‘Climate deniers now attack kids for being too warm’ | James O'Brien - The Whole Show

it's three minutes after ten you're listening to james o'brien on lbc um here's a headline

experts blame climate crisis for western europe's worst ever heat wave um i'll read you a little

more of the story the heat wave in western europe is the most severe and widespread ever

and only possible because of the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning scientists said

today. Almost half of Europe's 850 largest cities are also suffering their worst ever heat stress

It's a combination of temperature and humidity they have found, with muggier conditions

meaning that sweating is less effective at cooling the body, at which point everybody goes

oh, that's why I can't sleep at the moment. And then there's a lot more detail and a lot more

science, if you like, a lot more statistics. It's the World Weather Attribution Consortium

that shows how rapidly extreme heat is worsening as carbon pollution piles up in the atmosphere

There's two big stories in the news today. One, obviously, I just shared with you

and the other you'll be aware of involves the king's finances and the potentially slightly tricky decision

to spend hundreds of millions of pounds doing up Buckhouse and then not actually living in it

The first monarch, I think, since Queen Victoria, who won't be living in Buckingham Palace

despite these very necessary and very extensive renovations. And I break up today

I'm off for the next couple of weeks. So I find my brain probably beginning to shut down slightly

But these are both traditionally subjects that I file under massively important

but not necessarily phone-ins. Do you see what I mean? I can sit here and I hope be very entertaining and informative on both subjects

but I don't know that I've ever absolutely nailed the right question

when it comes to the very existence of the royal family. Can I do a topic? Would that be too meta

Why have I never done a really good phone-in on whether or not we should have a royal family

Is it because it just gets bogged down in predictable positions and stereotypes

Is it because I'm not a very good radio presenter? Perish the thought. And I feel that this week we've flirted

I feel like Icarus. But I've flown a bit too close to the sun, if you pardon the ogy

And yesterday, that conversation we had about what should we be doing differently

I felt it only really kicked off about 10 to 11. And that must be my fault

It's tempting to blame you. But it means I didn't quite get you in the place that we all needed to be in

until about half past 10, despite a 20-minute monologue. Or maybe you needed the 20-minute monologue

to percolate, if you like, through your own thinking and your own consciousness

And you didn't find yourself having much of interest to say until a little bit later in the hour

So we hit 11 o'clock. We could have carried on for another hour. The switchboard was full of people with interesting things to say

about why we aren't coping, what we would do better to cope better with the heat

And it can historically be the same with the royal family. And you know I'm also fascinated by what word are we going to use

What word are we going to use? Because some of the phrases that we use, some of the phrases that I use, some of the phrases that I've introduced you to, are unhelpful in the great scheme of things

The furiously hard of thinking is one of my favourites. But the people who believe that they know better than the scientists, or the people who believe that their favourite Daily Mail columnist somehow knows better than 99 plus percent of all the qualified people on the planet

And it's not like Brexit, really. And that single element of it is like Brexit

But the complications of understanding what the European Union is all about

are much greater than the complications of understanding the relationship between carbon-based pollution and a heating planet

And it's really not that difficult to grasp. And yet there was a widespread refusal to grasp it

Lots and lots of people fell for. Would you agree with me that the people who you might once have expected

to be poo-pooing climate science have now decided to attack children instead for being too hot

Do you see what I mean? It's like the movement of the, shall we say, the fatally incurious

rather than the furiously hard of thinking. Because some of these people are perfectly capable of thinking

they just choose not to. So you move from, oh, I don't know about climate science

I mean, it was very hot in 1976. and that obviously doesn't hold water as an argument against decades of observable science

but instead rather than thinking about it or indeed acknowledging the mistake instead you

move effortlessly to blaming children for being too hot you know they're having to shut hospitals

because the machines don't work in this heat and yet it's not that hard to find people on

social media insisting that um the young today aren't resilient enough because they're not capable

but usually in air-conditioned television and radio studios or air-conditioned newspaper offices

insisting that they shouldn't be shutting the schools or that children today aren't tough enough

despite the fact that hospitals in England are declaring critical incidents because radiotherapy machines, scanners, cooling units

and IT systems are failing. Under my glorious rule, it will be compulsory

for anybody in this line of work who opines about the resilience of children

from an air-conditioned studio to conduct the next time we have the hottest day in history

they have to conduct their entire programme from the middle of Trafalgar Square with no shade

or from the 14th floor of a tower block with no lift

or just from a school with no air conditioning. And let's see how I'd be faring after three hours

in the kind of heat that I've endured in every other aspect of my life

but which I don't have to endure while I'm actually at work

I mean, it's comical, right? but also dangerous, like almost all of the opinions held by these people

Because it's always hand in hand, isn't it? It's Brexit, it's Johnson, it's Trump, it's climate change

It's always going hand in hand. And the question I really want to ask you, really

is whether or not it's dead now. Because they've tried to demonise net zero

They're trying very, very hard to demonise net zero. There is currently a conference unfolding in London

with a sort of who's who of the professionally ignorant, opining about everything from two-tier policing

which of course doesn't exist, right through to net zero, demonising Ed Miliband

funded by Donald Trump donors, funded by fossil fuel companies. I mean, it's not even hiding

It's not like Tufton Street where they don't declare who is paying them to come on radio and television programmes

and argue against climate science. It's literally published who funds them, and here we are

still reporting it in some corners of the media with a straight face. Has it failed

Even though Net Zero, I told you a while ago they were going to try and turn it into the next Brexit

They're trying really hard to turn it into the next Brexit. I don't know whether Nigel Farage has been given £5 million

by fossil fuel companies or by 10 fossil fuel companies. We never know who else may have given him million for undisclosed reasons because he won tell us about the money We only know about the five million pounds he took from a Thai billionaire because of journalism

and he doesn't think that's any of your business. So you never know, really, with some characters, how much money they've squirreled away from vested interests

That's why they squirreled it away, I suppose. But is it going to fail simply because of the weather

You know the party's final most terrible command, that we ignore the evidence of our own eyes and ears

And we sit here, some of us sit here marvelling at how others can ignore the evidence of their own eyes and ears

Right? And others sit here ignoring the evidence of their own eyes and ears

It's a fairly binary divide. But can we actually ignore the evidence of our thermometers

Can we actually ignore the evidence? I don't really see, I haven't actually looked at what the Daily Mail columnists have done today

but I imagine one of them will be sort of going on about strawberry mivvies

or complaining that children aren't resilient. Actually, I can't be bothered. I'll have a look later

That idea that the power of propaganda is so great that it can persuade populations to vote to become the first in history

to impose economic sanctions on itself. You can persuade people that a Ukrainian has set fire to Keir Starmer's old house

because he wasn't paid for his prostitution services. There's so many examples of people being persuaded by the engines of propaganda

to believe things that are obviously not true, that it was quite easy until relatively recently

to get very depressed about net zero and climate change. And they're still trying

make no mistake, they're absolutely pushing the idea that we shouldn't be doing this

and there are some arguments about pragmatism there's no argument about whether the world should be pushing towards net zero

there are some pragmatic and practical arguments about whether the United Kingdom should be taking quite such a leading role

and I get that but the opposite of drill baby drill is shill baby shill

if you are, I mean literally, or rather the cousin the twin brother of drill baby Bill

drill baby drill is shill baby shill You are lying to the public. It's insane to argue that we should be putting more carbon into the atmosphere, or that by doing so we would somehow improve the state of our country

But is it going to work? And why do you think it is? Can we be a bit more optimistic today, do you think

can we say that even if you are programmed to ignore the evidence

of your own eyes and ears can we say with some confidence

that this is not going to work that we are now approaching a point

where everybody is going to have to acknowledge just the science the reality

I mean in some ways I've got two questions I'm fascinated by the psychology

of people who don't understand things or who insist that they don't understand things

How on earth can you be persuaded that this is not a consequence of all the fossil fuels

that we're pumping into the atmosphere? I used to hear from people in that category quite often

Now they're as rare as hen's teeth and they're always mad. So I mean that

And I'm not pulling my punches or being kind or unkind. They are absolutely bonkers

The idea that you can look at all of the science and with a GCSE in domestic science

you can conclude that you know more than all of the scientists do

And of course, if you're getting paid for that, then good luck to you. You know, your kids need shoes

You've sold your soul. If you're not even getting paid for it, if you're just going on social media

you're just phoning up radio shows to insist that you know better than all the scientists do

A, I suppose it's a bit Brexity, and B, I think you're on a hiding to nothing

Richard Tice does it, I think Richard Tice has the brains of a pillow

that much is clear all these Nepo babies surrounding Farage who have either given him money in return for a job

or are just expounding positions that are ridiculous I don't think the net zero is going to land

I think it's going to fail I think the attempts to rubbish it, to demonise it

to denigrate it, to undermine it are just going to be undermined by days like today

And not just the one-offs, but the fact that this is, as one newspaper's front page reminded us yesterday

this is the new normal. Listen, as Craig points out, it's 22 years, it's 20-odd years too late

But it's better late than never. It is simply the case that you can't really argue against this science anymore

unless you are an obvious idiot. So that's the question. really. That's where I'd like to encounter some optimism today. Do you think, and of course

you're more than welcome to be pessimistic, but do you think that the current crisis right across

Europe is going to provide the political appetite needed for profound, prolonged and meaningful

change? Because the engines or the tanks parked on our lawns are powerful and exceedingly well

funded, but I think they might be increasingly impotent. I haven't got a lot of precedent for

that because they normally win. Those tanks, those vested interests, those shills, those client

journalists, those propagandists, those lobby groups masquerading as think tanks, they normally

win. They've won on immigration, for example, which is largely designed to distract you from

the real reasons for inequality. They've won on Brexit. They've won on tax issues

They've won on wealth distribution, poverty being the fault of the poor, not the..

They've won on almost every front. I think today they might lose this one

They might lose this one. 0345 6060 973 is the number that you need

Just to tell me whether or not you think that this time

this weather is just going to change everything. 0345 6060 973. That this weather is going to change everything

And if you've been waiting for this moment, just give me a shout on why you welcome it

or whether you welcome it. You've been waiting for this moment. An epic failure of journalism

but of course journalism is bought and sold in this country, just as politicians, some politicians are

how do you greet the relationship between the public discourse and this extreme, this excessive, this extraordinary weather

Is it over? 0345 6060 973 is the number that you need

It's 1018. James O'Brien on LBC. Because I have to tell you what haunts me a bit at the moment

is the thought that the weather breaks, it gets cold again next week

and the conversation goes back on the, well, forgive me, but goes back on ice

And this movement I not doing a very good job of expressing my misgivings to you because this movement is gathering pace You can almost hear the tills ringing

I tell you that there is a conference in London at the moment being addressed by the leader of the opposition

being addressed by all of the mad people our media has turned into celebrities

the tough headmistress, the free speech bro, the leader of UKIP, reform, the leader of the Tories

They're all there at a conference that's being funded in large part by fossil fuel companies

It's as if you can see the process beginning again, the desperation to deny the reality of what we are all feeling

You'd like to think, wouldn't you, that there was a sort of fatal irony to the idea of a conference on extreme heat being cancelled because of extreme heat

Down in Kings Lynn, the Reform UK Council was poised to have a meeting

to lift decarbonisation programmes, to reverse climate change addressing policies, and they had to cancel the meeting because it was so hot

Literally, the street that the council building is on has got flood barriers up

because that is what happens as the climate changes, the waters rise

And I just, I don't know, I just want either to canvas your optimism or your..

