general election he will then stand down immediately as a as a member of the Scottish Parliament um well KY it’s all going on isn’t it no wonder Rich he soon next has anyone seen him yet today have we seen have we seen and and I think he is he going to a neighborhood watch meeting I heard you think I’m joking don’t you it’s like Howard out of ever decreasing circles what was his wife called can never remember these used to we the same anara showing my age a bit in fact alienating precisely the people I’m encouraging to ring in today by making references to a sitcom that was over long before they were born but it is an interesting question why and and speaking of resignations we’ll also be looking at the decision of Benny Gant to resign from the Israeli War cabinet that is of course significant as well Grim Grim scenes uh once again coming in from Gaza um leavened in small part but leavened nonetheless by the uh joyful scenes greeting the rescue of four hostages but Benny gans’s decision to finally resign from the Israeli War cabinet might get filed under better late than never and yet remain significant but why will 18 to 24 year olds be less inclined to vote than us old gits would perhaps expect Asal is in Camden Asal what can you tell us uh hi James um I’m 20 I’m a law student in you know UCL yeah and it’s um to be honest young people know it’s we’ve grown up in the era where you know you neither had a good conservative party you neither had a good labor party I mean me when I became you know politically aware it was David Cameron right and the way I became aware was the fact that I had the same primary school teacher for four years and then later I looked at you know the numbers for the um cost ahead for student yeah right and it reduced ridiculously under you know that first Tory ter so you’re you’re you’re you’re counting the personal cost of austerity from from from your primary school classroom you’re a little bit more engaged than most at that age then we could say yeah I mean I wasn’t at it when I was in primary school but afterwards you know cuz I am from a workingclass family I went to a state grammar school I was introduced people who you know came from private primary school so and I met them and to me it was wondering like why did I have the same teacher for four years and she used to you know buy things for us out of pocket out of her own wage and things things I think considerably worse now than than than they were then so talk me about how you move from that to thinking that there’s no point getting involved this time around well I do think people should get involved I mean I again I’ve been politically aware but it’s more understanding that people don’t want to be involved because to them it’s like it’s what’s really the point no one offers something that is offering some real change here what would that look like what would that what would that look like what would I mean if like an offer that would be both remember feasible feasible and costed and all of that malaky but also irresistible so like a game-changing offer for for a 20 year old like you I mean what you know obviously the 24-hour news cycle it it what we see from the media is is these guys who you know they send politicians up there and they read the script and then it’s like yeah cool and there’s no backbone there there’s no honesty there’s no this is this is their they they all seem to be the same territory which surprises me but that’s what you’re saying what you see I mean is when we see someone who goes up there and he’s not reading off the script and and they are giving an honest answer I think recently it was on BBC’s not question time I think it was news night where a labor MP went up and someone asked him was like do you support getting rid of I think it was um voter ID and he just said I don’t know and then he’s like let me find out for you and people respect that honestly because it’s like you can’t know everything and we’re not stupid we don’t expect you to know everything thank you for being honest yeah okay I like that so the fear of the of the I I next’s very good at this asking people if they know how much a ten of coke is and stuff like that it it creates and I’m not criticizing him I mean you should know if you’re coming on here to talk about children’s issues you should know how much child benefit is or you should know how much a loaf of bread costs or or how many people have got dementia all of these things you can deal with those you can have the statistics that you need before you go into an interview but you you’re describing a fear almost of answering a question with a substantive response it’s as if they’re frightened of saying anything that could lead to a gotcha moment exactly and how can we trust these guys if they can’t give an honest substantive answer how can we trust them to tackle issues like housing issues like student loans issues like graduate jobs for you know young professionals issues like the massive wealth inequality right you’re not and you’re not hearing any you’re not hearing any of this at all and you’re not hearing anything big enough or or or or or sexy enough if you like to actually nudge your needle I said sense you will vote I will vote yeah but you know it I I I not with any particular not with a spring in your step Fel not with a spring no not this time you be petting it petting into the polling booze with a not this year no this year well maybe next time we’ll have to see Darren Jones a lot of people are suggesting would be the person you’re talking about I’m very lucky to be able to read that reference because my inbox is currently full of people shouting Hilda do you know why my inbox is full of people shouting Hilda because it was Howard and Hilder of course in ever decreasing circles uh who were sort of stalwarts of the neighborhood watch uh scheme and wore the same anara at least that’s how my memory works Brian Taylor is a political commentator and columnist at the herald in Scotland he joins me now um I I I can’t conduct every interview during this election campaign by opening with the line nobody saw this coming did they Brian but nobody saw this coming did they Brian not entirely no although I wrote in a column at the weekend saying perhaps it would be time for him to pick Parliament this is Doug R of course we’re talking of I mean for goodness sake I think it was Churchill who said anybody can rat on a party it takes a certain amount of Ingenuity to rat well Douglas Ross has done it Douglas Ross has done it in a way you know he was in Westminster and then he said no no I’m coming back to to Hollywood so came out a list MSP in the Scottish parliament in order to become the leader and then he he thinks well maybe not maybe I’ll head back to to Westminster so he ended up uh suggesting he would he would contest a Westminster seat of aanisha north and muray east but at the same time he would remain as a List member of the Scottish Parliament and remain as leader uh of many of his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament you know up with this they they would not poot basically they thought it was it was splitting his and it was the exact opposite what he said he would do he said he would he would focus upon hollyood would focus upon leading the party and would give up westm it was it was a fairly uh I think You’ use it call it a courageous decision that’s in the you were talking about you were talking comedy series in Yes Minister the Yes Minister Sir Humphrey said courageous decision Minister does that mean it’s good no minister so I think this this this is this this goes into the category of courageous now look basically the the pre the previous MSP from the from the old seat mean boundary changes was a guy called David Jet he he he was a a minister in the the the Scotland office very well respected you know rooted in the northeast of Scotland but he became very seriously ill and despite him insisting that he was he was ADT that he was okay to to carry on the party said no no sorry you’re going to have to stand down step aside and then the following day this was last Wednesday and the following day Douglas Ross said U I’ve looked exhaustively at the the list of potential candidates and I I’m the boy and said that he would stand for the seat himself it caused a real Ruckus In the party they said but you you you said you were focusing upon the Scottish Parliament you said you was focusing upon the leader and now you say you’re going to carry on doing both jobs and he’s also a a football linesman which he’s got into a little bit of bother for lately that’s got nothing to do with this with this decision it probably it probably adds to the Joy he’s going into a little bit of just to clarify Bri bad it’s bad enough being being bad enough being being being a conservative at the present moment he he has to just you know really win public hearts and Minds by being a linesman he’s a tried and tested line from from from a consumate columnist what um just to just to completely clarify then he won’t be Scottish leader anymore he will stand down definitely a Scottish leader following the election on July the 4th if he wins the abedin CH North and mo mo East seat yeah in Westminster then he will leave holy Roode but he’ll remain as a as a conservative MP in Westminster correct he would he would go back to what what um some some more cynical commentators IE me might say that that the conservatives would see as the Imperial Parliament he he’d returned to to West to to be serious for a moment he he he he he he has there have been question marks about his leadership anyway there’ve been mutterings and grumbles as to whether he was really driving the party forward that’re they’re they’re not doing well as asite would attest across the UK they’re not doing well in Scotland they’re defending six Scottish constituencies they won last time out they took a byelection one as well but six seats that they won in their own their own title at the last time out the SNP are second at every single one now the SNP are already worried that labor are going to cut into their seats so they are desperate to take these seats to kind of keep their numbers up in a way of balance and so what Douglas Ross was trying to do was to say this is a b it’s a battle between us and the and the SNP forget about the labor party it’s a battle for the union it’s a battle to defend the the the United Kingdom and he tried to polarize the debate in that way with a certain degree there’s been a certain degree of success in the past it wasn’t quite working this time because of the focus upon labor replacing the the UK government it wasn’t quite working generally because the SNP are fighting pretty hard in these seats but he then decided to to you know instead of leading the party from from the the from Hollywood he said he was going to lead from the front by standing himself in a constituency a redrawn constituency that clud cludes a fair chunk of his old money seat which was was broken up at the the time of the the dissolution of Parliament and so he he saw it as being the party said we had to protect David juker he wasn’t well enough to stand I know he doesn’t see it that way but we had to protect we had to protect him Jud care all that sort of thing and dou concluded he thought I’m the boy to stand emergency we’ve only got a to choose a candidate I’m the one I’m I’m going to lead very very selfless of him and does that mean then that there will be a byelection in in no it’s he’s a list he’s a list oh he’s a list so just someone else will will move up the list and pick up of course so that’s lucky individual just steps into the yeah if he stands down if he wins the seat then if he and if he doesn’t win the seat he’ll stay in holywood he carries on as a list can’t extraordinary State of Affairs which you have you have crystallized quite perfectly for us thank you very much indeed Brian Taylor the columnist at The Herald and uh a veteran chronicler of Scottish politics it’s coming up to 11:00 a full list of candidates it’s political per paranoia time a full list of candidates standing in abedinia north and Murray East not moay as some stupid sassin sometimes pronounce it Ian Bailey for the liberal Democrats Andy Brown for the Labour party Joe Hart for reform UK Sheamus lugan for the S SMP and Douglas Ross currently for the conservatives it’s come it’s just gone 11:00 James O’Brien on LBC 3 minutes after 11 I I wondered how long it would take for somebody to I mean we filled our boots with rishy sunak absolutely dismal decision to come back early from Normandy and do you know what happened something quite amazing happened you think sometimes I exaggerate when I tell you how good the callers to this program are much better than the presenter uh and on Friday I think it was Alex in tooting wasn’t it who offered up a theory on what had actually happened we got the question bang on on Frid just allow me a small Pat upon my own head if you don’t mind which is of course famously whatever what happens whenever you happen to walk under a cow I I didn’t just say how angry are you on a scale of 1 to 10 or how the the question was perfect on Friday because we were speculating about what had happened in the room where it happens oh speaking of which for really old school LBC fans long before my time um I we I had dinner with some lovely Australian friends on on Saturday night uh and we were talking about Hamilton that’s why it’s just joged my memory cuz that song in the room where it