It's a fairly straightforward question. is the weather going to end the debate

or is the power and money of the liars so considerable and so great

that the debate will not be over and it may even not be won

10.22 is the time Freddie's in Epping Freddie what would you like to say

Good morning James good morning to all of your listeners I know you don't have to say good morning to all of them oh

thank you carry on No, I don't think that the debate will be won

because I think there's too many persistent attitudes in society about the heatwaves and what came before them

You always hear the argument from older people about the heatwave of 1976

And I think as long as that mentality is around, people of that age group supporting climate denialist parties

such as reform will always be able to win the argument by just saying 1976, 1976, over and over and over again

But what if in return now we have got the 11 hottest years ever

So it would be, okay, 1976 was anomalous and extraordinary. And you say to these people, perhaps politely, perhaps not

say there's a reason why you can remember it, you prune. It was 50 years ago and you can remember it because it was so out of the ordinary

Those temperatures are normal now. surely that and i know i'm possibly applying too much logic to illogical people but surely that is

the end of that particular argument i'm afraid it's not because every year last year i heard 1976

particularly online and then the year before that i heard 1976 and i just don't think that

that memory that nostalgia is going to go away and i think as a result people will slowly begin

to believe that discourse about that one summer 50 years ago, or however long it was

50 years? That's maths. Yes, I know, crazy. But then I think, again, I just think that attitude is too embedded

And the longer... How old are you? Do you mind me asking how old you are

I'm 16, so I'm very concerned about climate change. Yeah, that's really sad that you think that that oil tanker, as it were

is never going to be turned around because the crew are committed to the nonsense

Why do you think it works, Freddie? When you look at older people possessed of really stupid opinions

like the one you're describing, why do you think it works so well? Particularly given that almost all of the science

in fact, all of the science, actually, that's not true. Kieran's picked me up on that

He said, James, you're talking rubbish again. Richard Tice has many experts to refute your claims

He just can't identify or name any of them. But that's hardly the point, is it

Facts and evidence are all so old-fashioned. So when you encounter an old person possessed of a really stupid opinion that jeopardises your future

Why do you think it works? How can they end up thinking something that is so obviously false

and so demonstrably false? Well, I think the reason we got into this mess about slowing down on net zero

is because of the Conservative Party and particularly its voter base. So you'll remember, James, that in 2023

the Conservatives suddenly changed against net zero. And I think that was because they were concerned

about in 2024 losing their older voter base. So they pivoted to this argument

And with the Conservatives being such an old political force, it's the most successful party in the Western world

people will naturally believe it because traditionally so, they trust it to be the party of government, of sensibility

If the party of sensibility is putting out these opinions and making them mainstream

then people will think, well, surely they're right because they've governed us for so long and they can be trusted

Well, you're very, very bright. I don't mean that in a patronizing way. I just mean the way that you're joining the dots

Because you're right, Cammy Baden-Ock, it was a conservative government that introduced the pledge

to hit net zero by 2050. And then you have to wonder why Cammy Baden-Ock decided to abandon it

after becoming leader of the Conservative Party. And it could be epic ignorance

You know, you can never rule that out when you're talking about Cammy Baden-Ock. An extraordinary disdain for the facts

or indeed for doing the reading and doing the research. but it's probably simpler to say that she's done it

because she's frightened of losing all the votes that you still think are there among people who reject science

So what do you think the polling was in November? What percentage of Britons do you think supported

cutting carbon emissions to net zero by 2050? You probably know because you've done the research

but play along. Do you know? I think it was around 70% supported the net zero target

It was 60 last November. It's probably gone up now. So you're talking about 25% of the population

If I were to say to you, in desperate pursuit of optimism

that gets split, that gets shared out between Baden-Ock-Farage and the other fella who used to own Southampton Football Club

that's not a threat, is it? That's 25% split three ways. And presumably, it would be down to about 20% now

because of, well, mortality and natural wastage and also because some people will be sticking their head out the window

and going, yeah, maybe I'm going to actually listen to the scientists and not to Richard Tice

No? Well, I think the issue is that, I think, compared to 2019

before the pandemic, I think because of the economic crisis, people don't care about climate change, because that's in 25, 50 years

People care about their problems now. And that's why people are voting for reform

because, well, they've never held office. So they must be able to fix the problems, because they're different

Yeah, and everyone else has had a go. Yeah, as long as we're in this crisis, I don't think, economically

I don't think people will be worried about climate change until it's solved. You are as bright as a button, young Freddie

because, of course, the other bit of the YouGov polling that I've just referred to

does indeed show that people prioritise the cost of living. So saying that I support the government's commitment to carbon emissions

is relatively meaningless unless you add, give me all your money, or we're going to cut carbon emissions by, you know

getting rid of your job or making life harder for it So I mean it might be a demonstration of understanding but as Freddie quite brilliantly reminds us that understanding gets immediately diluted by the inevitable realities of living Johnny in Bristol Johnny what made you pick up the phone

Morning, James. Just picked up the phone because I was thinking exactly what you were saying

will this change everything? And like my background is over the last 25 years

I've spent quite a bit of time working on oil and gas for big companies like Saudi Aramco, Adnok and Abu Dhabi

Wow. Shell, sepsis. So I've seen it on the inside. And remember, all this climate stuff at the bottom end, it comes down to energy

It comes down to carbon and what drives our economies. But for the last 10 years, I've been working independent, trying to raise capital for bioenergy, solar, wind plants

So I've gone to the other side of the paradigm, if you think about it. and in a nutshell, you had a great high at the Paris Agreement 10 years ago

This word ESG came in, we're going to change the world, it's going to be great. You saw BlackRock and all these big investors coming in saying, we'll do it, we'll do it

Once we got over the marketing BS, I suppose is the polite thing to say

when you're sitting inside these companies, these investors, these pension funds, they start to work out it's really hard

and it's really costly. And you just don't want to be doing it

You then move on a bit. You've got two energy shocks, Russia, COVID

Yeah. And you're here today. And now Iran. And now Iran. Now, the only guy who said it well

that I've heard recently is your man Greg Jackson from Octopus. Yeah, big fan of him

The Torquay Games last week. He stood up and he said, look, how we try to do renewals is stupid

We put windmills on people's land that they didn't want. And then we sent them a bill with 100 quid in green

saying, this is great. And I was just going, yeah, you're dead right. It's like net zero

Who cares about it? Like, who even knows what net zero is? You know, these utopian goals don't work

They're reduced by 20%. That's the language of politics. It's not actually the language of meaningful change

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't make anything. And look, on the other side, you have to go

I got solar panels in my house there recently, right? You think of it as the consumer here

I'm doing that to be energy efficient, to use less. My missus comes in and goes, great, I can do more washing and leave the dryer on all day

And I'm like, no, that's not the point. We're trying to reduce carbon. Well, that's what Jackson does, isn't it

He cleverly makes it, he appeals to our baser instincts by saying that net zero will deliver cheaper energy costs

Not so, you know, if you're not going to, it's almost as if he swerves the climate imperative angle of the argument

And he's right to, because it doesn't... I mean, listen, if you're in favour of net zero

but you're more worried about the cost of living, then the only way forward is to make the cost of living benefit from net zero

So you bring down energy costs. And so the thing I struggle with, and I understand that the initial investment for a domestic user is very high

and you don't make back the savings. 40k. Yeah, to pay off the..

So you will be moving in the right direction, but you need... It's like everything else in our world

It's Vimes' boots, isn't it, out of Terry Pratchett. If you've got the money, then you'll be better off

because you will be investing in the technology and you will be paying less for your energy for 100 years

Even if it takes you 30 years to move into profit, you're going to then have 70 years

But, James, it doesn't have to be that way because I was talking to your man, Chris Stark

in the energy department last week. He's a very good fellow. Now, the problem is this. If you look at me, house, right, I'm above the grant

So you have to be a salary below 36 to get the grant to get all your heat pumps put in, right

So if you're 42, if you're in that middle, and I always hear you talking about people trying to buy a home

you know, just get going in life. But you have to shell out 40K, right

Now, I don't want to get into technical boring stuff here, but if you then go, I'm investing 40K

I'll save money on my electricity, what value does it put in the house? It doesn't come up on a, you know, it doesn't come up

the EPC, so the rating for your energy in your house, doesn't give you, oh, I put in 40 grand, that's 80K on the value of my house

It doesn't work like that. Plus, you can't go, you know, the banks go on about green mortgages

Yeah, most people can't get a mortgage. But if you go to them and say, right, I've got my salary, I want 40K

they won't give you a loan like that for structural stuff. So it's a regulation thing

It's a government can change the EPC and the value. And they did a bit that Greg Jackson does really well

he talks about energy like they are iPhones. He makes it understandable to the human

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and I mean, and his central point, as you will know, but some people listening may not

is that you are not going to be able to do it if it means that bills go up

You have to. He frequently asserts that clean and green energy is cheaper to generate

but our markets and our grids prevent the consumers from seeing those savings

Look, no one's infallible, but I'm a fan of that guy. I've got a family member who works for him, actually

and he is, among his own workforce, he's held in almost uniquely high esteem

I think that's important as well when you're looking at how people operate

But there it is. I mean, the obstacles that Johnny describes are very real and very big

And so the idea, the somewhat simplistic idea, that you just walk outside now

and conclude that it's time to start ignoring people that are telling you the scientists are all wrong

is probably overly simplistic. But that's the question. I still think, you know, it's got to change, hasn't it

This new normal. You can't cite, and Freddie, sad to hear it

a relatively idealistic 16-year-old being quite defeatist about silly old men who, in my experience, have moved on a bit from arguing that the scientists are all wrong

and are now just attacking children for being too hot. But maybe I'm being overly optimistic

It's 10.33. Dominic Ellis has your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC. 10.37, the psychology of people who deny things that are

I mean, either irrefutably true or almost certainly true. I mean, it's a human condition, isn't it

We are not, I don't think, quite as sophisticated a species as we like to think that we are

Donald Trump's still got approval ratings in the United States of America

in double figures, which is incredible, right? We just sort of, all of the evidence of his idiocy and depravity is right there in front of you

But something happens in our brains. We are not rational beings. I've always got that Brian Cox quote from Succession in the back of my mind at this point

when he says to his own children, you are not serious people. We are not serious people

and that's why my optimism that the current evidence of climate crisis being the new normal

will change the conversation is at the very best somewhat muted um there's also a hideous

report out from a un commission of inquiry about israel committing genocide in gaza by

deliberately targeting children and you know there will be a hell of a lot of people

determined to refuse to believe that as well and to attack the messenger

or to attack the Commission or to attack the United Nations. And it is, to me, fascinating in every example

of the lengths and efforts that people will go to to cling to their own, I mean, false convictions

It's extraordinary. I'll be sharing a little bit more detail of that report

later in the programme, because someone has to. Jan is in Sirencester to steer us back to the net zero conversation

or at least to the propaganda conversation. Jan, what would you like to say

James, good morning. I'm not optimistic about net zero, but I think we should be trying for it

Yes. And I just don't think that the current heat wave is going to make any difference in terms of our targets

but we should be going. But we must be realistic. You can't replace what we've got with nothing

No, of course not. You've got to have something to replace it. And we're losing a massive opportunity of moving towards net zero with other forms of energy

And what a Philip for the country in terms of jobs and security

Because security of supply is crucial. I mean, these are the points

I don't want to labour the point about people who will not see what is obvious

but I mean the very word sustainable the massive contrast between a finite thing

that's really bad for humans and has to be dug out of the ground

or pumped out of the seabed versus the eternal turning the eternal blowing of the wind

or the eternal shining of the sun or the eternal flowing of the water we should have done it as soon as it was invented really

and yet we didn't and we're still not as you say doing anything like the scale that we should be

That's right, and we're losing an opportunity but you can't expect the individuals to suddenly say

oh right, we're not going to drill and the Northfield's run out

what do we run the car on if you can't run it on electricity? And you can't expect the politicians to do it

while there is a very real chance of their opponents succeeding in telling the same voters lies

No, that's right and so that's why I remain, I'm not quite as cynical as you

but I'm cynical that we're not going to get to net zero whatever date you put on it

By 2050, no, whatever. Because the effort's been put into resisting it will remain so great

I don't know. Can you think of something we could do differently? What if I put you in charge

Because you've really highlighted a problem here because even if you had a government

that absolutely said, I don't care about the opposition, I don't care about the propaganda

I don't care about the lies, I'm doing this for the next generation and for this generation

we're putting everything on it. as soon as we possibly can, they'll be voted out potentially after four years

Because no party, whatever colour or hype that they promote, is ever going to think long term, which is what we should be doing

They're thinking, how can I get re-elected in four or five years? And that is the biggest, and of course you've got, as Cammy Baden-Ottock proves

even if a party commits to it, another leader can come along and for entirely selfish or ignorant reasons

decide to abandon the policy that your own party had introduced in the first place

And that is a consequence of precisely the engines of propaganda that we started off talking about today

I want more optimism, please. We haven't had much optimism so far

In fact, I'm not sure we've had any optimism. It's not often that I'm the optimist. But on this one, I don't know

As soon as I start thinking about it, I think, oh, it's going to rain next week and we'll all sit down again

So what would we do differently? How would we push this? And maybe, what time is it

We've got time to have a little look at why the psychology works. Why are people persuaded of things that are not true

when the stakes are, I mean, unspeakably high? Unspeakably high. Ginny is in Glastonbury where there's no festival this year

Ginny, what would you like to say? Well, I'm afraid I'm not going to be very optimistic, Ginny

What's going on, Ginny? I want more optimistic. Go on then, never mind

Sorry. Okay, so this is an ogy really, and it doesn't completely hold water

but many years ago, 50 years ago, I was doing a psychology degree

and the social psychology at that point was looking at how vulnerable people were

to having their views changed, their behaviour changed regarding smoking. Because there was a big move to..

Do you know what I discovered yesterday? This bloke that I'm obsessed with, Don Perlman

who was like the godfather of climate change denial, working for a US lobbyist

lobbyist-stroke law firm, Patton Boggs, and just became, he invented climate science denial

He changed smokes throughout all of the meetings, all of the UN meetings that were about climate change

Because it was still, I don't know why I thought of that as you mentioned smoking, but you're right, changing people's psychology is..

So, basically, they got a bunch of smokers, heavy smokers, and they showed them photographs of damaged lungs

and the photographs were different degrees of severity because they were slightly damaged right up to, oh my God, what's that

And after that, they obviously tested their attitudes to smoking and lung cancer

and lo and behold, there was in fact a tipping point. We love tipping points

And the tipping point was at a certain, on that scale, there was a certain point at which people's attitudes did not change at all

They changed at the slightly damaged lungs, but when you got to them being super damaged

they just switched off and they were exactly the same about smoking as they had been

I don't have any complete chapter and verse on this nobody does, but you sound like you've studied

psychology, is that so that idea that you can show people, it's almost like

showing people that they're driving towards a cliff and they will just not believe you, they'll just

carry on regardless and that's why you're pessimistic yeah, I think also there's a certain amount

of other stuff obviously about, well, nothing I can do. I'm just going to fiddle while Rome burns, basically

Don't look up. Yeah, exactly. They don't look up for Norman. So I think there's a lot of that

But I thought that stayed with me, that experiment, all these years

And I thought that's really, really interesting. People get too anxious. They just go, la, la, la, talk to the hound

Do you know what Jimmy Carter did in 1979? Probably not. He's put solar panels on the White House. 1979

and of course they would not have been very efficient back then and they would not have been

able to replace much of the traditional fossil fuel infrastructure but that direction

of traffic, imagine what would have happened if we'd gone all in with Jimmy Carter

who of course I think of often at the moment because of what he did with

his family peanut farm when he became president put it into trust so that absolutely

no perception, threat suspicion, danger, risk whatsoever of anything he did as a president

having a beneficial economic impact upon his interests in a peanut farm

And you compare it to where we are now. We've got an actual peanut in the White House

James O'Brien on LBC. It's 10.49, you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

We are actually doing quite a lot. It just hard to know where you go to find out in the context of net zero and in the context even of that 2050 pledge But given that our media discourse is dominated by liars has been now for 10 years

people who lied about Brexit all were too sick to understand what they were saying about Brexit

They continue to dominate discourse, both in politics and in the media

It's extraordinary. And some of them are really good at it. Some of them are brilliant at spouting the snake oil or persuading people of things that are not true

Some of them are brilliant at it, and some of them are Richard Tice, who recently got asked about climate science

in an interview, I think, with Bloomberg on their Zero podcast presented by Akshat Rati

And this is what happens. But again, you know, this isn't going to get anything like the coverage

that some nonsense about two-tier policing will get in the right-wing media that is still largely opposed to

net-zero policymaking, because it's largely owned by people who continue to make a ton of money out of fossil fuels

I wish it wasn't that simple, because it sounds almost like a conspiracy theory, or a really simplistic, let's just put a wealth tax on everything and solve all the world's problems kind of position

But it really is that simple. They pay a lot of money in order to both promote and persuade

And what they are trying to promote and persuade is the idea that we should carry on pumping carbon into our atmosphere, even though that is the reason why our weather is so extreme

It's that simple. this is what happens when someone actually does their job

So the first thing you'll hear is him complaining about being asked to justify his opposition to the science

You can't present me with a whole load of graphs that I can't read, that may well be bull****

OK. OK, and put this out there. So this terminates now. It's end of podcast

This is ridiculous. OK, OK. I'm sorry, you cannot seriously think this is a sensible way to conduct a podcast

We're not doing it. We're ending now. All I'm saying is this is the summary for policymakers

And I don't agree with any of it. And you can't present something to me, right

And expect me to comment on it when I haven't read it. I don't know what you're talking about in terms of what you're presenting

Right. And one of the foundations of the IPCC's very ethos in the last 20, 30 years

they've just abandoned. I love it. I don't understand any of it

How dare you ask me about it? And I wish it wasn't funny. Well, it's not very funny, actually, is it

if you pause for a nanosecond to think about what the consequences are. We saw it with Brexit

I don't understand any of it, and you're biased for asking me, Project Fear! He should have just shouted Project Fear

But of course, there are some experts who back him. Your view on climate science

which is that thousands of scientists disagree that net zero is not the way to tackle climate change

who are the scientists who are advising you on that? Can you name any, the thousands of scientists

I've got lots of people who advise me. I don't list all my private advisors

with regard to anything, whether it's net zero, whether it's housing policy, whether it's industrial policy

You know, people who advise me from all different sides are coming at me from all different angles

very often opposing, and that's great because that's how you listen and learn

That's who we are. He's as thick as mints, isn't he? And I don't say that lightly

because it's not a very nice thing to say, but my God, you need to have a millionaire on your family tree

don't you to to end up anywhere near parliament with a brain as small as that so the first

argument is i don't understand any of this how dare you ask me about it my my opinion is very

strong and the second argument is you can't expect me to name any of the scientists that i insist are

opposed to all the other scientists it's unreasonable and that i'm going to play that

again because sometimes i think intelligence is the is is is yeah just listen to the second one

again. It's so easy to do. You just point at some scientists. There'll be someone

in my inbox who's some ex-bloke from Greenpeace who's joined the other side

and they will be held up as proof in the same way that Patrick Minford

during Brexit, The Economist, was held up as proof that it's a 50-50 argument

99 economists over there saying it's going to be awful. One over there saying it's not. Treat them like they're equal

They can't even do that. That's how stupid he is. Your view on climate science

which is that thousands of scientists disagree that net zero is not the way to tackle climate change

Who are the scientists who are advising you on that? Can you name any, the thousands of scientists

I've got lots of people who advise me. I don't list all my private advisors with regard to anything

whether it's net zero, whether it's housing policy, whether it's industrial policy

You know, people who advise me from all different sides are coming at me from all different angles

very often opposing, and that's great because that's how you listen and learn. that's who we are

that's who we are this is who they are because this stuff matters if the people at the top of the party

albeit that they're only there because they've donated so much money to Farage's company

the people at the top of the party are just sort of utterly proud

of how stupid they are I don't understand anything how dare you ask me then you end up with people like this

on Kirkley's council I don't understand the constitution I have not had sufficient time

to read that as yet I don't understand what standing orders are, what they're made up of

nor do I understand what an amendment is. There is a possibility that we might vote for something that we don't understand at the moment

And whereas ignorance is not a defence, risk should be mitigated. That's a newly elected Reform UK councillor complaining that she doesn't understand anything

about doing the job that she got elected to do. And somehow that's not her fault

But who can attack her? Is he deputy leader of the party? Who can attack her when the actual deputy leader is arguably even thicker

And I don't know where she went to school, but his education would have cost his parents a fortune

And he's come out with the brains of a pillow. And he's almost proud of it

Imagine just how privileged you have to be in life to not realise how thick you are when you're that thick

That poor woman, bless her, acknowledges how ignorant she is. she doesn't quite grasp

that that is really a reason why she shouldn't have been running for the council but

she at least acknowledges it, there's a sort of innocence to her acknowledgement of how ignorant

she is, but Tice has managed to grow up in a universe where his epic

thickness hasn't mattered at all and he can end up thinking, well I think I could have a

go at being a politician actually, why not? I've got very strong opinions

I can't back any of them up and if you ask me to then I'll threaten to leave the interview

but my gosh, they're very strong, very strong opinions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, politics for me, definitely

Politics for me. And climate science is wrong. I just can't name any scientists who agree with me

But who cares? Who cares? James is in Abergavenny. James, what would you like to say

Hi, James, a bit nervous. It's only me. Yeah, only you, only you

How can you be nervous when you've just heard a man who gets invited on to Question Time

demonstrate on national radio that he is as thick as mince. How can you be nervous

Mate, you could come on here and just make strange noises and sound more intelligent than Richard Tice

I forbid you from being nervous. Well, I have skin which is thicker than rice paper, I'm like

Okay, well, I'll be gentle with you, James, I promise. So I work in offshore wind sector

and I in two minds about this Okay Just from my professional life as well I was just looking at the wider political discourse with reform and everything I think the positive is the economic momentum

is with renewables. Like you look at the growth of the renewable sector, like CBI

kind of predicting that it's 100 billion quid a year. And like compare that to kind of 0.8

of growth nationally. It's a massive opportunity, especially in areas like kind of northeast England

Port Talbot, South Wales, where there has been a lot of de-industrialisation

and there's a lot of opportunity to regenerate those areas via renewables

I'm just going to pause you there for the benefit of people who don't pay as much attention

to these things as you do, myself included. So this is from, what's the date today? This is from the CBI just two days ago on the 24th of June

The Climate Change Committee is right to identify the need to stimulate demand across the economy

to match the growth in clean power supply as one of the biggest gaps in reducing UK emissions

To realise the benefits of a decarbonised power system and lower costs, the UK must accelerate electrification, provide real clarity on the role of hydrogen

and deliver on existing CCUS commitments. Targets alone will not drive progress

Market conditions must be able to respond quickly to adoption barriers and external shocks

As you point out, that follows the CBI telling us that the sums and the jobs in play are already huge and set only to get huger

And then, as you say, the political discourse is largely dominated by people with the brains of a pillow

Yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, a bit of optimism I have is when Trump did get in

Well, that's not optimistic, but there was a lot of leasing off the coast of the United States

And Donald Trump basically did a lot of stop work orders on these projects

And they've been going back and forth, back and forth in legal battles. These are wind turbines

Yeah. Which he's got a weird, almost fetishistic dislike of, hasn't he? Yeah

I mean, I think they look quite nice. I do too. They're quite majestic sometimes

Yeah. I mean, I split my time between Wales and Edinburgh. Okay

And I don't know anyone in Scotland at the moment, but if you kind of walk up Arthur's seat

and have a look at the big yellow jackets towards Leith, those are kind of for a new offshore wind farm being constructed

They represent humankind's dominion over nature in a way. I can get a bit fetishistic about cranes and bridges

because they remind us what human ingenuity can do with the elements

And wind turbines, I understand that, you know, if you stuck one in front of Edinburgh Castle

then some people might object and then I'd understand why. But generally speaking, when they're offshore, what's the problem

Yeah, I mean, exactly. And that's not to pretend there's a lot of big barriers to this economic momentum

like, you know, grid and supply chain. Yeah, that's Greg Jackson's territory

seen firsthand from government, like, pretty much within the months after they got into power

the speed of consultations, of working groups, of strategic planning, has been

absolutely breakneck. Because they get it, and speed is of the essence. Unfortunately

I'm just going to... Do you mind awfully, James, if I drizzle on your parade? Yeah, go on, then. Just with a bit of

historical precedent, because I was... today years old, as the kids say

when I discovered that Jimmy Carter had put solar panels on the White House in 1979