happens comes from Hamilton and they’re very good mates with a presenter called Mike Colton who many of you will remember from presenting the breakfast show on LBC in a in a previous incarnation in fact I suspect Clive bull was probably around at the time but um and I’ve now made contact with Mike who’s who’s back in Australia but who remembers his time at LBC incredibly fondly so there for for for a presumably relatively small cohort of my audience um there’s a little Blast from the Past for you but we asked what conversations do you think had happened in the room where it happens in other words how could the Prime Minister have stumbled into such an obviously crash and potentially catastro catastrophic error and Alex inting suggested that he didn’t either he didn’t want to be seen with foreign leaders or he didn’t prioritize the event that involved foreign leaders ERS now the inimitable Tim Shipman did one of his um trademark deep Dives in the Sunday Times yesterday and it turned out Alex was pretty much right the calculation was that we’d attended the British event so the international one would not really be that important and to be honest with you I mean it’s a bit like the closing of an episode of scoobydoo Now this conversation but but I think they would have got away with it if it wasn’t for that photograph graph in which David Cameron appeared I I really do Henry said to us Henry Riley who did such extraordinary work last week from Normandy I know an awful lot of you were both impressed and and profoundly moved by it is a deep deep um compliments to him for that work but he he pointed out that no one had really clocked Sun’s absence from the ceremony because the British press pack were not covering it with the assiduousness that they had covered um the British Comm ation the British ceremony but then the photograph appeared in which Olaf Schultz the German Chancellor uh Emanuel macron the French President and indeed um Joe Biden the president of the United States of America were all um chummily congregated with David Cameron on on the edge of the grouping not rishy sunak and then I’m afraid the uh the alarms went off even Cameron because the other thing we talked about on Friday and I suspect that some people involved in this story were listening quite closely because Cameron’s people moved incredibly strongly this weekend to stress that he had told he had told sunak this was a bad idea and asked why he didn’t sort of grab him by the shirt collars and and tell him he has to be there because well there’s only so much I can do which in David Cameron’s case is is quite a lot when you consider the state of the country that he has um uh uh left us with but there it is so Alex in tutin gets gets uh caller of the week for last week because he absolutely na that and you know even with my anti- brexit credentials we shouldn’t really call them that anymore should we even with my pro- reality credentials the the paranoia involved in that kind of decision- making or the or the petty lazy jingoism involved in that kind of decision making I thought was possibly a step too far I really did no don’t be silly they’re not actually going to we haven’t become such a desiccated inward looking insular Administration that we’re actually going to just duck out of something because it’s a little bit foreign and then I remembered the retained EU Law act which of course was dedicated to removing from our statute books any legislation at all that had Origins during our membership of the European Union because it was a little bit foreign it doesn’t matter how good the law was this was Ree mogs project remember it doesn’t matter how good the law it could be the best law in the world it could be your favorite law could be the king of the laws could be the best law but if it smelt a bit French or it kind of looked a bit polish or a bit German then they were going to sling it out that that’s literally what that entire political project was dedicated to so if we’d stopped to think about it a little bit more um we may have concluded that Alex in tutin was was absolutely right um I’m not going to put you in idiot’s Corner Bernard because I can’t tell whether or not you are being serious but Bernard has has whatsapped to say James you are plagiarizing my theory look at my WhatsApp message to LBC at 11:59 on Friday it was deliberate two thoughts Bernard um I think that Alex and tuting had made that point before 11:50 night on Friday and there’s no earthly way that I can see everyone in fact we even did a thing on Friday we posted the graph of the number of people that started whatsapping the program when um Richi sunak started his apology for not going to the D-Day International D-Day commemoration the international D-Day Ceremony and our graph went ballistic it went absolutely it went up faster than Liz truss’s graph went down after she announced her budget so the idea that I would a re notice your WhatsApp B pass it off as my own and then see pretend otherwise on the Monday Bernard is is close to idiot’s Corner entry but on this occasion I will give you the benefit of the doubt because I wondered I genuinely wondered how long it would take for Nigel farage to bring Richi sunak ethnicity into it and and I wondered how he would do it I didn’t wonder whether he would do it I I wondered how he would do it and then I wondered having been something of a student of farage’s tactics for the last 10 years or so and then I wondered what what what backpedal he’d deploy what obviously and transparently dishonest ta tactic he would use to pretend that he wasn’t bringing rishy Sak’s ethnicity into it and then lo and behold up he popped claiming that rishy sunak doesn’t really care about our culture he doesn’t care about our history why not well the bit that’s never said out loud which is why people talk about dog whistles it’s because he’s brown it’s because he’s of of Asian Heritage he’s the son of first generation immigrants not even worth a debate on what what Nigel farage meant but Nigel farage being Nigel farage you then go back to the well to find out what pathetic attempt he’ll make to pretend that he wasn’t being racist and the answer is that he was talking about rak’s class you see he’s he’s too rich apparently too um isolated if you like from the experiences of poorer people to fully understand uh what it is to care about our veterans um which is bad news for King Charles isn’t it under Nigel farage’s reading of what qualifies you as someone who cares about our culture apparently it’s the contents of your bank balance and the Richer you are the less likely you are to care about our culture so as I say as a somewhat I I don’t want to say reluctant student because he’s he’s obviously always very good for business but as a somewhat tired student of Nigel farage’s tactics you could predict that the racist dog whistle would be deployed and you could predict without a shadow of a doubt that there would be a subsequent backpedal involving something obviously untrue which people either mildly or broadly sympathetic to his prejudices and bigotries would pretend was a valid contribution to the debate oh no no I didn’t mean his brown skin oh no no no no no uh I meant he’s too rich to care about D-Day veterans or his class is is the problem um and it it it struck me that I quite like the phrase white privilege because thanks to David ologo and others uh a few of you pointing out that farage had a hissy fit when they tried to close his Coots bank account so that I don’t know whether that would somehow exclude him or disqualify him from caring about our culture can you really care about our culture if you’ve got a Coots bank account I don’t know but um a form of cultural racism is probably the best way of describing it but but the inevitability of it happening reminded me of what I have learned from people like John amichi and David ologo the superb storium White Privilege is an unhelpful phrase because dishonest people can use it to pretend that it means all white people are hugely advantaged when of course it doesn’t what would you rather be uh someone the son of first generation Indian immigrants with 700 million quid in a bank or a white bloke sleeping under Charing Cross Bridge so you you know that that idea of it being a catchall term or a blanket um is palpably ridiculous but it’s still a helpful term for me because here’s an example of it I I I do not know what that feels like I don’t I think sometimes the Richer you are the less exposed to it you are so I don’t know that Rishi sunet would have been putting up with it all of his life but this intimation this Sly implication that you’re not really British or that you’re not really English we heard it last week we had a caller almost like from the old days up in Durham telling us that people um in old them are all foreigners uh regardless of where they were born they’re foreigners farage has done it historically with regard to people speaking foreign on trains and of course any decent interviewer at that point as Michelle Hussein did on Radio 4 last week would point out that his own children speak foreign to their mother their language their mother tongue their first language is not English um but he knows exactly what he’s doing he knows exactly what he’s tooting on the dog whistle but it struck me that I don’t know what that’s like I was reminded of the occasion in the Buckingham Palace Garden where the lady in waiting uh asked too many times uh a black guest where she was really from and we talked about that a lot at the time because it was a real Clash of generation that in that the that the lady in waiting concerned would have had absolutely no idea of the potential offense that she would cause that’s not a defense that’s not an excuse it’s an explanation and it’s one that in a million billion years would never apply to Nigel farage who of course is a great fan of Donald Trump who of course wanted to introduce a Muslim ban to the whole of America and that’s why I thought we’d talk now about what it’s like just other examples so we’ll park Nigel farage personally and focus instead upon this if you like this middle class racist Trope this This Racist dog whistle that is deployed to make you as someone of color feel well when you as someone of color know that this person is implying that you’re not really British I want I want you to tell me how it works I want you to tell me what what the most common depictions are oh you don’t really understand our culture where are you really from those sort of things I thought might be helpful just to uh lest anyone is sincerely or or genuinely confused about what farad was playing at as opposed are just pretending because of some uh um mild concurrence with his thoughts so I want to know what that’s SL hit the numbers now and you will get through 0345 6060 973 it’s like integration isn’t it I don’t mind as long as they integrate and you think well here’s a bloke who’s just been elected mayor of London for the third time oh yeah I hate him back to that call we talk from Durham last week do you see what I mean you can’t in for some people you can’t integrate enough can you you can’t you could be home secretary and still be on the receiving end of racist abuse from from your own colleagues I I just I just want to know what what examples you would point to first as the the the proof If you like of this quiet dog whistling racism and if you hit the numbers now you will get through 0345 6060 973 farage has deployed one of the classics if you’re Brown you can’t understand our culture God knows what a descendant of Hugo refugees means by that but well actually we all know what what are the other things that you’ve encountered or that you’ve experienced in your life that speak to the idea that if you’re not white you’re not British because that is very much part of the Electoral appeal of politicians who’ve done rather well in the European Union elections over the course of this weekend and in other National European elections it’s like a higher Archy of britishness if you like and you there’s nothing you can do to change where you are on it 0345 6060 973 is the number 1117 is the time James O’Brien on LBC 20 minutes after 11 um one of my favorite correspondents who I often mention to you um who tweets as no hostages has actually put together previously there’s no earthly way he’s done it in the last 10 minutes an extraordinary A to Z of some of the stuff that we’re talking about this hour know your dog whistles watching out for farri tropes during the 2024 British general election I shall um I shall retweet it shortly but I’m going to read it in full first because um I will no doubt be passing off some of the wisdom contained there in as as my own work between now and 11:00 but you know some of these phrases like multiculturalism or cultural Marxism um or get our country back what we should say well who who’s got it at the moment it’s a phrase I hear a lot we want our country back and you say well who’s who what do you mean you want your country back from whom unless you’ve got a problem with brown skinned politicians having positions of power in which case you should just come out and say so instead of being too cowardly if that’s the right word or too conscious of of the parameters of common decency so instead you just claim that they oh they don’t understand our culture 21 minutes after 11 is the time what what am I talking about you tell me faroo is in maidon faroo what would you like to say morning um yeah okay so