Would you like to guess what happened in 1986? It would be unsure

Ronald Reagan ripped them off again. Oh, there we go. That would be the Republican

almost certainly in receipt of huge donations from the fossil fuel lobby

To be fair to the fella, I think they were leaking a bit and there was a roof resurfacing project going on

but there was nothing to stop them being put back up again. And they weren't

The likelihood of solar panels being installed by the current incumbent of the White House, yeah, less than zero

It's 11.01. James O'Brien on LBC. It's four minutes after 11. I'm going in

It's my final day before my holiday. I'll be off for a fortnight. Lewis, with you next week

I dread to think who they've got lined up for the week after. But you'll find out probably before I do

I'm going meta. I'm going to do something that I will almost certainly regret, quite possibly within the next 11 minutes

I am going to ask you why I've never had a successful phone-in about the existence of the royal family

I've had quite a lot of phone-ins about the existence of the royal family. I just have a sense, you may disagree, maybe your memory is better than mine

I have a sense that they've never really sung. Now, the last hour of this programme, I found incredibly enjoyable and illuminating

And sometimes in the past, I've struggled with climate change phone-ins as well

Are we getting too meta? I don't think we're getting too meta. I honestly think that, you know, everyone enjoys the show more if it gets better

You do, I do, everybody does. And working out why some shows are better than other shows

it should be in both of our interests, shouldn't it? Not just mine. I think it's like being interested in Formula One cars, beyond how fast they can go

Why is that car going faster than that? Anyway, I digress. I don't know

We've had some fascinating and brilliant phone-ins about the appalling treatment of the Duchess of Sussex

and indeed the Duke of Sussex and the way in which, for some people

the natural hierarchy of British humans was completely exploded by the fact that the Duke of Sussex

had the audacity to fall in love with a woman of colour. Because if you feel that your ethnicity

and of course it's quite a good period of history for you at the moment because you've got people telling you that the colour of your skin really matters

and white people are being sinned against and it's terrible to be white in this colour

I'm not even joking, they're doing it, claiming that white people are victims of police racism

It's an extraordinary position to adopt. But of course, those are precisely the people

who couldn't quite understand why they hated Meghan Markle so much and got really furious when he pointed out

that it was because she was mixed race. and the reason for that is that our deference

our social hierarchy is so baked into all of us that we can't quite compute the idea

that somebody who is inferior in the eyes of white supremacists and monarchy, aristocracy

almost everything about class in this country has a slice of white supremacism in it

Can't quite compute that a mixed race woman could end up so near the very top of the pyramid

Or, and this was of course Harry's grave offence, someone could reject the system itself

despite being a massive beneficiary of it. I don't know. Would he have rejected the system if he'd been the older brother

I don't know. We'll never know. He probably doesn't know. But to be so near the top of the pyramid

and to condemn the pyramid, not just sort of elements of the institution

but also its symbiotic relationship with a toxic media How dare you You can question our system You can question our class system Harry Because I will feel really stupid then

Because I'm a forelock tugging, cap doffing, flag waving loyalist. So if you, near the top of the pyramid, think that it's a bit rotten

you're making me feel really stupid. Because I uphold it, despite not being a beneficiary of it

I'm upholding the system that has allowed your dad to spend hundreds of millions of pounds

on a palace that he's not even going to live in and you're making me feel really stupid

and what are you doing falling in love with a mixed race woman where Britons never, never, never shall be slaves

which is a kind of roundabout way of saying that Britons are always white

and if you're not white you're not British which I only discovered thanks to a caller to this programme two weeks ago

would you believe so I can have those phone-ins those phone-ins are interesting

right about the class about the deference about the racism directed at the duchess of sussex all

of that stuff and i enjoy the the way that some people's blood boils at the sight that they see

in the mirror that i hold up in front of i'm not racist i'm not right how dare you say i'm racist

she she she's she's uppity it's an interesting word that you used there she's uppity is she i

mean you spent a lot of time with her would you describe anyone else like you remember that

extraordinary selection of stories where the Duchess of Sussex and Prince William's wife

Kate Middleton as she was, did identical things, up to and including the actual bouquets

that they had at their weddings. And Kate Middleton's bouquet, because that was her name on her wedding day

Kate Middleton's bouquet that day was a beautiful nod to tradition and modernity

and a fragrant tribute to English legacy. And then Meghan had the same flower in hers

She was trying to poison the bridesmaids. She was trying to poison Princess Watsits

William's daughter. Literally the same flower in their wedding bouquets. One of them was a beautiful tribute to tradition

floral history, and the other was trying to poison Princess Charlotte. That's how it got written up by the British media

which is definitely not biased or toxic or dedicated to upholding white supremacy

So I can do that. That's interesting, right? You're enjoying this. This is good stuff. This is good content

Why have I never had an interesting phone-in about the royal family? When I was a kid..

Just give me a minute, because I'm going to say there were three things, and I've only got two in my head

So I need to... Yeah, three. When I was a kid... It's a great trick, that, Keith

I don't know if you're interested in oratorical flourishes. It's a great trick to say there are three things

It gives you time to think of what they are, and it makes people pay attention a bit more. So there were three things

When I was a kid, there were three debates that we used to have every flipping week, it seemed

There were three hardy perennials of the student debating circuit. There were three debates

I went to a very Catholic school, so one of them was probably more common in my school than it would have been in yours if you'd had a debating society

But the other two were absolutely stone-cold hardy perennials. The first, as you've probably guessed

because I mentioned the Catholicism, was the abortion. Should abortion happen? Eleanor went to a comprehensive school in East London

They had that debate too, a lot. The abortion debate. So it wasn't just the fancy-pants, posh Catholic public schools

It was a really big part of debating. Debating! The abortion debate

Do you want to have a guess at what the other two were? Obviously one was the royal family

otherwise I wouldn't be citing it now, all right? So what was the other one then? So abortion, should we abolish the royal family

And the third one? No, wasn't legalising drugs. Not at my school anyway

Anyone? Shall I leave it open? Shall I leave it? Shall we wait and see

The death penalty. Everyone just went, oh, of course. So abortion, royal family, death penalty

I don't think I've ever done an interesting phone-in about any of those, actually

I don't think I've done an interesting phone-in about abortion because it's not really a debate and everyone who thinks that it is is weird

I don't think I've ever really done an interesting phone-in about the death penalty because it's not an interesting debate and everyone who thinks it is is weird

Fox hunting was up there as well, you're absolutely right. I should have gone with four, but it's the rule of three

It's a rhetorical flourish, the rule of three. You give them three things. and I don't think I've ever done

an interesting phone-in about about the Royal Family about whether or not it should exist

now I don't know whether you're going to come with me on this

and if you don't I need to warn you now I'll have to do another monologue

so I'll have to come back from the hydration break and I'll have to set up another monologue

which will be about the King's finances and whether or not they're bleh bleh

and a detail driven I shouldn't really say bleh bleh bleh when there's a very strong chance that I'm going to have to turn it into a fascinating phone-in

in about six minutes' time. But we're looking at the news today, which you will be aware of

The monarchy's core funding will double within three years, rising to £100 million a year of public money by 2027-2028

It turns out that the king and his oldest son have paid £51.8 million

No, that's the wrong figure. They've paid about £50 million in income tax since 2022

but don't worry, they're still all right. and the Buckingham Palace renovations

which have taken about a decade when they are complete come in at £369 million

but the king ain't going to live there the king and queen will not be moving back

into Buckingham Palace because they really like it at Clarence House, to which I've got two responses

one is yeah fair enough and the other is well what's it for then? what's it for if you're not living in it

what are they, I mean, hello? I digress so that's the story

the King and the Prince of Wales have paid a combined figure of 50 million pounds

since the change of reign in 2022 he becomes today the first monarch

to publish his tax bill payments to HM Revenue and Customs are calculated on the income

the King and his heir receive from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall respectively so

is it my fault? is it my fault? Is it just a reflection of my poor presenting skills

Is it that you can tell when I turn my attention to the royal family that I am not as engaged as I am with other subjects

So you can tell how engaged I was with the treatment of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the white supremacism that's baked into our class structure

and the racism directed at Meghan Markle, as she was. I can tell how engaged I am with that because I find it fascinating

But whether or not we want a royal family, can you tell that maybe I'm not as engaged with that as I could be

Because then you know what I do next. Why am I not more engaged with it

It's so endemic to our national experience. I mean, you cannot teach a young woman in this country

that she can do anything when she can't be a princess. Unless she marries a prince

Do you see what I mean? You can't teach young people that the sky is the limit

There is no... Because in America, you can tell, particularly after Barack Obama

You can tell people that they could be president one day. That's the American dream

Anybody could be president. Don't quibble, alright? It's technically true. You can't do that in this country

Not even Kemi Bader not could be... Actually, she probably could pull it off

Let's not... Yeah. Apart from Kemi Bader not, nobody in this country can be queen

unless they marry the king. Or are the daughter of a monarch

It is so constipated, our class structure. It puts people in pigeonholes

It puts people in boxes. and consigns them to those boxes. I mean, it should... Why don't I care more

Have they done a job on me? Apart from that little window

after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when the royal family came under existential threat

for judging everything so appallingly, it has not, at any point in the 40 years

since I first started debating things at school, at no point has this conversation justified

the amount of energy dedicated to it by student debaters. Should we abolish the royal family

So why? Why is it not an interesting conversation anymore? I'm sure it used to be

Did it used to be? It did used to be, didn't it? They were good debates, weren't they? They were fun times

It was a good debate. It was better than the abortion one. That always got a little bit heavy going

The death penalty one, a little bit morbid. Fox hunting one was fun. but the royal family one was probably my favourite

We could have a brilliant debate about the royal family. Why doesn't it happen anymore? What's happened

This is a phone-in about why I don't have good phone-ins about the royal family

And it's risky. I'm not going to lie to you. I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't going on holiday later

It's risky. And it's up to you whether or not it works. And of course, it's not just enough to join in

You've got to join in in a good and impressive way. No pressure at all

But if you don't, if I haven't got a selection of phone calls in two minutes' time

addressing the question of why we don't have interesting phone-ins about the existence of the royal family

Let's call it the abolition, then. Why don't we have interesting phone-ins about the royal family

If I haven't got a selection of interesting calls, I'm going to do another monologue and we'll talk about something completely different

How do you like them apples? All right? So, the number you need to tell me why you think

it is very difficult for the most successful speech radio programme in the history of UK commercial radio

to have an interesting conversation about the royal family. If anyone can do it

You'd think it would be the most listened to speech radio programme in the history of UK commercial radio

If they can't do it, who can? Why don't we have interesting debates about the royal family anymore

And I suppose... No, I'm not yet going to accept people actually having the debate

I want to have a conversation about why the debate is not interesting. So don't ring me to tell me what your answer is

to the question of whether or not the royal family should be abolished. Ring me to tell me your answer to the question of why we can't have

why we've never had an interesting conversation about it. And if you think it's my fault, that's fine

I promise not to bite your head off. Well, I can't do that. I promise to try my best not to bite your head off

All right? So why are... Why is one of the hardiest perennials of British debate

so dead in the water today? Why do we never hear interesting conversations

about the existence or the abolition of the British monarchy anymore. 0345 6060 973

And if I'm part of the problem, that's absolutely fine. I just want to know how and why

and whether or not we need to do something about it. Phone lines are open. It's 1118. You know the number

And remember, if I don't get good calls on this, I'm going to do another monologue. James O'Brien on LBC

It's 20 minutes after 11. Phone-ins are only enjoyable if you can relate to them

says Joe in Leicester. That's not true. Some of the best phone-ins we've had have involved things you can't relate to at all

For example, we have fun phone-ins about people like Richard Tice. You can't relate to that level of stupidity in any way, shape or form, Joe

So I disagree with that. Phone-ins that we don't know much about, they can work

Look at Ash in Northampton schooling us on the Strait of Hormuz this year. They're absolutely fascinating

Conversations about things we know nothing about. Conversations where I haven't even made my mind up what my opinion is can be quite interesting

I was worried, actually, when I began to feel the benefits of therapy

becoming a much less strident and angry person. I was worried it might affect my job

I was worried I might be less good at this if I didn't have tub-thumping, pungent opinions all the time

The opposite turns out to be true. We have more enjoyable conversations. So why does the royal family conversation in this country feel curiously..