I think James it’s more than a dog whistle to be honest um it’s pretty obvious what you’re saying um I think it’s not listen I’m only splitting hairs with you all right but if if he’ said he doesn’t understand our culture because he’s brown or because he’s Asian or because he’s the son of immigrants then it is explicit that that the bit that’s left unsaid is what makes it technically dog whistle and that that’s just me being semantic and pedantic but also accurate now I attend to respond okay um look I understand that but at the same time we are mature enough now in the 21st century third decade yes as to what tropes really are okay you don’t have to say I mean I F understand if somebody says that to me on my face a culture the word culture means a lot more than just you don’t you don’t understand our culture yeah I mean even the word culture oh you know in this culture yeah in this country we do that so all these things are pretty obvious what they mean okay so first of all I am never in any doubt whatsoever so it’s not even dogas so it’s more than that now coming from and also the context is important right the person who’s saying it has been very openly anti-muslim anyway yes right and a person like him when he Sayes context always matters who’s saying it okay yes so you simply can’t just say I understand the intent might be very good to call it dog whistle because people are well intended when say that but I think it’s more than that and we we are in a territory in this country or elsewhere in the West in general and America in particular is where being anti-muslim I’m going to come come to uh Rishi sonak in a second but let me first of all talk about because it’s not as simple as a brown skin or or a non-white skin it really is basically more more shades there than just the the black L Shades I know P right so so so so what I mean to say is look um it’s very straightforward that I mean being a Muslim myself and a professional myself and I’ve noticed a a huge acceptance of uh some rhetoric which really would not have been acceptable four five six years ago right and the things have have moved on so quickly that being a Muslim in this country is is sometimes is is difficult has it has moved on more in the last five or six years because I know that everything changed after the September the 11th attacks and yet you’re talking about gears moving through the GE the rhetoric has moved through too far back no no September 11 is too far back yeah fair enough I’m talking much much much recent I know you are I know you are but you’re talking about an escalation that is more recent not not escalation seems to be a designed thing it’s not just out of you know out of out of nowhere it it seems to be a concerted effort and sometimes they parachuting people into different parties in in positions of power and and to be MPS for example it is not just a a different situation I think it’s all part of the same game can you give me some examples can can you point to things that that evidence what you’re describing it’d be very easy people start calling me somebody who’s controversial but but I’ve got to be perfectly honest right um I do believe that even the make up MPS and what they can say when they can’t say in the parliament itself speaks volumes with regard to Gaza or with regard to I mean Gaza is one of those in the story okay Gaza is a very obvious blatant truth we can’t deny right when people are dying in their multiple thousands and hundreds on a daily basis and you simply are not going to say a word about stop enough is enough you can’t say that clearly means there’s a problem okay so that simply is a symptom of a deeper problem and deeper problem that it is but I don’t I don’t want you to feel that I’m coring you but I’m and I don’t disagree with what you’ve just said I don’t know that it’s necessarily a Muslim thing I think it’s probably a a brown skin thing as much as anything else if it was white people dying in Gaza then there’d be a very different conversation unfolding I but hang on but I do I do want to nud I just want to remind you what this hour is about this hour is about I’ve got 30 other people waiting to talk to me FR it’s 25 I’ll finish so so I think what comes un goes comes around British sonak has been very quiet yeah has been very much part of the whole story to become to to win his acceptance amongst the white people unfortunately rather than being genuine being a genuine person so now it’s a time it’s you know it’s it’s basically in the end he just is he should pay the price of what he’s been doing himself he should she’s been bit too Sly he’s not being honest about what what he actually is I mean if if he’s a man of a of color you should have been honest at least what people of color or people are nonwhite or peopley about farage not being welcome in his party soel braan this morning is on the front page of one newspaper rolling out the red carpet so he he deserves a more generous hearing perhaps than she does yeah but but I think also I don’t know if I’ve heard it right you’re saying or somebody else said it this morning that Shaban mmud said about the dog whistle term and and I said Shaban being very nice person because she’s a Muslim herself but she would have felt if I if I was in issu I said hang on a second this very man um ISU sonak was was himself being an anti-muslim right and and now and now you are defending him because you really care I think I think him allowing everything that’s happening in conserv party so not yeah okay so so so silence being violence or complicity being um culpability thank you I I’m I’m cracking on I just felt I needed to Zone you in Focus you in a little bit on some of the the specifics of the question that I’m asking but I wasn’t in any way um disagreeing with much most of most of what you said I I just as a a white bloke I want lessons in in what it’s like to know to that that something I may not even notice is loaded a genuine dog whistle as opposed to what phos did this weekend which was to blow a whistle and then pretend it was a dog whistle later by talking about culture and class Vanessa is in woking and Vanessa what would you like to say hi yes good morning James big fan thank you um I am a classic example of this um I came over I’m Anglo Indian um and Anglo Indians are very much British C brought up in the British culture English is our first language yes we have a slightly odd U mixture of Indian image but we were we were basically created by the Brits in the 16th century you know during the sort of East India time and the Army etc etc and colonialization um but after Independence my parents um decided Well we were marginalized as well because we’d be never we never accepted being Indian whom I love dearly um and and he had become very right-wing very Pro brexit and and I was completely the opposite we got into a passionate discussion after a few jins um and he became very passive aggressive which I’ve never seen in him before and it was very sad um and and then he said to me van you’re not English you’ll just never understand wow and I mean I mean I don’t think anybody can realize the impact that that had on me I have not take your time tell us what that’s like well it it broke my heart because I loved this guy he was my one of my best friends and the fact that he didn’t realize that you know I’m as English as he is in the way I think I might have been born somewhere else but it was such a shock and and D his wife who was very sweet but she said yes yes man you’re you’re not British you’re not English you’ll never understand you just don’t get it what was it that they felt you could never understand was it was it the nativist desire to Chuck foreigners out not that it was the well it was the fact that we were going to be you know the big England again the the the Empire all those important things that they’d been brought up with you know the fact that they they had colonized and I was just like obviously I I hadn’t been brought up in that King and culture well except that you had except that you had of course just on on the other side of the world exactly and they had got that even in all those years that you know my father did very well we all went to what did he think you were if you said what am I then what would he have said I was so shocked I don’t know he would have said I don’t know you’re half Indian yeah or you’re Indian which I which even though I’m 50% genetically Indian I’ve had that means I I hate to say it but it means nothing to me I mean I don’t feel RAC racist or anything we are we are we are who we want to be um well well no you have to understand because uh because the Anglo Indians were so wanting to be British but we were always subjugated my father was a colonel but he had to salute to a colonel in the English army that was the hierarchy it was they weren’t equal no way have you did that friendship end that day yeah yeah as far as I’m concerned I mean we’ve never met each other and that was since that time and you’ve been friends for years years and years since I was seven see didn’t you were seven and then you carry and if it wasn’t for brexit that never would actually have come to the surface no no I never realized but and he liked you he I mean he considered you a good friend as well but but his concept of englishness was faragist I suppose oh absolutely and I’m sure he’s still very rightwing we haven’t gone there we haven’t discussed well because I haven’t seen them I mean I’ve I’ve struck up friendship with d again because she’s been very sweet and trying to S of um but but yeah but not Wes hasn’t made any any inroads or any overtures to try and mend do you think he knows how hurt you are no I don’t I don’t think he does and I’m because he wouldn’t have said it if he knew he wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you he just thought this was an observation I don’t know where um James I think I think at that time people were so doged that they could not see beyond great word I don’t know if it’s a verb but it is now Vanessa doged up to the eyeballs well I’m so sorry for that that’s such a powerful example of what we’re trying to talk about this hour but I’m obviously sorry that you’re in such a powerful position to make that contribution because it’s awful what you describe and and it is and it’s it’s helpful as well that you you speak from you mentioned you know the sort of middle class or or relatively privileged background because one of the worst things these people do is pretend that they somehow represent what they call working class values that lazy he’s not really or she’s not really English or sunak doesn’t really understand our culture I encounter it partly because of my milar I encounter it a lot more from sort of public school boys like Nigel farage than I do from people who are likely to be working in a Workforce that is both Multicultural and and diverse Vanessa thank you 11:32 is the time phone lines are open 03456 6973 is the number and Thomas wats has your headlines James O’Brien on LBC 25 minutes to 12 Ed Davy leader of the liberal Democrats who I think it’s fair to say is living his best life at the moment um he’s he’s he’s a he’s I hope this is the right word to use if it isn’t the right word to use then I I apologize in advance he’s a very guess man talking earlier to some of the younger people minded not to vote or explaining to me why their um contemporaries and minded not to vote I should have thought of Ed Davy more actually because he he is a guile man he does answer questions from the heart and and sometimes from the hip and I I think during this campaign against the odds actually because the media insists on giving so much more attention to outfits that are uh unlikely to to win more than well to win any seats or certainly more than one or two seats and yet the liberal Democrats sometimes seems to be squeezed out of that conversation Ed Davey has managed to attract levels of attention by just sort of being almost when I say superhuman I don’t mean superhuman I mean like excessively human playing the playing the drums in the in the in the in the old people’s home and being photographed in in all sorts of you know not quite bungee jumping but but and and also not doing it like Johnson used to do it where Johnson would be absolutely 100% aware of exactly where the cameras were and how it would play out but it’s as if his advisers have said to him look we know what you’re like we know that you’re a bit dared and and and and very lovely so just go out there and be yourself and then when we get the cameras and the spotlights on us because you’re being a bit D and very lovely then we can get the policies out there and he’s putting the policies out there today announcing the manifesto with pledges particularly on NHS and social care and also reiterating that line which I’m afraid I often forget to remind you that they have also pledged the liberal Democrats to rebuild the United Kingdom’s relationship with Europe a conversation that neither main party is prepared to have at the moment nzar Malik the guardian today has written a superb article about this which if you get a literary reference right then you will be in my good books for a very very long time if you nod towards a literary reference especially if it’s from a book I’ve actually read but you use it in a way that actually conveys a feeling that a thousand words or a thousand pages of exposition couldn’t convey then then you’re my favorite and and NZ does it quite beautifully with a reference The Passage to India um in for novel when talking about uh the the the the shameful absence of brexit really from electoral conversations and the ramifications of that absence for the for the foreseeable future 11:37 is the time back to that election and back to um the the examples of exactly what Nigel farage was playing out I’m getting picked up now for having changed my pronunciation of his name it always oscillates he said himself many years ago he doesn’t care how you pronounce his name it’s like garage or garage but he actually bridles when you you say Farid so another example of his relationship with with the truth um just as his promise that he wasn’t going to stand at all which lasted for what about 72 hours I think and but anyway um farage’s nudge nudge wink wink comments about richy sunette coming back from D-Day early because he’s brown except he didn’t say that he said because he doesn’t understand our culture and then when it’s pointed out to him that that could be construed as being profoundly racist he pretended that he actually meant class yeah yes because obviously if you’re Posh and Rich you can’t appreciate the importance of D-Day which kind of makes you wonder what King Charles was doing there doesn’t it in the first place 11:38 is the time back to that that kind of um you know as someone of color something that I don’t know and you know what it’s like when somebody is I was going to say intimating that you’re not really British but Vanessa’s story which was the one we heard before the news was not implicit at all Vanessa’s uh childhood friend in the after Marth of brexit was adamant that she wasn’t English so therefore she would never understand the beauty of brexit Mo’s in Brighton Mo what would you like to say hi James um first time caller yeah so you know really interesting what sort of what’s happening in the UK at the moment so give you a little the story so when when I was I came here as a refugee um and one thing I wanted to do was really join the British army um okay so I was naturalized I became a British citizen I was in the army cects um I came to join the Army somebody made a comment and I said said something I’m not going to say on the radio as to sort of my ethnicity and as to why I should I should not join the Army and that was somebody in the recruitment office um absolutely and you know what I walked out of that place and I thought if these are the guys that I’m going to be sort of you know potentially going to war with think that of me why on Earth would I put myself in this place um and then you know as as I sort of grew up got older in the UK and so and so forth I I used to get a lot of oh it’s them not you but you’re different I don’t like so and so type of people but I don’t mean you I don’t mean you yeah basically you know and and and I used to get that a lot H and and what was it what was it what do you think they meant Mo I presume you’ve given it some thought did they just know you and therefore they didn’t mean you and if they didn’t know you they would mean you well I I think I think it’s like kind of like you know as what this Nigel farage guy is doing and saying oh it’s not you it’s the others it’s it’s them they’re not like us they’re they’re not the same as us and the and the way that he sort of tried to say that rich sunak doesn’t understand our culture because he’s rich and his privileged well so are all most right-wing politicians in this country or anywhere for that matter you know all the conservatives most of them are out of touch but he wouldn’t necessarily say that and I think really it’s now as you see in the rest of Europe the politics is becoming very sort of us and them and everybody’s becoming very nationalist in their view um you know and I just think that’s that’s and and goes back to the point about voting young people voting now imagine if if you’re like brown and you’re young and you hear this kind of talk on the radio and on on the media and ask them swarms of people invading us why on Earth would you want to participate in in in a country what about when they start falling for it though which is which is you know across Europe uh that’s what’s happened you younger people are a lot warmer towards these far-right organizations who’ve done well in Austria and I mean from from countries like Austria and Belgium and uh I think Denmark may have gone in the opposite direction actually Sweden went in the opposite direction Germany’s got a big problem with the far right faraj of course Spain Spain near went into into the you know with the Vox party but young people in those countries are more susceptible to these um blame it all on immigrant invitations is that a problem of the state of the Nations and and the right-wing media sort of picking up on that and playing on it on people’s fears or have people always been rightwing and maybe some of these people have given them have fascist histories don’t you in Italy in Spain in Germany of course you do and and you I suppose you’ve got the vichi regime in France we never actually went down that road in this country which may be part may have but some sort of historic sense sense memory the Netherlands well na na occupied the Netherlands has gone very far right oh I hope you’re wrong about that but it is um so do I well on on a good note though you know most of my friends that are that that H have sort of you know right of of as Center sort of views on politics seeing a far is a bit of a joke really and and don’t take what he says seriously I know some people do but the worrying thing is really for my kids growing up in this country and sort of how how they see themselves that that’s what’s sad about it yes um I I that would be a concern about that where it’s Tides Tony Ben got this right I didn’t really understand what he meant when I first came across this I think it was in his Diaries he wrote about you never win anything all you ever do is is push back a bit against these forces that will then push back at you and I think blaming everything on foreigners or telling Vanessa that she’s not really English or claiming that Rishi sunak can’t really understand the importance of D-Day because of his culture or because he doesn’t understand our culture I mean what about what’s the name of the fellow that was keeping far’s seat W the one that I had to give a bit of a talking to a at a bar inide Ty Richard Ty isn’t he really loaded so what what what is it what did faroh say talked about privilege here it is talking about um he’s utterly dis Disconnected by class and by privilege from how ordinary folk feel he’s not even pretending and he’s not even trying he’s not working very hard is he to pretend that he’s not being racist because he’s surrounded by people who are incredibly rich and Incredibly privileged didn’t that Aaron Banks bloke pay for his chauffeur for I think he put him up in a flat didn’t he give him a house in London for a year or so not long after the brexit referendum then he knocked about with Richard Ty it’s almost like a dating game with billionaires and yet of course Richie sunak who’s very very rich or multi-millionaires these people not billionaires but richy sunak because he’s Rich somehow doesn’t understand our culture it’s funny that what’s the difference between Richard Tyson rishy sunak then can you think of one just picture them both sorry but picture them both in your head now what could it be because they’re both very privileged both very rich what could oh I’m sure I sure there’s something I just can’t quite put my finger on it James O’Brien on LBC 11:47 is the time I I it’s a funny day today newswise there’s a heck of a lot going on an awful lot of news going on but um I and largely International largely overseas but not necessarily uh they are not necessarily stories that lend themselves obviously or easily to the time that we spend together every morning I’ve said to you on quite a few occasions that that the big stories are not necessarily the big phone in topics um and the next one I think Falls pretty squarely into that category although maybe I’m doing you with disservice I refer to the decision by Benny gance to to leave Benjamin netanyahu’s War cabinet something which had been anticipated rumored expected desired for for quite some time and in many many many quarters but something which has now finally happened uh noga tulsky has been steering us through some of the vicissitudes of Israeli politics now for for some months and she joins me now from Jerusalem um how how expected was this noar and what does it mean hello hello um it was very expected in fact it had been announced for the evening previous for Saturday night but it was postponed due to the hostages release um and it’s been also called for by a very large public at this point for months and the impact is difficult to gauge this early on but what I think people should know is that um while Benny guns and his party never actually joined the Coalition never joined the government they were only part of the war cabinet um so this doesn’t change the Parliamentary balance for Netanyahu which remains a narrow majority but it could cause a lot of upheaval indirectly because whereas Gans and his Partners voices were very powerful voices for let’s say moderation and conventional politics now they’re gone and I think it’s very possible that the first thing we’ll see is a sharp radical right-wing turn by Nan’s government which would I mean in a sense it makes G his decision more confusing because he was acting as a as you as you describe it he was acting as a as a sort of Sal as a break upon the Lurch towards the the the smotrich well it’s not sorry sorry forgive me no you carry on I I just meant it is confusing if you look at it that way but I think he couldn’t really be asked to commit political suicide Yeah by remaining in a government in which he he gave the speech of lifetime yesterday he accused Netanyahu of torpedoing um the the aims of the war I mean really a historic speech to accuse the prime minister of that he accuse the prime minister of defeating almost all efforts to get the hostages back so if that’s how he feels I think it would be almost an impossible ask to expect him to stay in a government and therefore carry some of the blame of what the government’s doing when he feels he’s not having impact to to to your point about gans’s allegation that that Netanyahu I mean four hostages were released this weekend of course and um reports out of Gaza that 274 Palestinians including at least 64 children um were killed in the same in the same time period but but that point there about the accusation that netanyahu’s not done enough or much to get the hostages freed does that tally with reports that America is now entering into almost unilateral negotiations with Hamas to get Israeli hostages freed during in in in a conversation that Israel won’t even be part of yeah I mean I’m chuckling the subject is obviously not funny it’s a matter of life or death it’s a Ry chuckle MGA but it’s a r chuckle because I’ll tell you what I think is happening um Netanyahu yesterday with gans’s departure Netanyahu already began to adopt a much more extremist kind of form of language stepping away as it were from the proposal to Hamas which Joe Biden presented a week ago and said that Israel this was Israel’s proposal Israel had agreed to it and so now of course Hamas has not said yes or no Hamas is keeping the whole world dangling um and that has to be said but Netanyahu appears to be trying to step away from it and I my best guess it’s hard for me to imagine that the White House would truly engage in unilateral negotiation to release its let’s say American hostage and no other hostages but it is very easy for me to believe that the White House would like prime minister Netanyahu to believe that they’re contemplating this and that’s what we’re I think led to understand so that Netanyahu as he considers his next steps will have to take into account the possibility that the White House will make it evident that it is possible to release hostages if he only wanted to now in terms of the very spectacular um hostage release military operation you men I think I I am absolutely certain that many people were killed but I do think we have to be very careful with hamas’s figures which time and again have been used um by almost all media because since we have no other access we have no access to Gaza and the Israeli media keeps all J journalists out of Gaza what they’re doing is giving Hamas the last word but I still think we have to be careful with those figures absolutely and and we must I should also stress rescued not released rescued I mean it was it was a raid designed to get them out to and speaking of media coverage I I’ve become quite a big fan of your Twitter feed no well in which you most recently point out that Israel is letting Russia Today into Gaza but not letting in the BBC C NN Sky News Channel 4 I ITV that actually that took or myself or you even much more importantly or you that that that somewhat took me by surprise listen it’s absolutely shocking there’s a feeling I mean that um in Israel that simply it’s not a feeling there’s a reality that really no one is in charge of media messaging it is a disaster and the IDF the Israel Defense forces spokesperson by the way who took up who his job weeks before the attacks of October 7th and was a celebrated Navy SEAL but had zero media experience when he took up this job they decide basically on the basis of personal preference