What's the word I want? Flat. why does it feel so flat when it really shouldn't it underpins so much steve's in thirst steve what

do you reckon um i think it's made hang on steve hang on mate i just no pressure but in many ways

the successful failure of this entire topic now rests on your bony shoulders uh i'm not sure i'm

not sure that's fair, but it's made complicated and this is why people

struggle with it, because you get pulled in a million different directions. So, for example, these tax

announcements today, it's largely fluff, okay? So the fact that Prince William and

The other fella. Yeah, the other guy. They pay a lot of tax. Well, Kel

Suprise, rich man, paid lots of tax. Well, they don't all pay a lot of tax. A lot of them

dodge it like it was going out of fashion. Well, quite. And that is the point

is really we should be looking at, has he paid the right amount of tax? Now

that's when it gets complicated, when you've got their opaque finances. You've got

three layers of stuff, and then the public and private is all mushed

And so it all gets very complicated. But you care, I sense that you care. Oh, yeah, absolutely

Yeah, I do. Because as you said, you alluded to earlier, it's very

much an intricate part of the country, rightly or wrongly. and wrongly in my case

it's, you know, the class system is so ridiculous in this country

because we still have a royal family I mean, we still have one

But it's not complicated I mean, today's story is but you're telling me

why that wouldn't work as a phone-in and I'm not having that phone-in

Should the royal family exist? Should this sort of... That's not complicated to me

I can give you that answer straight away But it will be quite boring No offence, Steve

Prove me wrong. Why is it boring? Well, let's find out. You're talking about the structure of how a country is run

Yeah, I know. We forever talk about how terrible politicians are. I know

And how our system is wrong and awful. And the royals and the constitutional monarchy is very much, you know, is intrinsic to that

I know. We've got, and so it's not boring. It is. It's a rubbish phone in me

Why is it boring? Because why? Well, that's my guy. That's why I'm asking you. You can't just throw it back at me

Well, you must have some idea, although you wouldn't pose it. So I would say, no, it's not boring

I wish you could actually have seen my face, and I looked a bit like a dog chewing its own tongue

I just literally looked away from you, the switchboard, because you said you must have some idea

and I thought, he's right, I must have some idea. And I had a little think, and I thought, I haven't got any idea

I got no idea why this isn a very good phone I mean this is a good phone in because this is a phone about why we never have good phone about this subject and you arguing that we do have good phone about this subject but I here to tell you that we don and I in charge

But what's your metric for that? Uh... Why are you saying it's not a good phone-in

I've just done that thing again, hang on, I'm just going to pull that face again, right? I look away from the camera and start sucking my own lip

I don't ever remember coming off air and saying to Eleanor, Cor, that one really slapped

But isn't the point of phone-ins and LBC to have a conversation to get things going

So whether you come to... Yeah, so it's my fault then. So the answer to the question is

because you're not a very good presenter. I don't know. I wouldn't go that far

Please calm down, mate. All right. No, I wouldn't say that. No, that's not fair

Keith, if you nod that furiously, you're going to do yourself an injury, mate. Some people crick their neck when they nod like that

I've never seen him nod so furiously. Well, to have, as I've said before

it is a broad topic because, you know, you can look at it

I mean, I'd say there are three reasons why there's a problem with the monarchy. Go on, rule of three

Rule of three. It's wrong in principle, okay? The idea of being a democracy

and having an unelected head of state and getting a job just because your dad's got it. I mean, that's pretty straightforward

We get that. And that itself has a corrupting influence on the rest of our political system

i.e. you can be privileged and get jobs, you know, that leeches into other things

Yeah. The entrenched entitlement and privilege. I guess, have we been conditioned into not questioning it then

Is that why? Absolutely. Well, it's taken as a given that so much nonsense gets spewed out

about the royals and how beneficial they are. Like, the defensive line straight away is

well, they don't have to pay income tax, but they do. Well, why

The rule of law in this country is that everybody should be treated the same

with the law. Not the monarch, actually, is it? The monarch can't be, I don't think, put on trial

You're good at this. Have you phoned me before on royal phonings? Yes. Ah

Yeah. Well, surely... So it's your pet subject, then? Yeah. The problem you've got with the monarch

as in the monarch can't be put on trial. Well, no, the state itself can't be put on trial

but the individual surely can. So if you wanted to, say with Andrew, I would argue

if Charles ever needs to be called to the stand, surely he should be made to abdicate

And then he can take the stand. Yeah, I'm going to crack on now

You've kind of proved my... No, you can't carry on now. I've just said I'm going to crack on

Well, no, because it's an interesting topic, James. Well, you said... Okay, well, other people are to judge that

You and me are disagreeing about how interesting this conversation is. The last point I will say..

Go on, then, quickly. You didn't let me finish my three. No, I thought you'd only use that as a delaying tactic

No, the third one is the monarchy itself. Even if you are a royalist

there's no reason why it has to be so corrupt and so bad it could be better, so the finances could be a lot more straightforward

I don't think you can say corrupt, you could say opaque I'd say corrupt because

a corruption is abusing entrusted power you can talk about a moral corruption

but I don't want to get sued it's unlikely that I would get sued

but no one is alleging actual corruption it's more a sense of a sort of moral turpitude

I always get the difference between turpitude and torpitude wrong. I mean roughly the same thing, but one's much stronger than the other

I wrote it in my column the other day, and they took out both words. I said, use one or the other, depending on what the lawyers say

and they didn't use either of them. 27 after 11 is the time. David's in East Molesy

David, what made you pick up the phone? Well, I think it is an interesting topic

and I think the king has just thrown a huge rock into the pool

by announcing his tax affairs, because he's actually sort of proving that there is some money there

or he's reminding us that there is some money there, and that he's graciously paying it voluntarily

But, you know, behind it all, for me, is the sort of the Duchy of Lancaster

What is it? The Duchy of Cornwall. What is it? What does it do? Where does the money go

How much money is there? How much money does the king get

How much money do all the acolytes get, all the other members of the royal family

Is that not published on the civil list, some of that? Some of it is, yes, but no, please, James, explain to me the Duchy of Lancaster

I think you pass it on the left-hand side. Anyway, look, the thing is, it's much more

It's a whole series of systems of, you know... And there's the private money as well

So there's the thing that's owned by the monarchy, and then there's the stuff that's owned by the individual

So the Queen can pass stuff on to King Charles that is just like any mother passing stuff on to their son

and we don't know as much about that. And it is wheels within wheels, isn't it, as you describe it

It is. And the other thing is that, you know, organisations like this prop up everything

you know, including local councils. You know, there's a lord-lieutenant for every county

or maybe there's more than one Lord Lieutenant. What does Lord Lieutenants do

when they're not actually standing beside the king on telly? Is it a well-paid job

Do they get a free house or something like that? I don't know anything about it, but I would like to

But how is this an answer to my question? Because you're saying it should be more interesting

but we're not talking about it. Well, we aren't talking about it

but actually I think it's... I can't understand the lack of curiosity

Maybe that's what I'm asking, maybe that's what this phoning actually is David

Yeah, yeah, maybe people should point out, you know, things like, what is the Duchy of Lancaster

Because it gets quoted in news reports from time to time, just as a sort of passing interest in a conversation

And you think, yeah, yeah, what is it? It is mad, yes, it's the incuriosity that explains the lack of engagement

and maybe it's a bit of a no-brainer and if we did know, this is why the late queen

always said don't let the light in, keep the mystique, keep the magic. Exactly, the magic is the secret

and the royal family, they wobbled a lot in the early 90s during the Annus

Horribilis etc. But they're back on their feet now and of course when the king

went over to America and did that job as a guest of Donald Trump

but he was absolutely brilliant. He played a stone-cold blinder. It was one of the best moments of the whole presidency

It was, but then on the other hand, how easy was it for him to do that

Because who's he up against? Trump, for God's sake. Not everybody has managed to dance around

Do you know that your name comes up on the screen? You must be an expert in another field

because your name comes up on the screen as someone who must be booked by other programmes

Well, yes, I'm an expert in aviation. I used to be in the RAF and things like that

Are you still the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine

I have a slightly different title now. I'm the consulting editor. There we go

There we go. There we go indeed. Because it doesn't happen very often. That just means that we ring out to you sometimes from the studio

Well, the thing is, when I was in the RAF myself, the king as it was the queen at that time was my boss Yes technically And I had an awful lot of time for her and I still do when I think about her Good Now King Charles I think you know given that he got the monarch job

I think he's doing it reasonably well. But what is the job? What are the terms of reference

And as soon as you start thinking about that, there's a sense that it all begins to fall apart

which may be why we don't think about it. Because we don't want it to fall apart. So there's a sort of psychological self-deception going on

But then you've got the Daily Mail leading all the other sort of right-wing tabloids

And there's just a huge amount of deference and, you know, praise for the, well, for the magic

Yeah, for the mystique, the intangibles. And who doesn't like the trooping of the colour? Blah, blah, blah

A little bit of pageantry. I always think of the pyramids at that point. People always say you need the royal family, otherwise you can't have the pageantry

And I think, well, no, you don't. That's like saying you can't have the pyramids. The pyramids are still very popular

Big old tourist attraction, but there ain't any pharaohs anymore. We're going to have people outside Buckingham Palace for the rest of our lives

despite the fact that the king doesn't live there anymore. Which is mad. It's not even a particularly impressive building

I've been there. More on that later. It's 11.33. Dominic Ellis has your headlines

James O'Brien on LBC. It's 11.36. David was brilliant, wasn't he? In fact, Stephen Thurston was brilliant as well

Maybe the way to have interesting phone-ins about the royal family is to ask why we never have interesting phone-ins about the royal family

But I sense that we're groping in the dark towards something significant

And it is that the more you think about it, the more ridiculous it becomes. So perhaps we've been gaslit into not thinking about it very much

I think there's possibly something in that. Paul goes in a different direction

He says, I think it's because people either love them or hate them. They're the personification of Marmite

There's never any nuance. I mean, I think anybody with a strong opinion

either loves them or hates them, but I don't think that you can rule out ambivalence

as being part of the answer to my question. It just doesn't feel as important as it did in the 1980s

when we were debating it every 10 minutes. We're all preoccupied. We're all too preoccupied

wondering, A, who we're going to get for the next fortnight, James, and B, what major national crisis will occur

while you're on your holidays. I did think that I'd got the dates wrong at the beginning of this week when the Prime Minister resigned

That is normally the kind of event that is reserved for when I am in a different country

for when I am overseas, but no, we've had a Prime Ministerial resignation. Perhaps this will be my first holiday in living memory where major, major news did not unfold

Or, I don't know, maybe the King will abdicate. We can't abolish the monarchy, writes Catherine

because then the Daily Express would no longer have a reason to exist. and it's a boring phone-in topic, says Stephen

because it's essentially futile no one is ever likely to change their mind

there are equally strong and weak arguments on both sides and more importantly, no amount of phone-ins on this subject

will ever change the status quo as the establishment will always prevail I mean, spoiler alert, Stephen

that's true of almost every sub that's true of every good phone-in I love the thought of minds changing

but I don't think that even we manage to achieve it as often as we would like to

and as often as the facts should ensure. Meg's in Hereford. Meg, what made you pick up the phone

Hey, James. Hello. So, I think it's interesting because me and my fiancé have debates about this all the time

like healthy, nice debates, but we do frequently debate about it because he's team

It's a waste of time. We should get rid of it. It takes up too much money, whereas I'm team

But it's nice. It just brings us a bit of joy. plus there's the tourism and the national identity and the stability

And we tried it before in the 1640s and it didn't work. But the reason I think it's a boring topic is because primarily

because the monarchy doesn't make policy. Obviously, the king doesn't decide our taxes, spending, laws, foreign policy

Obviously, they are kind of part of it in terms of, you know

they'll host things and so on. But they don't actually, like, whoever the monarch is at the time

doesn't actually have the power to decide these things. But also... So they've got a different..

Sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to clarify. It's a very different salience to talking about politics

because rightly or wrongly, we think that the politicians are in charge

or will be in charge, and therefore talking about them has a different salience

to talking about the royal family. Exactly. I like that. That's true

And I think the big one as well is that the debate often does then end up becoming about personalities

instead of principles. Yeah, but they can be good phonings. I mean, tell me that you didn't chuckle

when I pointed out how stupid Richard Tysh is. That was about a personality. Well, absolutely

You see? No, but like, when it's the royals, we often end up focusing on the individual

rather than the actual institution as its whole. And so then the debate often then becomes targeted

obviously rightly or wrongly, on specific people than the actual constitution. I think people are just relatively content with what it's like

Well, Stephen Thursk isn't. Stephen Thursk isn't. And somehow, I don't know

I mean, it's conditioned into us from a very early age, isn't it? I don't know what your fiancé's background is

Fairy tales. Look at fairy tales. Exactly, exactly. You don't question it

And I remember when my daughters wanted to dress up as princesses, albeit that they were a bit more Disney than Windsor

It was gorgeous. and I loved it and I didn't allow myself to sort of start

trying to give them Republican lectures while they were pretending to be Elsa out of Frozen

Exactly. And I think like with the palace at the moment, with the money and so on

I was reading into it last night when it first came out and we were talking about it and it said about

a lot of it was to do with like boilers and wiring and the piping and that it was naturally kind of

there was some safety concerns regarding that. And we were discussing it and obviously it is a lot of money

and tourism does bring in a lot of money and they are going to be opening it up to, like, more

because obviously the king won't be there. But then we were discussing how... And what's the point of it

If the worst thing happened, well, if the palace burned down, like if something catastrophic happened

and the palace burned down, the people would mourn. People would mourn it as if it was a monarch themselves, I think

An iconic building, really? Yeah, if you're not... Again, it's another London thing

like the conversation we had about London yesterday. If you live here, you possibly don't imbue it

with quite the same mystique as you do if you don't live here. It's going to be very weird, though

When you're not to Danburn, it was like, everybody was so sad, like, worldwide

It was horrible. But I do think that neither side has a monopoly

because all the evidence... Well, what if Sharik is right? ...turns into values rather than facts

What if Sharik is right? It's boring because it's designed to be boring

lest people actually start having the debate. Yeah, yeah. People need to start looking at the..

That would be David's point, I think, and possibly Steve's as well. that was lovely i mean i i don't want to cast aspersions upon your domestic arrangements but i

i doubt that these are the most interesting conversations that you have with your fiance

oh yeah we love it we love a healthy debate we all love you're in the right place 11 42 is the time

um chris is in by fleet chris what do you reckon i think the main issue that we have with why

ultimately the debates seem boring is because although we have kind of the monarchist versus the Republican debate but I feel like the ground has shifted beneath our feet over the last 30 years And in fact we living in a very different paradigm So the principles don really align with the debates we having

because we can talk about who controls everything and who's ultimately the power behind the governments at the same time

Currently, it's very clear that every policy that the US is currently making is because oil companies want to have licenses to drill

Yes. And that is really, you know, so the principal debate is elsewhere, I think, perhaps

and there's too much grey and wobble for people who are entrenched. Yeah, also, I wonder, actually, listening to all the calls

because this word entrenched, it's a lovely word, isn't it? So you're either entrenched or you're ambivalent

And if you're ambivalent, then neither of the entrenched sides are likely to sway you

So if we had a heated debate about it on this programme

it would be, to my ears, and I accept that not everybody hears what I hear

it would be quite dull because I've heard it all before, and so have you

We've heard it all before. Tourism and this and that and the other. I think Megan Hereford made this point

We've heard that so many times before, that it is going to seem a little bit boring

But it wouldn't be boring if it felt as if there was a constituency of people

that could go one way or the other. So if we were having a referendum at the end of next week

on the abolition of the monarchy, it would somehow feel much, much more interesting

than it would when we're not. Because the ambivalent gets... The ambivalence is removed from the conversation, I think

I'm just letting that settle. Are you there, Chris? Yeah, no, I think that's wrong

I think ultimately, and again, it's where it comes down when we talk about, you know, as you mentioned

obviously, the infernal ratio, the 48-52. Again, that's where that sits. that's where that wobble sits

and it comes down to who can maybe shout the louder and what's the point in me

having a strong opinion or indeed engaging with this debate because it ain't ever going to

lead anywhere which means you've got to have a really strong opinion to start with and if you haven't you're not interested

I think there's something in that this is like the kind of

the chemistry of the time that we spend together every day why some subjects work, why some subjects don't

why some presenters Nick Abbott could read the phone book every night

and it'd be utterly compelling radio. Other people can be conducting the technically most fascinating subject under the sun

and you'd rather have a milkshake. It's coming up to quarter to twelve

You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Up next, the MP, Wendy Chamberlain

who is doing the Lord's work when it comes to a medical condition that, well, it's controversial, it's confusing

and it's very close to my heart as well. Find out more after this

James O'Brien on LBC. It is 11.48 and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

I hope I'm not going to get into trouble with my next guest, but I was scheduled to visit the House of Commons yesterday for a debate

but we took the view that it was far too hot. And so we didn't go

Happily, the debate unfolded anyway, led by Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife

and crucially chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Pans Pandas. Now, if you haven't heard of Pans Pandas, you probably have, if you think you haven't

If you read a headline that says things like, Jack's parents were told he was autistic

in fact he has a little-known condition that can be triggered by an everyday infection

and cured by antibiotics, not quite cured, but that's the Daily Mail

for once doing something of which I heartily and completely approve. It's drawing attention to a condition called Pans Pandas, or Pans and Pandas

an infection-triggered autoimmune neuropsychiatric condition. And Wendy was leading the debate in Parliament yesterday

because there is some movement on this that is largely positive, but we want more

What prompted your interest in the broader subject, Wendy, to begin? Thanks for having me on, James

Always a pleasure. I think like any MP who gets interest in this condition

it's usually because a constituent gets in touch because they are struggling to get help and support for their child

both from a medical and indeed from an educational perspective. Because one of the things about this condition

is the sudden onset of the symptoms that young people who get it experience

is just pretty devastating for a family. It's OCD, it's tics, it's food avoidance

It's just basically absenting themselves from everyday life, from schooling where they've normally been doing quite well

And the infection trigger that you described, it sometimes can be a few weeks after an infection

So it's very difficult to put two and two together. So I had a constituent who basically was struggling for support

I got involved. They were fortunate enough to have the means to go private to get the right antibiotics and support

And that's very much the norm. And from my perspective, I just think of potentially those children who are undiagnosed with families who can't afford or support getting and paying for private support

And therefore, those families in their entirety are written off. When we talk about the crisis in mental health in young people, I do wonder if PANS is part of that picture

And it's just it's described as a rare disease. I'm not convinced it's rare

I think it's more undiagnosed. Yeah, so, I mean, you know my wife works in this field as a psychotherapist, and I think she would chime with that fear or suspicion, the idea that there will be a lot of families who are dealing with an almost overnight transformation of their child's behavior with some conditions that present as mental health conditions like OCD and then some physical symptoms like tics and spasms

but which may well have a completely physical explanation in terms of brain inflammation caused by the strep virus

or by black mold or by Lyme's disease. There's so much work to be done on working out what it is

and it could be good news in a sense for families who are still baffled by what it was

that caused such a complete turnaround in their child's conduct, their child's condition

There are guidelines coming because when my wife first started working in the field

there was still a lot of resistance to it even existing. It's often the case if you've spent 10 years at medical school

and then someone comes along and says, oh, here's something you've never heard of. A lot of doctors, not all, happily

but some doctors will push back against that and tell you to get back in your box

But the guidelines that are coming later this year, I think they're due in the autumn, they will hopefully change that part of the story

yeah that that's very much what we're hoping and as i say i got involved in 2022 i held a debate in

the last parliament where and we got some positive response from the government but progress has been

really slow and and some of that sadly is due to some resistance within medical practitioners

sometimes we talk about a postcode lottery often in terms of conditions but sometimes it can be a

GP lottery even within a practice. I've had another conjecture where one GP will be supportive

the other GP will basically not when they know a flare up is happening and antibiotics are required

So it is really challenging. So it's about that guidance getting out as far as possible

about it being accepted by many community and clearly we need to have a lot more research. Now Panspanda, the charity that works

with the APPG, they've been having to fundraise themselves for things like survey studies etc

and given how I am concerned and I think other MPs are that this might be more widespread

it's difficult to understand why we aren't putting a priority on this when we took a look at children's

well-being. So that was the point of the debate yesterday. You knew that the new guidance was

coming in the autumn but you but you wanted to focus the mind on on these issues yeah we wanted

to ensure that we were continuing to hold the government's feet to the fire it's the first time

we've had the opportunity to properly get a response from the Labour government in relation

to this wanting to have that say that reassurance that they were addressing it and for me you know

my colleague asked some specific questions around what engagement is happening across the devolved

administrations because um it's a you know from a scottish government and nhs perspective we're

seeing exactly the same challenges for families um the phrase that always resonates with me and i

know you used it in the house yesterday is that the parents are seeing their child disappear before

their eyes did you get what you wanted yesterday in the house i think we had a cross-party support

and one of the other conservative mps julian lewis was talking about the fact that actually

that acceptance that it might be Panspanda and some antibiotics being prescribed might be the

thing that stops it getting deep seated. What we do often find is children go into that mental

health wait times and in that period the OCD, the ticks just embed themselves so it's much much

more difficult to unravel. Look yes we got positive noises from the government yesterday

but it's quite clear that we need to do more on this front and one of the things I've thought has

been really important, appearing directly from the children themselves. So we actually a couple

of months ago had the Panstanda Youth Board come into Parliament, engaged directly with MPs

And one of them was very good because he did say to us, we, you know, this group, we are the voters

of the future and we're going to be paying close attention in terms of what you do. But to hear

that, you know, parents talking about their children disappearing overnight, but how terrifying

must this condition be for a child who from overnight goes to, you know, being lively

outgoing, performing well academically to basically cut off from their friends family and the community around them

it must be dreadful dreadful. This is then a rare example of things

getting better I think Slowly, too slowly is what I would say but yes

it feels like we are finally seeing some real consensus and real movement

but for those families who as they can't seek private health support in order to

alleviate this condition there is so much more that we need to do and in fact it's a cost saving aspect as well of course because if

you spend that money now then you're going to save a fortune in the long term as with so much

of your world um so much of politics wendy it's um it's a funny one isn't it it's a yeah um a final

question there will be some parents listening to this and possibly some people listening to this

who are hearing bells ring in the back of their brain what what do they do now what do they get

get in touch with the charity? Yeah, I think I would recommend that in the first instance

certainly engaging to see the different resources they have that are available

And indeed, get in touch with your MP. I mean, for all the..