who will get into Gaza and who won’t and it is them who have made this decision that basically we will only hear out of Hamas we will only hear from Hamas from Gaza because they don’t release their own figures I’m not sure they’re obliged to but they don’t and they don’t let any of us in and so from the Israeli point if we’re looking at it from the point of view of Israeli government messaging this policy has been a catastrophe and yes it turns out that a guy who works for RT is paly with people in the IDF spokesperson’s office and he got in whereas much more serious media Outlets have not um finally NOA I don’t know if you can speak about Israeli public opinion as if it’s a sort of H phenomenon but how is all this playing with from Benny Gant to the rescue of the hostages through to the increasing alienation from uh the International Community in general or America in particular I where is public feeling now on the ground in Israel well in terms of international isolation as you know um Secretary of State blinkin is about to land in Israel I think that the the correct perception of Israel is growingly isolated is reported a bit differently in Israel and so Israelis are much more confused about what’s going on but in terms of public opinion something fascinating has happened which is that when the hostages were released on Saturday to Great Jubilation there was an immediate assumption even on my part that this could give prime minister Netanyahu a boost um it was one of these very rare moments of joy in a terrible period and it has not happened in part in part because the released hostages in their initial statements to their own family members said that the protest that they were able to see the anti-government the pro hostage release protest when they were in captivity in Gaza they saw them on Al jazer and so they said that this gave them strength and this gave them hope and so instead of this spectacular releas being used you know somehow turning into a sense of support for n it seems conversely to have given some fuel to the protest movement against him what a tangled web we weave yep uh noga thank you as always uh noga tanoli there who you can follow on Twitter and whose um dispatches from Jerusalem have become incredibly uh valuable to us trying to make sense as as we say of what is happening there and of course up to and including the uh confusion about how what we are having reported here whether it is the numbers that we rely upon for casualties and and and deaths or whether it is the perception of international isolation the the the story on the ground in Israel could be quite different there is if you like wiggle room on on almost all of this um no wiggle room of course as we mentioned Russia Today on the fact that Nigel farage once had a season ticket for that um broadcast and uh never once criticized in fact I think was it when he was in a TV debate with Nick CLE that he said Russia had had uh been provoked after the invasion of uh Crimea it’s pertinent of course to the current war in Ukraine he said Russia had been provoked and the EU had blood on its hands um that’d be nice someone asked him about that perhaps in his current round of promotion uh I’ve got time for one more call it’s going to be Jazz who in Flint and it is on the question of these little well they’re not little I suppose if you’re on the receiving end of them but these subtle uh acknowledgments that people you thought were your friends or people people who don’t think you can ever really be British just as rishy sunak can’t really understand our culture Jazz what did you want to say hello James yeah um I’ve been working in the emergency services for over 20 years and we were preparing for Rememberance Sunday and a white colleague said I don’t think you’d want to take part because you’re Asian so my response was well there’s in the first world war there was 1.5 million Asian troops of volunteered the Second World War two and a half million troops who volunteered I think there were over 880,000 Asian lives that were lost during the second world war and I saw my granddad served for the British army for 10 years he never mentioned that to me and his two brothers uh did you did you did you hit your colleague with all this stuff only partially cuz when you get to my age you kind of get used to these comments and you you thought oh I wish I’d said this in hindsight es escaler esed escaler I’m sorry if you read the history the factual history you know and I said well my granddad’s two brothers fought in in in the Su World War I but I mean this is this is I in many ways if we were engaging in the sort of lazy uh name calling that that farage and his fans adore so much in many ways he’s the one who’s unaware of British culture he’s the one who’s ignorant of British history your your colleague I’m talking about is he’s the one who doesn’t actually understand the importance the true the depth of the importance of of Rememberance Sunday it’s crazy isn’t it and yet you get accused 20 years in the emergency services born born and bred in Britain and you you you wouldn’t really want to be there because you’re Brown he’s saying Asian is just another word for brown in this context absolutely yeah it’s out there isn’t it Jaz yeah I just want to mention I don’t think a lot of politicians are patriotic because they put themselves first before the people of this country nobody nobody current or still clinging to the carcass of brexit I would probably go so far as to say nobody in politics and by which I mean the conmen rather than the con who was in favor of brexit um can ever really in an honest Universe be allowed to describe themselves as patriotic because they have inflicted Untold harm upon the population upon the economy upon the future upon almost every aspect of our national existence not to mention our national status our national reputation while dancing around like peacocks pretending to be patriotic and accusing other people of not being but that’s a conversation for another day it’s 12:01 James O’Brien on LBC 5 minutes after 12 is the time a complete change of pace and indeed tone coming up as we will pay a tribute to the late broadcaster doctor and um genius Communicator Michael Mosley but before that a quick nod towards the rearview mirror in fact two quick nods towards the rarie Rishi sunak who sort of spent seemed to spend most of the weekend hiding probably under his duvet I’d have thought and and under his pillow um has come out to do a pulled clip in which the state of the Tory campaign is probably best summed up by the fact that the two main questions were about Nigel farage’s racist dog whistle which of course it sounds like a viz strip that doesn’t it a viz cartoon strip Nigel farage is racist dog whistle and um well I won’t tell you what what what the second bit was until we’ve heard what he had to say about Nigel farage’s racist dog whistle well it’s a question for Nigel farage what he meant by those comments I’m not going to get involved in that because I don’t think it’s good for our politics or indeed our country but what I can say is only one of two people will be prime minister on July the 5th K starma or I a vote for anyone who’s not a Conservative candidate just makes more likely that K stama is prime minister so if you’re someone who believes in bringing down migration wanting your taxes cut protecting pensions increasing investment in our defense or adopting a proportionate pragmatic approach to Net Zero which saves people money I’m the person that’s going to deliver that from you K stor is not and that’s the choice for people come July 4th and in many ways the very last thing that you want to be asked about when you’re less than 4 weeks out from a national ballot is whether or not you’re actually going to be in the job for much longer before the national ballot occurs no of course not I’m energized about the vision that we’re putting forward for the country right this campaign is only not even halfway through yet and I’m finding enormous amount of support for the policies that we’re putting on the table whether it’s a modern form of national service the triple lock plus 100,000 new apprenticeships continuing to cut taxes for people these are all things that people want to see I believe I’ve got the right plan for the country we’re the only party willing to take bold action that’s how we deliver a secure future and I’m going to keep taking that message to as many people as possible between now and polling day um and that is the extent of the pool clip that that pretty much the certainly the the juiciest bits of the pool clip that umishi sunak has provided today big interview on the BBC tonight I think with with Nick Robinson so that that that might be worth well I’m sure it’ be worth tuning in for uh 7 minutes after 12 is the time okay a complete change of tone now I I when the story first emerged late last week that Michael Mosley had gone missing on holiday in Greece I I I I I didn’t have a fully formed idea of who he was and I’ve realized subsequently that that’s cuz in my mind he’s two or three different people I’d listened to his programs on Radio 4 um and and that that their podcast as well about the one little change you can make or the little changes you can make in your life um and and hadn’t realized that he’s the same bloke that had done the diet books I’ve got a bit of a problem with diet books and air fryer books because they they tend to dominate the book charts and when you’re in the book charts that sometimes feels a little bit unfair um obviously not not a position I’ll be exploring in depth at the moment as Michael’s books understandably dominate the uh the Amazon top 10 but the if if you weren’t clear on who we on exactly the scale of his contribution to to public life and to the health of the nation then you will be now because I I can’t really remember a response like this or coverage of this nature to to the passing of um a broadcaster it and by that I mean someone who’s not an entertainment broadcaster you know I I suppose if the day Dawns when we lose the great David aten then you’re going to see an extraordinary outpouring of reminiscence and and tribute but what I’ve been really struck by really struck by is the scale of his impact upon individual lives so the coverage last week was dominated by the by the mystery element of The Disappearance and and of course by the dwindling optimism the dwindling hope that he would be found alive and then as it was confirmed yesterday morning that he had been found dead mere yards from potential safety um the story went into reminiscence and tribute quite rightly his wife CLA is um made it I mean TR actually brought tears to my eyes when my time comes if Mrs O’Brien has anything half as nice to say about me as she had to say about her late husband then I I’ll consider my marriage a job well done but the tributes that have poured in have been I would say it’s a word I use with some caution I think they’ve been unprecedented not I mean there was one that pointed out that he defied broadcasting convention we’re quite a competitive bunch in in broadcasting um I I’d like to think I’ve grown out of this habit now but you can sometimes hear on for example radio programs if a caller mentions another presenter some some presenters Bridal even at that you know if if someone were to ring me up and say well as I said to Nick Abbott the other night and you you go why are you talking about we’re a weird bunch and I think the nicest tribute in the context of broadcasting that I’ve heard be paid to Michael Mosley was from um Chris Van tulkin who who of course wrote the ultra processed food book and who worked with Michael a lot and he said he brought people on he wanted other people people to to get gigs he wanted other people to get work it’s a tendency in my profession to try and Hoover up everything that is offered to you not not for everybody I I’m not like that I was once but I’m certainly not like that anymore I’m far too lazy but to be that generous and to recognize that a program or a broadcast or a project could be improved by sharing the work by spreading the load was was quite rare so you know trust me I’m a doctor that he did with C Assan um one of the co-presenters said he was just so professional but he was just so human and so passionate about what he was doing he lived and breathed his work he was an inspiration there’s a beautiful clip of him talking about how simple acts of kindness can prolong your life a sort of endorphins that are brought by doing something nice can actually have a long-term impact on your health if you do them regularly enough and the clip involved him just taking his wife a cup of coffee in the morning and and it’s just a a beautiful thing Phil Hammond the broadcaster and Doctor talked about being given his TV Break by Michael Mosley when he was invited to help present the BBC’s trust me I’m a doctor I mean it is it is just an extraordinary response pages of newspaper coverage right across the gamut as well from the front page of the telegraph to the front page of the Guardian I mean that is that is an extraordinary tribute um one interview I heard this morning was the former leader of Deputy leader of the labor party Tom Watson who talked about how reading Michael Mosley’s book one of Michael Mosley’s book had persuaded him that he could reverse his type 2 diabetes he could make Lifestyle Changes sufficiently profound to allow him to come off the medication which he’d been prescribed for type 2 diabetes and and Tom said a phrase that really stopped me in my tracks and he said he was reading the the book on a on a Kindle in on holiday in Spain and he said he made me think that I’m not broken he made me realize that I wasn’t broken so Tom who has written a book himself about uh the lifestyle changes that he made in order to lose I think seven Stone in total was one of those Overeaters or one of those people whose relationship with food was a consequence of uh other issues and and other factors but who had somewhere deep inside persuaded himself that it was a consequence of being broken of being a broken human being and I can’t think of a greater gift you could give to the reader of a book than the gift of believing that you’re not broken except perhaps showing them the path back to health to heartiness so this is a very strange phone in but it’s one that I really hope you will help me pull off it doesn’t have to be a big deal um Chris vul talked earlier of brushing his teeth while standing on one leg because the importance of balance especially as you get older becomes ever more acute and again has implications and ramifications right across the health gamut um I do that and and even when the story first broke last week I couldn’t have been I couldn’t have told you with 100% certainty that it was as a consequence of the fellow that was missing in Greece but it was an awful lot of sort of pieces slotted into place over the course of the weekend and that’s a tiny tiny little thing but I want you to call me now and tell me how Michael mosy how Michael Mosley changed your life it struck me that that was the best tribute perhaps that we could pay to him he touched So Many Lives I haven’t even checked Amazon this morning but uh last night he had all five of the top five books on Amazon because people were responding to his passing by by getting out there and getting in there and um almost refreshing their relationship with him refreshing the their knowledge of him and and recognizing that the bits they’d got would perhaps involve there’ be some bits missing filling in the gaps getting so so so um he had a paternal air that’s how Dan in Sussex has put it I paternal in a lovely way he did have a really paternal air and he had what I call the Fred dibner effect I wonder how many people know what I’m talking about when I mentioned the Fred dibner effect Fred dibner as many of you know was a was a a a steeple Jack who was fascinated by things like engines and by rights he had no business being on television anymore than I did back in the day U but Fred dner was possessed of an ability to communicate enthusiasms a bit like Dave Meyers actually who was one of the hairy bikers who was commemorated this weekend in an incredibly moving um bikeathon I suppose you’d call it or mass mass bike ride but Dave Meyers had it as well that ability to communicate enthusiasm even to people who didn’t share it you’d enjoy the enthusiasm so you could watch Fred dibner on the Telly you were never going to build a steam engine or or or or or or dig a coal mine under your house or indeed go up a steeple or blow up a chimney but something about his enthusiasm for his subject matter was so contagious it was infectious that it made watching and listening an absolute joy and Michael Mosley was 15 50% in that category when he was doing stuff on on um obesity who made Britain fat the 52 diet we’re looking at fasting medical journalist of the year as long ago as 1995 and and in this body of work he’s done that thing that very very very few people ever managed to do in any walks of life but in in the business of professional communication he made the public personal he he he he got into people’s ears he got into people’s lives and he changed um he changed lives in ways that I think we should probably have a have a proper look at now so how did Michael Mosley how did the late doctor and TV presenter radio presenter writer podcaster how how did he change your life how did he what differences did he make to your life why why would you in many ways like to record your gratitude 0345 6060 973 is the number that you need it’s 1218 James O’Brien on LBC 1219 um wonderful and kind on the front page of the Guardian um the the front page of the telegraph Michael so nearly made it featuring a really really lovely photograph actually reports page four and five editorial comment page 15 AIT page 21 the man who changed how we eat on the features Pages heartbroken wife of TV doctor on the on the front page of the Daily Express I can’t remember the last time that all of the front pages um except a couple actually the The Daily Star and the and the ey newspaper they have him on the front of the ey newspaper but not not as the main story and then and then the Sun and it’s a a testament to the extraordinary AR impact that he made on individual lives more if you like than public discourse and that’s what we’re going to look at the difference he made to your life afar is in haml Hempstead afar what made you pick up the phone hi good morning good afternoon James um yeah um this is um about my son he has special needs complex medical needs and for the first five years of his life he wouldn’t eat regular food I used to have to process everything in a neutri buet type of thing and give him all my she food and I read an article that um a parent in the school shared um that Michael had written about the use of probiotics and um they used a sample of children who had autism and had remarkable results in the sense that um a few of the children started to eat and even started to vocalize my son is non-verbal still non-verbal I took a punch um used the probiotics that were mentioned in the article and lo and behold within a week I was driving with my son he’s non-verbal I was driving with my son um feeling a bit peckish went into the nearest McDonald’s got some McDonald’s fries was he was in the front seat with me um he literally reached over and took some fries and started eating them and from that moment he’s been eating food and he’s literally changed our lives for the better and we quite emotional when we heard the news about Michael of course you are so that I mean literally his first solid food essentially yes yes literally CU probiotic is all about gut health and and gut health having an impact on all manner I think it’s the great next great Frontier of Medical Science actually but that on a personal level that’s an absolutely magical story remarkable yeah and you haven’t looked back no no I mean he still does my son still does have um of course other gut issues and things like that other complex needs but on that side of things yeah it’s just made such a massive difference and I’ve tried to share that story in that article with other parents um just to help because it’s definitely helped us and well you’ve just shared it with possibly more people than you’ve managed to before after which is which is Lovely isn’t it yeah take care so yeah yeah thank you thank you so much no thank you so much that was pretty pretty big bar High bar to Star it’s me brushing my teeth while standing on one leg and I’m not going to show you either God de uh Nile’s in shury Nile what would you like to say hi James thanks much taking a call um I think what you can look back on your life um and see that there are certain defining moments that kind of changed the the path that you were taking and for us as a family I think um watching one of Michael Mo’s programs on TV was was one of those moments we um we weren’t having the healthiest life I think we famously um drank a bottle of red wine had a pizza every night for 365 days for a whole year even on Christmas day even on Christmas day good Lord fair play I know I know there’s still shops open on Christmas day it’s crazy what you can buy but he he he made everything simple to understand and really opened myself and my partner’s eyes in a way that we had never thought of it before um and the journey from nearly four years ago to where we are now it’s crazy to think that I’ve become well we’ve become such completely an utterly different people from the path that we are going down which is one of sickness and um and poor health and general unhappiness to be honest but now we’re just we’re just we’re just so happy and healthy what are you doing what are what what what what path did you follow what what what sort of oh well the the first the first problem we had was was um was was the weight loss um but that’s you know we we know that it’s once you kind of work everything out and that’s what he helped us understand it’s it’s it’s not necessarily about the weight loss it’s just about what you put in your mouth and everything else takes care of itself and he he made it quite simple to understand um from a how to get started point of view but not only that because because of him we kind of discovered other people in the same space that have pointed things out and before where we’ going to a supermarket maret and get completely and utterly drawn in by these unhealthy things and just fill our basket full up and we walk down those three miles now with kind of almost disgust because we fully understand what those things do to you because of because of what he how he he started us off in the journey and what what he has instilled upon us now as a family but he’s made me want to change my career I’m looking at starting something in a in a similar space in in health and kind of like you know giving out what I do for living to to try and do that because I’m so inspired to try and change how we how we perceive food and and healthiness in the world and I just I just want to be a part of that now because of people like him and he is the one who started us as a family off on this journey and my my children are going to have a much healthier and happier life than they would have done because we’re not going to be giving them potatoes waffles and chicken nuggets they eat what we eat and they absolutely love it because to be honest they don’t know any different and what um what was his gift for people who who who missed him for people who who who he passed by who didn’t didn’t write what was his gift because a lot of people work in the field of nutrition a lot of people work in the field of lifestyle change a lot of what what did what did he have that a made such a profound difference to your life and B explains this extraordinary outpouring of grief coupled with with gratitude across the entire British media today I think I think he was just a genuine person it it never came across like he was ever doing the job he did for anything but trying to help people it didn’t feel like he was some people come across like they’re trying to sell you something I don’t think he ever came across like he was trying to sell you anything I think he just genuinely wanted to inform people in the simplest way possible to benefit as many people as possible and he so we’re proper Evangelical so almost like what you’re describing to me if this was 100 years ago he’d sound like a missionary bringing Jesus into someone’s life because they passionately believed in the power of Jesus to improve people’s lives but this was this was science not not not religion he was also honest he he used his own um personal story of reversing his own type two diabetes you know and and he used himself as a bit of a guinea pig as well he he he did a tapeworm once yeah I haven’t seen that I just heard about that this morning that’s what I mean about the full range of his work is that someone like you can be like neck deep in it and still find out stuff from his back catalog if you like or his cannon that you weren’t previously aware of so he was yeah he was perfectly happy to well not just happy to but he embraced the opportunity to be to be his own experiments no that was a lovely tribute thank you and and far from far from Alone um this is from Ian I’m 45 Dr Michael Mosley changed my life beyond imagination I had hypertension and was pre-diabetic and I felt like I was failing his books and seeing his talk in YoVille which was both entertaining and educational changed me for the better he was a gentleman and will be very missed um quite a few of you talking about the cold not necessarily the Cold Water swimming but also cold showers but Michael’s gone the whole hog he convinced me that my cold swimming was worth struggling through the pain the physical and mental health benefits are profound I’m now three Winters in and swimming through ice chunks thank you Michael and this is nice Andrew Well it’s not life-changing necessarily but it speaks to the personality the character I think of the man Michael Mosley addressed a bunch of us science teachers James he told us he was a big fan of ours and I was really taking aack that someone so famous and successful could tell us teachers that he was our fan um I I have to tell you yeah I quite like that from olle he was the Brian Cox of food Brian Cox another one who’s got the what You’ call the Fred dibner touch but um but it’s this the the diabetic angle perhaps and the and the the I mean another one here from Tim like Tom Watson I I read his book on low blood sugar diet I lost five Stone off the back of one book still can’t quite believe it it completely changed my life and um and this from Simon uh in very similar territory so a few years ago realizing I was fast approaching 40 and being considered obese according to BMI a combination of my mental state and the work of Dr Mosley helped me to turn Corner mentally