Yes, it was very hot yesterday, and it was a shame. Some of the families that we'd hoped to come along

made the difficult decision not to. You know, there are a lot of MPs who are engaged and interested in this work

and actually more of them will be so when constituents get in touch with them

to highlight the challenges that they're facing. And for people who don't know, an APPG, an all-party parliamentary group

is a bit like committees. It's where, in many ways, our parliament is at its best, at its strongest

because it works across parties, it works with common goals, whether to scrutinise or to frame or promote legislation

And so a quick shout, not just to you, Wendy Chamberlain, but also, as you say, to Sir Julian Lewis

who is of course a conservative and judging by his comments yesterday

really knows his stuff and Julie Minns, the Labour MP up in Carlisle

and I think Freddie Van Mielo, one of your fellow Liberal Democrats

really interesting to hear people talking about knowledge they have come to

as a consequence of representing their constituents so timely reminder that you do some good

after all you lot we certainly try to do our best and on this stuff where you can reach cross-party consensus

I think it's really easy to just think of politics as we come in and we

we sort of are completely blinkered and we don't engage with other parties you know for myself a Liberal Democrat you know when I started in 2019 there were the 11 of us

you don't get anything done when there's only 11 of you without trying to work on a more

collaborative basis. That's beautifully put Wendy Tamler thank you Liberal Democrat MP for

North East Pfeiffer, as you hear, also the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on PANS Pandas

which is, I think, I told you this a while ago, actually, something that is going to become more and more familiar to people as more understanding is achieved

I'm going to squeeze in one more call, and given that that was a Scottish MP

it's appropriate that we will take a Scottish call on the question of why those royal phone-ins

don't necessarily sing in the way that most of our phone-ins do

Eileen's in Hamilton. What would you like to say, Eileen? Good morning, James. I think it's a brilliant phone-in because I was saying to your researcher there

as well as questioning each other and having a wide debate on it

it's made me question myself this morning and question my own opinions

As a practicing Catholic and my family is of Irish descent, fundamentally I am against

the royal family, however there's an element of we're not going to get rid of them

they are here to stay so let's use them to the best of our ability

Dumfries House is a great example of where the royal family can

benefit all parts of society and lean on social justice which I'm very

strong about, really passionate about so let's use them more as a commodity, rather than just saying

oh, they're lovely. I think the King would agree with you on that. I think the King does see his role

as being very much engaged with his subjects' lives. I don't like the word subjects any more than you do

but them's the breaks. That's how it works. And that's the King's Foundation, Dumfries House

which is, again, something about which very little is known. And I think Jess Phillips, do you know this

It's amazing. It's amazing. I think Jess Phillips said recently that the King's Foundation was pretty much the only charity in her constituency

doing a certain type of work with young people, offering a kind of place of sanctuary for young people

I could have got that wrong, though, so don't sue me if I have any. Promise? I should add as well, they should be under more public transparent scrutiny

So, for example, just putting it out there a wee bit controversial, but if million was paid to someone the former Queen son didn know didn meet didn whatever If there was more scrutiny all those years ago I firmly believe Virginia would still be alive

And those women would feel, and those victims would feel more believed

and more credible in their accounts of what actually happened. And that ties in with what David was saying about the money

and about it being all very well that we're learning about the tax today. but if we'd known that someone who is essentially a public figure

was privately making the payment that you allude to, then yeah, maybe some alarm bells would have gone off

and some scrutiny would have followed. And you remind us of all the different elements of the conversation

that are fascinating, even if sometimes it feels as if the central element

on the monarchy's existence or otherwise has lost its sting in recent years

as Sharique suggested, possibly almost deliberately. Well, OK, I stand corrected. I thought that was fascinating

Every call was good. Not good enough to carry on for another hour, I don't think

I don't think the appetite is there. And there's a story I want to talk about that just again plays into one of my all-time favourite subjects

which is about education as an end in itself rather than a means to an end

James O'Brien on LBC. It is five minutes after 12. James writes, Rich, your response to that question about the Duchy of Lancaster was brilliant

I wonder how many people picked up on it. Enough, Richie. Enough people

because you got it, and even if no one else did, that's my little gift to you

Keith got it as well. That's my little gift to you. If you've no idea what I'm talking about

you can listen back on the Global Player to the last hour of the programme

and a nice little, I would estimate, early 80s Birmingham-based pop reference

that I managed to squeeze into the conversation about the royal family that I was having with David

And it's good to know I'm not the only child involved in the programme today

Rich is with me every step of the way. I like this

I need to confess something to you. I think I've told you this before

But as I get older, and as my children reach the relevant age

to what I'm about to discuss, I think of it more and more. My university education was completely wasted on me

I mean completely wasted. It was a waste of money, and it was a waste of time

And that was entirely my fault. if I could go back now and

spend three years four if you include the year that I failed

I told you it was a waste of time if I could go back now and spend three whole years

of my life doing nothing but learning and reading and studying and listening

without any real other worries alright I'd hold down a job in the union bar

or I'd be selling suits on Regent Street on Saturdays but I didn't really have

any other worries my rent was paid my um this is of course in the days before tuition fees what an absolute joy that was

and here's the thing when i say that in those terms you don't hear somebody describing a commodity

you don't even hear somebody describing something that has an immediate application in the workplace

do you? I wish I could spend three years reading and listening and learning

You know, you get to the end of the first week of your holiday and your relationship with books

has changed because you can spend two or three hours reading one and you suddenly remember

what it was like when you used to read like eight books in the summer holidays or more sometimes

And that you just lose that as you get older. You're too busy, you're too easily distracted

even without the invention of smartphones. There was too much going on

And I used to be proud of my approach to my studies

because I got a good degree and I got it by doing the same things that I did

when I got a good A-level, a good set of A-level results. I did absolutely naffle for most of a year

and then I spent a week cramming furiously and my brain was such that that was enough

to get me over the wire. Of course, if I'd worked all year or if I'd crammed for a month, I'd have done even better

But I did well enough and I was proud of the fact that I didn't do much to get my results, whereas now I'm ashamed

Isn't that a strange thing? That in my early 20s I'd be proud of the fact that I could get a good 2-1 from an excellent university without having done any work

Except the year that I actually failed, which is a slightly different story. I'd kind of forgotten to give up one of my papers that I was entered for

And I was proud of that. I liked that kind of sense of, a bit like a kind of predictable right-wing newspaper pundit

boasting about how little work they did. I think I've seen Jeremy Clarkson doing something, and I like Jeremy Clarkson, for the record

Not as much as he likes me, but I do like Jeremy Clarkson. And now I'm just ashamed

Now, I don't think that I wasted my dad's money, or my mum's money particularly

because it wasn't built in that way, the higher education system. and I was self-funding for the repetition of the year that I failed

But I was... I'm ashamed now that I wasted that wonderful opportunity

I'm never going to get it again, I don't think. I did a course

I didn't tell you at the time, I don't think, because I thought you might laugh at me. I did a course earlier this year

at the City Lit College in central London, which is largely adult..

Well, it's entirely adult education. It's largely... It's entirely voluntary. What do I mean by that

You can do anything there. I think you can do, like, ballet dancing and basket weaving

or you can do 19th century continental philosophy. It's one of the most wonderful places

that I've discovered in London in the last few years. I've been here a long time now

There's not a lot left to discover. But you know what Dr. Johnson said, he who is tired of London is tired of life

But what I loved about this building was the fact that it was full of people who were generally older than me

I think there must be a very high incidence of retired people there

because you've got to be free in the day to go and do a course. There's more in the evening, but mine was in the day

So I suspect if I was going in the evening, there would have been younger people there, people who were still working and then going along in the evening to the higher education college

And what I loved about the place, the building, was the energy

The energy. There was people who were engaged with an educational environment

in ways that actually were inspiring. People were not there to get a better job at the end of it

People were not there because they were on a conveyor belt from kindergarten

and the next stage of that conveyor belt, because of their background and their class, was university

They certainly weren't there to faff about for three years and then cram in the final weeks and get a half-decent degree

They were there to learn for learning's sake. Isn't that an interesting phrase

To learn for learning's sake. Why are you studying that? I want to get a job in that sector

Why are you studying that? Well, I think that it might be... Why are you studying that? Because I just want to know stuff

I want to do it. Think about it in physical stuff. You go to a dance class

you're not expecting to become a prima ballerina. You go to a tap class You not expecting to be the next Ginger Rogers or the next Fred Astaire you just enjoying it You do it purely for enjoyment But an intellectual an academic course it used to be normal that we do it purely for enjoyment that the education

was an end in itself. Drama, all right, I've told you now, I did a drama course, I did

did a draw acting course quite good actually um if you're very good i shall i shall do my i did my

audition piece for eleanor the other day and she just looked at me as if i was behaving inappropriately

i thought you'd be more interested and excited by my adventures in drama classes at the the stage of

my life absolutely stone cold board before i'd even drawn breath it's a great monologue as well

you know the one that edmund gives about astrology about how he would have been as i am

I would have been that I am had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my..

Keith's fallen asleep. Keith's actually fallen asleep. Wake Keith up, will you

Eleanor did a degree in English, and she's bored rigid by my King Lear monologue

Keith's actually fallen asleep. So I don't think I'm communicating the sense of energy to my own colleagues

that I derived from that place, but I know you get it, right? That idea of people gathering there, making friends, but learning and studying

Which is why I find these stories so dispiriting. Young men studying arts and humanities are worse

off on average if they go to university than classmates who do not. Government data

median earnings, published yesterday. If you're in your mid-twenties, then in the 2023 to 2024

tax year, particularly with arts degrees, the kids that went to university will be earning less than

the kids who didn't. If you want to know, and this kind of tallies with the point I made about

commoditisation, the biggest earners were those who studied economics at Cambridge University

So if you did economics at Cambridge, you'll be earning £105,000 a year on average within

five years of graduating. The lowest ranked course and institution combination was Allied Health

at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine. I don't even know if they should publish this stuff

Is that a phone-in? Should they even be publishing this stuff? Do we have to turn every degree

into a financial transaction? Because if you go to the City Lit College in London

those people there aren't calculating their enjoyment of that degree or the value

not doing degrees generally, but they're not calculating the value of that course

by how much they will earn as a consequence of having done it

They're calculating the value of that course by how it makes them feel

and what it does to them. And now we have government... Is this new

Have we always published government data on what the relationship is between a certain course and income? Have we

I don't remember this from when I was of that age. Graduates who had studied law, economics, business and management did better

Women earning between £6,200 and £13,200, more than their cohort, their contemporaries who didn't go to university

Men, slightly less, £2,600 to £11,000, more than their non-graduate peers. But the gulf, the biggest gulf

is between men who did arts degrees versus men who did no degree

and men who did arts degrees earn less than the men who did no degree

What's the question then? Young men studying arts and humanities degrees are worse off on average

if they go to university than classmates who do not. The question is, are they really

Are they really? are you someone who listened to me talking about wasting my time at university and

thought well I'm glad I didn't are you are you that part well I'm glad I didn't I got loads out

of doing my arts degree what I didn't get was a qualification that's going to improve my earning

potential. But the idea that I'm worse off than the lads who didn't go at all, goodness me, no

I discovered things that will be with me for the rest of my life, whether it's a poem or a novel

or a picture, whatever it may be, the idea that a degree is to be discouraged because you won't

earn more money as a consequence of having done it, that depresses me actually. But I'm so out of

the loop on this. I left university so long ago that my experiences are irrelevant. And I've got

one daughter at university whose approach to her studies is so completely different from mine

that I learn little from her except what it would be like to be the kind of student

who loves learning. I had these moments of loving it. I had these little moments of loving it

But never really got that sense of being there like I got when I was at the City Lit College

and everybody was just there because they wanted to be and they wanted to learn

So, what do you get from an arts degree if not money

and of course I don't want to confine this to people who have done a degree

I'm interested in why there is a growing sense that they're trying to disparage and denigrate

the arts as an area of learning you know I have a big theory about fascism I think that fascists

hate the arts because the arts teach you empathy the arts are one of the only ways in which you can

imagine what it would be like to wear somebody else's shoes you watch a play about a refugee

your attitude to refugees will change. You watch a play about a sportsman, perhaps

You watch a play about the England football team under Gareth Southgate, and your attitude to all of that will change

Your attitude to racism might change. Of course, the people most in need of the exposure to these kind of things

are often the people least likely to experience it. That's why putting arts in schools is so important

getting to people when they're young. But I hate the way... Was it Oscar Wilde who said

a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

Sounds like Oscar Wilde. Let's leave it with Oscar. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

Headlines like this, an arts degree doesn't pay for men in their 20s

looks to me, as a man in his 50s, like an example of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing

So what do you get from studying the arts? And I know you could come away now with 60 grand's worth of debt

which might make my position both romantic and ridiculous, but that's what the phones are for

So tell me, James, you've got to give your head a wobble. You're being romantic and ridiculous

An arts degree is not worth anything because of the amount of debt that I've come out with

But what do you get from studying the arts that people who never studied the arts don know What is it that you get 0345 6060 973 is the number that you need

And if you're older than me and you've studied later in life, I'd love to hear your answer to that question

When you're not there because of the conveyor belt, you're not there because it's Buggins' turn

you're there because you want to be. What do you get from studying the arts that has nothing to do with earning potential