and realize that I both needed and more importantly wanted to do something about it the 52 intermittent fasting that he brought to our attention so I tentatively started it I just turned 39 it took 10 months but I went from 17 Stone down to just under 11 and a half and the immense weight that I felt lifted nope pun intended physical and mental helped me hit 40 feeling good about myself for probably the first time in well over decade or more and then that notion of what he had his demeanor in making these things accessible and his enthusiasm helped me to help myself and and of course it’s always there isn’t it that’s that’s one of the greatest things a human being a Simon rights can do for another halfast 12 is the time Tim Humphrey is here now with your headlines James O’Brien on LBC you didn’t lecture you he spoke to you he didn’t force you he guided you he didn’t bamboozle you he simplified everything a kind caring gentleman it feels like I’ve lost a friend that’s from Dave in Shepherd’s bush in response to the passing of Michael Mosley it’s um it is it is I in my memory a response from both the public and for once the media absolutely getting it right that is is is like no other and we’ll we’ll we’ll return to the question of the impact he made upon you personally in a few minutes but first Natasha Clark lbt’s political editor is here because Ed Davey has been launching his Manifesto yes that’s right James um he’s launched his Manifesto today in London it’s mainly focused around leader of the liberal Democrats leader of the liberal Democrats just in case sure just in case you didn’t know um it’s mainly centered around this big offer on the NHS 9 billion pounds worth of extra funding there and obviously he’s talked very movingly in the past few days about how caring for his ill mom became his life uh and now he cares for his very severely disabled son as well and spent a lot of time uh on that um interesting ly though James it’s turned now in the last sort of few minutes into this uh new offering which is a promise to try and rejoin the single Market he told reporters at his Manifesto launched just a few minutes ago that he would not put a timeline on that but he was angry that voters have been misled over leaving the European Union we are the most pro- European party in British politics we’re proud of that we believe serious government works with your neighbors whether it’s your friends and things that are mutually beneficial whether it’s trade whether it’s tackling international trafficking gangs attack and climate change all these issues are international and you should work with your partners and you know the fact that conservatives won’t is a betrayal of our country I’m proud of our country I’m a patriot and there are some people in the conservative party who have undermined my my country our country and that I get angry about that that’s wrong if misled people so so no you can’t have a time I’m afraid then that’s just being frank with you because you’ve got to rebuild that relationship it’s going to take time and he accused the conservatives of misleading people over brexit saying they poisoned relations with the EU regrettably the conservative party have so poisoned Britain’s relationship with our nearest neighbors our allies they’ve undermined trust and when I speak to European politicians regrettably they don’t trust the United Kingdom anymore and how sad is that and it’s clear you’re going to have to have a stepbystep approach to rebuild that trust rebuild that relationship but I believe quite quickly you get a much better trade deal than the Dreadful trade deal that Boris Johnson got that would really help our economy it would help small business exporting it would help farmers help fishermen it would I think ultimately reduce prices in the shops I think you know getting a really good trade deal would be an absolute priority then you know allowing young people to be more mobile across Europe really interesting there he thinks it would um it would reduce prices and shops to get a new trade deal with Britain I’m sure that’ll be very popular amongst a lot of people who think you know just seen inflation go absolutely uh through the roof it’s not quite the 2019 promise to stop brexit is it um but it’s still going to be I’m sure a big part of their campaign you say you’ve said before Jam we’ not been talking about brexit enough about this campaign but we are today not just me saying that but you’re right it is a particular hobby horse of mine Nezar call him in the guardian today is brilliant on the subject it is absolutely bizarre to have something that is reaching into almost every area of our existence particularly in terms of diminishment and Decline and the two main parties not even going there of course eventually one of them will have to um so it’s as if Ed Davy’s position or the liberal Democrats position is could almost be seen as a sort of stalking horse potentially and of course you know we’re trying to think about the strategy that liberal Democrats are going for you know I was told the other day that their strategy is basically for anybody within uh a commuter distance train of London essentially that’s who they’re going for the blue wall um trying to to take all of those seats back that that they the conservatives nicked from them in the last couple of Elections so those sort of Southern seats in the South I imagine this message of a more Pro brexit me sorry anti brexit message rather would be very popular amongst those kind of safe uh leafy commuta belt areas that just do not see the benefits of brexit in their areas and want don’t see what any benefits of brexit so where do we see the benefit in what areas do we see the benefits of that’s not for me that’s not for me to AR speaking as if they exist well look there are some people that see benefits of brexit there are some people that see fairies at the bottom of their Gardens Natasha but it doesn’t make it a political reality sure have we got the question did you see the bloke on question time on Thursday who was asked to list the benefits of brexit I won’t push this too far because you might end up sounding like him but I just I just need need to qualify that you’re you’re you’re presuming the existence of benefits well some may say some may say being able to being able to control the number of people that come in and out was a was some may say a benit benefit or of brexit um do you want to play a game not really good I’m going to read you a story that has dropped in the last 10 minutes but I’m going to leave out the party to which this candidate belongs and I’m going to invite you to guess okay go on a candidate claimed the country would be far better if it had taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality instead of fighting the Nazis in World War II too uh he also wrote online that women were the sponging gender and should be deprived of Health Care um he thought Winston Churchill was abysmal and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin this is all from the same candidate to be oh oh yeah this is in 2022 so it’s not ancient history at all he he wrote Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird Notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people now there might be a clue there uh in the same month he wrote in Britain specifically we need to exorcise the cult of Churchill and recognize that in both policy and Military strategy he was abysmal and then I’m trying to find the bit less complaining please from the sponging gender women are subsidized by men to merely breathe goodness me yeah that’s a quite a r do you think there’s much confusion over what party this character is like guess that might be on the slightly more party to the right am I’m going to give you a clear it’s not the liberal Democrats is it not is it not it’s not the green party it’s not the green party because they did have some questionable views about birth last week and I I did wonder if maybe that would be fair enough no it’s the outfit led by the bloke who spent the weekend claiming that other people don’t understand British culture and who turns out to have a candidate on his roster who thinks that Britain shouldn’t have fought the Nazis in the second world war but should have taken Hitler up on his office of NE well when we were speaking LBC was speaking to Richard Ty the former rip rest rest of Soul um reformed the other day he’s still alive just to be clear to the Reform Party perhaps not um you know we were speaking to him the other day and he said you know we don’t need to vet our candidates CU you the media do it for us well it’s a bit late now Friday it’s these are now candidates these are not they can still pull out well we shall see whether or not this character um indeed do so I haven’t said his name or his constituency cuz I’ve got political per of paranoia and I don’t want to read out the full list of cand is a reformed candidate a reform UK candidate who claimed the country would be far better if it had taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality goodness well we’ll see we’ll see later today we’re going to get a full list of candidates around 4 P.M of all of the candidates for every single seat would be really interesting to see how many candidates reform could actually find to put up because they were really struggling as were the conservatives in some areas to find enough people to just put up on the ballot paper and of course you know you’d think the Prime Minister called calling the snap election would be ready with all of his candidates but apparently that wasn’t the case no taken and on online spending I read this weekend labor were better prepared for this than the conservative party was he appears to have taken his own party by surprise when labor were ready you to those graphs in the financial times I love graphs in the financial time Mur he does does the work of the angels and a big setpiece interview tonight for the Prime Minister yeah prime minister is speaking to the BBC for a panorama interview tonight it’s one of the first um of they are doing all of the other political leaders um as well like I say we’ve got more debates more um one-onone as well coming up so yes we’ve got man this is Manifesto week Jones in the next hour she he she and he are indeed is is are are do you want a brexit benefit before you go yeah go on okay you you sorry one from you that you believe in nor Shield do you concur or well i’ let you decide on this you can pull this out the bag next time the question comes up I have benefited from brexit James I’m a translator and I get paid in Euros so I’ve benefited from the fall in the pound love that although I think the Euro might have taken a bit of a kicking this morning with the announcement in Paris of the of the imminent French election so I hope that hasn’t affected an’s pay package I profoundly I hope you’re okay Natasha Clark many thanks more from Natasha no doubt in the in the course of the day on LBC as we um and that that story um there about the reform UK candidate possibly not being the last one that will involve one of um uh people hoping to run for Parliament having their past catch up with them um known in the trade as an Ian Dale it is 12:43 you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC the uh uh question of the difference Michael Mosley made to you the impact that he had with a little side order of and I Ask of this as a um as a broadcaster what was his magic what was his magical moment that or no his magical gift that made him so different from other presenters other medical experts other doctors other other broadcasters Elizabeth’s in Manchester Elizabeth what would you like to say hi James speak with youwise I just wanted to pay tribute to Dr Michael Mosley who um was such an inspiration to me as someone uh trying my best to um to work in scientific communication he was um just the way that he was able to communicate really complex or for Far Away Concepts um and make them just accessible and tangible and you know in a way that’s people were able to implement them into their own personal lives it was really inspiring what is that gift because is it is it is is it it’s not just content is it it’s tone and context as well the the the the so you take so the first thing you need to do I presume is understand it completely like so completely that you can begin almost disassembling it down to the simplest of building blocks which you then used to communicate it to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to understand it there is that but I think um why Michael was so engaging for me anyway is that he actually you you felt like you were learning with him so there were a couple of documentaries um where there was there was one where he got like a surgical a team together and there was um there’ be a a surgical issue or a medical issue that no one was able to um had really been able to to um to help solve and he had this team together and you’d listen to the Consultants I see so there’s there’s a quest an element of quest and Quest and journey to it as well yeah so that’s that’s what also happened when he um I think he took L LSD did he I remember that yeah but in like really controlled in a very controlled environment to see um the how that would acting on the body and and of course he um he swallowed a few um he followed um tap and other so he was he was part of the experiments or part of the learning process with you you trusted him a bit more I suppose I like that and what what what are you doing what what why do you refer to your what’s your sort of professional perspective on this my background is I I did a PhD in chemistry oh wow um and now I work in uh research development and a big aspect of that is improving the public understanding of uh of of science so now I work in Quantum Technologies which is really complex in terms of how to bring those Concepts uh to to the public and I always think of of Dr Mosley when trying to do my best in that regard so he’s not final question I promise he’s not sometimes you know the person that popularizes a subject can be a little bit sneered at by the by the academic community that that that does it every day he he clearly doesn’t fall into that category no not at all not at all and he wasn’t he his like you said the tone was incredibly inviting and um and his approach but he just wasn’t at all condescending either it was just very yeah he just had that way about him of of being sweet and engaging Elizabeth thank you sweet and engaging you’d take that wouldn’t you 12:46 is the time James O’Brien on LBC it is 12:49 you are listening to James O’Brien on LBC and that is an EXT you do a double take sometimes don’t you when a when a story drops and and that uh Reform Party candidate well it’s called reform UK it’s a limited company of course not a political party in in the in the traditional sense but claiming that the country this country would have been far better off if it had taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality I I don’t want to paraphrase Mrs Merton at this point but what would first have attracted somebody to Nigel farage’s Reform Party if they were possessed of of the kind of views that Winston Churchill was overrated I I suppose praising Vladimir Putin is less mysterious um but epic misogyny describing women as the sponging gender but the um I I suppose the key point that Britain would have been in a far better state today if we’d taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality which I presume would have sort of left cont almost all of Continental Europe under under the Jack boot of fascism but hey ho uh that’s that’s the kind of candidate that is drawn to Nigel farage’s Reform Party you can start your clock now for Nigel farage despite being the leader of the party and the what was he before the honorary chairman uh claiming that it’s absolutely nothing to do with him and how can you possibly hold him responsible for anything at all ever FS or maybe he’ll explain that this is the kind of character who unlike rishy Sun really does care about our history and care about our culture um we’ve managed to keep the I’m quite light today which is nice it’s important during um moments of seriousness but I I’m particularly touched by this message from Amir which says James you’ve made me laugh so much today with your fantastic approach thank you I’m about to make you laugh even more here is Esther McVey uh speaking at an event in the last couple of days and the conservative party always gets the country back on its tee and I will say that again that I mean that in some ways that’s more significant than the heavy stuff and the grownup stuff cuz that that’s when you you know you say the stuff that you’ve been saying for 20 or 30 years you you’re saying it I presume it’s at a hustings of some sort and you know it’s it’s unremarkable it’s it’s a bit like me saying the phone number right on LBC it’s a bit like me saying 0345 66097 three it’s like a reflex action it’s as it’s as common place as breathing it’s like telling you the time it’s just something that is there as part of my constant if you like vocabulary of my broadcasting vocabulary and and so you have the same thing when you’re campaigning you have tropes and phrases that you just reach for without really thinking they come to you as as naturally as I say as drawing breath and yet listen to the spontaneity and the speed of the response to I always forget the technicalities would she still be the minister for common sense or do all of those jobs they don’t all I don’t know but she either is still the minister for common sense or was until very recently the minister for common sense but listen to the speed and the spontaneity of the Public’s response to something that she wouldn’t have thought for a moment was going to be anything other than business as usual I’m the conservative party always gets the country back on its tee we and I will say that again oh and Lee reminds me that that farage is of course also the majority shareholder in uh reform limited so this character who thinks Winston Churchill was abysmal has presumably already uh sent his check to chatau Farid it’s 1253 back to Michael Mosley and the difference that he made to your life rich is in IP switch rich what would you like to say oh hi James nice to speak to you I I just called him because I served in the Raw Marines band and being a military musician we had an operational role and in 2011 I got sent to Afghanistan for six months as the agitant of the UK Med Group gosh one of my one of the hats I had was I was a unit press officer so whenever we got um a visit from from the UK uh I’d sort have to chaperone them around the place and um mcel mosy came out to he was doing research for documentary he was doing on um how medicine on the battlefield was affecting medicine back in the UK and um from the minute I picked him up at the flight line to take him up to the hospital in Camp Bastion I was just absolutely amazed at his his interest in everything that’s going on around him um to the point where I’d be chat about something which I thought was pretty boring and innoxious to a guy like him and he’d whip out a notebook and start taking notes and um one examples is I’ve actually got a tattoo on my arm of betran man and he said what what’s your interest in Leonard Leonardo da Vinci’s art and I was just talking about the link between art and music and maths and this notebook came out and I started getting quite nervous because I thought oh my God I’m G end up in a documentary or or or what I’m saying end up in a documentary but basically not that it was just the the interest he had in everything around him um what did you say what did you say to him I I think I I just remember trying to be really fact and not you know not trying to sort of go off piece and make stuff up because yeah do that no but when we got to the hospital um in in Camp Bastian the job of the musicians and the bugers was to transfer um the casualties from the helicopters to the hospital which was just a short ride in in a land driver and he he took one look and he said basically your role hasn’t changed in 200 years since the ponic wars and then he started telling me about how the first uh musician how musicians were first used as Battlefield Medics when a when a Napoleonic General told some musicians who stood around doing nothing pick up that gun carriage and go and pick up those casualties and he was just a fascinating guy and it’s a really relatable uh nice guy and that that’s the thing that stuck for me really it’s more than that isn’t it there’s that that that is an almost insatiable appetite for knowledge and understanding like um wanting to make sense of of of stuff around him that’s part of it but wanting other people to come with him on that stuff is that that’s really rare you don’t encounter that you’re very lucky actually was he the who else came out who else can you remember coming out I I knew you’re gon to ask me this we had Cheryl Cole she was very nice fantastic um Tim Westwood really okay moving swiftly on and he was writing letters homes seriously seriously moving swiftly on and we had Tomo the rugby player um David beckon came out on the tour before us and apparently he was an absolute uh gem so oh thank God you said that then I thought we going to have a moment no that’s nice isn’t it what a lovely was yeah yeah it was it was yeah it was good to I mean like I said the Highlight for me was and I’m not just saying this because he’s passed but the Highlight was certainly meeting him and getting to spent on and off I was with him for about 48 hours so it wasn’t a fleeting no know and you do get you can get you can get the measure of somebody probably in that kind of um in that in that kind of space that kind of time rich thank you that was lovely um last word on this I think to Maria who is in Barnes Maria what would you like to say hi hello hello I good nervous thank you thank you so much for bringing this up I was waiting for someone to give tribute to this man this land um sorry I’m not don’t take anyway to have this I could talk about him for hours he changed I’ve been listening to him what are the big what big what what are the biggest changes he’s made to your life Mar it changed my health it changed my daughter’s health because we both of us we have my my daughter’s got food allergies and I’ve got food intolerance right um and it really changed our life because uh following the doctors we didn’t find any solutions yes even to the point they suggested my daughter at 14 or 15 to start taking anti-depressant and I refused and each change since when I heard he was missing on Wednesday night I shouted what oh no I was shocked because I it was it’s one of the most uh my favorite presenter on you know on TV yes like you are my one of my favorite presenters on radio look how you just SLI in a one off there Maria think don’t you think I didn’t notice that Sheila FY just walked into the room there we go was an amazing look and that’s Legacy that is I mean this is a sad time but there’s leg there I your relationship with food your daughter’s relationship with food is in place for the rest of your lives isn’t it and that’s all down to him yes time I hear I the word diet fast fasting food he will he will he will be alive he’ll stay alive in your mind in your memory Maria thank you I’ve got to go because of the time but that’s the only reason I look forward to your second call to the to the show if you missed any of today’s show you can listen back on catchup on global player the official LBC app where you can also pause and Rewind live radio download it now for free from your app store or head to Global player.com coming up at 4 on LBC it’s Tom swri but now it’s time for Sheila fog thank you James James O’Brien on LBC [Music]
21 Comments
Young people have historically never voted..
Regardless of how well or poorly things are going..
The short answer as to why they don't is because they cannot be bothered, it requires effort.. the justifications are mostly after the fact.. the same way a person who knows they should work out chooses not to because they're lazy but then will say its because they are busy.. when all they do is watch TV..
28% of registered voters don't bother and five million adults donyeven register.
Because most young people dont watch mainstream media propaganda and can see through the scam that is the illusion of choice the illusion of democracy.
Young people don't like neoliberals, which Starmer is, and filled his cabinet with. They want a fairer economic system which is why they were so interested in Corbyn and his left-of-centre politics.
The reason Douglas Ross is leaving is because his own advisers have been covering up expenses fraud and leaked it, he’s been claiming expenses for years for flights, car parks hotels all while doing 1 of his many other jobs as a linesman/ ref
It may be the best way to get revenge on the olds.
Very very disappointed you avoided the expense scandle he’s involved in, and exposed by his own aids
James needs a bigger coffee mug.
Support for the left wing labour! Left wing!Ll Labour! Come off it James. Do you really think Labour have any semblance of being left wing still. They are standing of the policies on the Tory party in 2010. The Overton window doesn't have an inch of left in it anymore.
My son would have voted if the election was a week later.
I’ve got 4 children that will be voting in the election 👍🏻
It’s funny that conservatives only care about education when it’s their pockets that will be hit AND claim it will impact the class sizes as if they haven’t driven class sizes in state schools up and driven funding down
I've been on the wrong side of every vote my entire adult life, i lost faith in 2016 and 2019 Boris sealed the deal. Corbyn was what this country needed
Third caller is very intelligent for his age he should contact Adam Mochller and report for him from uk!
Both sides uphold capitalism no theyre not the same but they are on the same side and its not any of ours
The Tories and new Labour are the same …I would love to see that clear blue water you think you can see
its not that both parties are the same, keir starmer destroyed the left wing of the labour party to the point where he explicitly told left wing members to 'don't vote for me if you don't like it'.
now he comes hat in hand for their votes, chastising them for not giving him their support even though he's completely shut them out of british politics likely for a generation
Difference is media .where through ages you relied only on tadio or newsflash .and newspapers…….
No current leader world wide are to blame …..you cant state farage is raciest when it 70% of western word is having the same problem .world movement needs to slow or stop …..
Us older folks need young people to pay our social security and medicare so we can continue to tie up available real estate and finances long into our old age. Thanks young people.
They're voting Niko