Hit the numbers now, you will get through. 03456060973. It's a funny one, isn't it

Because all of that kind of ifalutin romantic theorising could be pointless and irrelevant and anachronistic

and completely out of date because of student fees, because of tuition fees

I sit here and say to you, tell these people why it's worth doing an arts degree

even though it doesn't improve your learning. And you can, I think, be forgiven for saying to me

shut up and sit down, James. That might have been true in 1991, but it's definitely not true in 2026

But I want to explore it. And I want to still get to the nub of the question

of what you get out of it other than the money and other than the earning

because it's quite, I mean, do you understand why I find it depressing to see a list of degrees linked to earning power

I just genuinely don't know whether that's a new thing or not, but it wasn't

I went to the London School of Economics where you're probably more conscious of the relationship

between your qualification and your earning power because so many of the students there go into the city

and go into financial jobs. And even there, on the Bachelor of Science Economics faculty, even there, learning for learning's sake was kind of recognised and valued

But maybe the world has changed so much that what I'm saying, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling begins to sound either ridiculous or out of date or both

But I really hope not. I really hope not. I really hope it is still worth having a conversation about why an arts degree in particular

because they are, in some sense, the least valuable in financial terms, is valuable for other reasons

Maureen's in Chichester. Maureen, what would you like to say? Well, I absolutely feel that I have an understanding that people who go to university straight from school

or don't have any sort of early education, early higher education, I would say

because I know what it feels like to be an adult that's uneducated as well as an educated

and highly educated actually now adult as well. So I get the difference between those two things

and can therefore value, if you like, education much, much better than if I'd either just gone straight to university

or had never had the chance. So I get to those places

Well, tell me about it. What changes? Well, what changes? You get to understand a world that you were completely confused about

Actually, because I'm in my 70s, I used to feel there must be something wrong with me

I didn't understand these things. Everybody else seemed to understand them, but not me

What sorts of things? Well, politics mostly. Okay. So an Open University social science degree was where I started off

So I didn't get all that lovely stuff that kids do when they go off to university, all that amazing sort of friendship-making thing

It was just an intensive education for me whilst I was bringing up my kids

Why did you want to do it? I always had that feeling that there was something out there

that I didn't understand and I didn't get. Yeah. And even though I read, you know, classic books

and did stuff like that and pondered things, I always felt that, you know

somehow I must be stupid if I don't get it. So, yeah, so education sort of helped with that

and then helped with a career. Then I went off and became a nurse therapist

But it would have had a value even if it hadn't had a career application. Oh, absolutely. Because what you've described is

it's almost the core of you was changed by studying. Completely, James. That's absolutely what it is

I learned how to learn. That's so, so important. That's what kids get when they go to university

They learn how to learn. Just out of curiosity, why was it not a path available to you when you were sort of 18, 19

Oh, well, girls... Just because I'm nosy. Girls at that age, especially when you're educated in the East End of London

where there weren't the places for girls, was quite a barrier to, you know, to females

And do you know where I'm coming from when I describe a sense of depression at seeing this chart

of degrees linked to earning power? Yes. Yes, I absolutely do. I absolutely do, and I hate the idea

that kids have got to pay for that higher education as well. Yeah, but they do, so maybe this is a natural

and an inevitable consequence of that. Well, thank you, Bore, you put that beautifully

How quickly did you feel the change in you when you started studying, that learning to learn

How quickly did you become more intellectually secure or at least less insecure

I will say my absolute first tutorial was an amazing experience. I had a lovely chap called Mr. May who had been a tutor at Oxford, I think

And I said, I had it in my first essay and said, look, this is no good

Please just tell me and I won't waste anybody's time. And he came back with, no need to rewrite, Maureen, you're definitely one of my star students

Oh, Maureen. What a lovely moment. Oh, no. Do you know who never would have said that thing you said to him about it possibly not being any good

A man. Yeah. It reminds me of callers to the show sometimes

Never get a bloke, ever, saying, oh, I'm not going to be as good as all your other callers

And it's part of what you referred to. I wouldn't mention it otherwise, but it's part of what you referred to as the common experience

when you were in your late teens? Expectations, really. Casey's in Barnet. Casey, what would you like to say

Well, I'm slightly cheating because I didn't get a degree. I got a diploma in the 70s going to a drama school

which did a combined teaching course. And I thought, I'll never do teaching

And I'm 72 now. I'm still working. And, of course, teaching is part of that

And what I don't understand, we are all different. I value what other people bring, but I, like you, think learning for learning's sake and teaching children from 6 to 18 every day, giving them confidence, giving them a voice, letting them enjoy a variety of literature, being in other people's shoes makes them human

What makes humans different from maybe animal species is our wanting to record our value of the richness of our culture

And that makes our life more beautiful, aesthetic and pleasing when we're doing those grinding jobs that some people have to do

And if you don't bring on the musicians, if you cut all the courses and you devalue drama and art

music. What have you left? The slaves for the planet. Flipping heck. I think you've killed the phone in Stone Dead, Casey

What can we add to this? Well, the Greeks and Romans knew they valued art and sculpture and plays

Do you sense, I'm just drawing upon your years now, if I may

do you sense that the direction of traffic is changing, that the discourse is becoming more negative about..

I think there's a slight change, because although the numbers for, say, studying music have really gone down, and orchestras, okay, tastes change for sure

But you know yourself, the richness of literature. I also examine, so I see children and different plays being performed, and, you know, we have to keep wanting to use it

You know, I love, you know, diverse accents, cultures, and that is wonderful that we are getting that

But we have to support the arts. If we are a civilized society, we have to record who we are

It sets us apart. And empathy is so important. Yeah, I mean, I bet you're a brilliant teacher

Well, I enjoy it, and I get so much from it, listening to their ideas, you know

Can you, and forgive me if this is an unfair question, I don't want to put you on the spot

but can you describe what happens to a child who hasn't been exposed to any of the things

that you've just waxed lyrical about, when they, thanks to the ministrations of a teacher like you

when they actually do discover them? Well, you often see children come in

who don't feel their opinions are valued, or they come from a sort of strict situation

We know class sizes, you know, they're going to reduce a bit, aren't they, now

But, you know, when they got big, they don't get an opportunity, you know, the show and tell mentality, allowed to be excited about their experiences or a rock or a stone they bring into class and allowed to say why it's important

But it's sort of not valued and their chance to speak aloud

So they're getting their parents to go to their university interviews, I've been told

I don't know. They answer the phone to the boss and they say, oh, sorry, Mr. Smith's in the loo

I mean, appropriate. You mean young people sort of feel that they matter through the arts

more than they would do otherwise, I think? I think it gives them a voice

It allows them a safe space to share their thoughts and opinions and ideas

and to get excited about them. And yet I have to point out that we are all, three of us

the first two callers and me, are all of an age where the access to these things was

if not free, then in my case, a fraction of the cost of what it is now

And that doesn't in any way dilute the beauty of what you've said

but it possibly changes the relationship of that young person with the experience

I don't know. You know, coming away with £50,000, £60,000 worth of debt

then it doesn't make anything you've said not true, but it possibly makes it harder to justify on the part of a young person

12.31 is the time. Amelia Cox has your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC

12.34 is the time. This story has been around for most of this week

but it hasn't received anything like the coverage that you might have expected. And so I'll just divert from our conversation about an arts degree for a moment

with your permission. A UN commission of inquiry says that Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank

It alleges that Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children

and that those killings continued even after last October's ceasefire in Gaza

There are only really three responses to this story, aren't there? There is utter disgust and condemnation

There is, I presume, approval or some sort of argument that, oh, it's all very sad, but it's inevitable

Or there's denial. And those final two categories are often sometimes quite hard to tell apart

because you will remember when the Israeli government utterly rejects this report, calling it a libelous sham

They used to say the same about the figures coming out of Gaza

They used to say you can't trust those and people would come on the radio show and say

oh, you can't trust those figures. They're from the Hamas-run health ministry. But of course, as we often say on this programme

some things are not opinion, some things are just counting. And eventually the official figures would have to be..

Well, I don't say they would have to be, but you would find it very difficult not to acknowledge the official figures because they kept the names

They kept a record of all the names. And they did, again, in a story that was criminally underreported

The Israeli government eventually accepted that the figures that had been put out from Gaza were on the money, as it were

73,035 is the bare minimum number of people killed in those Israeli attacks

and that includes 21,280 children. Those figures from the territory's Hamas-run health ministry

are considered reliable by the UN because, as I told you several times

they kind of keep a record. They keep the names. So now we've got the commission accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

That was a report last September that found there were reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention had been carried out by Israeli authorities and security forces

Again, the government in Israel called it distorted and false. but it is I suppose inevitable that people who denied what was going on are now ignoring the evidence that it was going on which is why perhaps some people are not drawing attention to these stories and these reports and these findings

that include, of course, humanitarian organizations in Israel and beyond. But it's the targeting of children in Gaza directly by shooting at their vital organs

using precision weapons such as quadcopter drones and snipers and by using high-impact weapons in strikes on residential buildings

schools and displacement camps crowded with children that this report focuses on

And as I said, maybe some people need the arts in order to develop empathy

and maybe some people will never have any empathy at all because my coverage of these issues has been really kind of defined in some ways

by the outrage some people seem to have at the sense of heartbreak at the death

equal heartbreak at the death of a Palestinian child or an Israeli child

Because, of course, the Palestinians, or at least Hamas, were also guilty of war crimes and other grave violations of international law

on the 7th of October 2023. Three. If you're normal, you find it easy to acknowledge both of those things

And, of course, inevitably, you count. But only, I guess, if you're normal

12.39 is the time. Back to the conversation about the arts. And I suppose I should apologise for the fact that I didn't share that with you soon

I just presumed it would get a slightly higher status on the national news agenda

But hey-ho, here we are. Paul's in Coventry. Back to the arts and their value, Paul

What would you like to say? hi James nice to speak to you likewise yeah so I

I'm in my 30s and I used to lead contemporary theatre and performance

at uni and I completely agree with you in that there's so much more to the world

than just finances but you have come out with a large amount of debt of course

yeah and I'm still not rich I'm still not financially rich but I think there's

I think my perspective of it is that you can be miserable in the highest paying jobs in the world

That's true. And so, for me, I get a lot more worth out of what I learn about people through my job

So, if I could just explain briefly one of my projects that I brought about

I run a project called the Museum of Me, which essentially plunks a museum structure in a

community space and then works with 10 residents of that area. but every day it becomes a museum of a different resident

and it gets to share human stories and we have an opening ceremony

where the community can come along and have a drinks and canapes reception

and meet somebody of their community. And I've been doing it just a couple of minutes ago

I kind of did it in Sully Hall and it was with the newly arrived members

that have come to Sully Hall over the past few years. That included Ukrainians

that included Hong Kongers, that included people who put up Ukrainian families

And, like, just what you learn about them and what you get to share about them

and seeing kind of the environment around them really taking pride that they're part of Solihull

and that they're part of this is, to me, so much more meaningful

than getting 105K in five years. Was this your own idea? Yeah

That's fantastic. Yeah, it's a new story. What a wonderful idea. Thanks

You are Paul O'Donnell I'm Paul O'Donnell, yeah I'm just looking you up

I'd not heard of that before but there's loads here that's really, really impressive

Yeah, we told the story of an 8-year-old person who came over from Hong Kong when he was 3

and now lives in Fully Hall it's very cheeky, very playful and it's just, I think

the arts is really good at kind of breaking that division that we're all feeling in

the world at this moment in time, because when you apply it to a person

and you see Jan or you see Sandra or you see whoever it is

you read what actually is going on behind this and how they've got to the point they are

at this moment in time. That's where I feel like the power, particularly in the world at the moment

that's where the real power and value of arts is. That isn't financial

It's personal. It's community. It's bringing people together. It's connecting. You are

You are. I love this tagline that you have on your website. You are, you, you are worthy of a museum

And that, of course, means everybody is worthy of a museum. Yeah, I mean, every... Because every subject is a story

Yeah. And every person's individual story, I feel, is universal. And what we really love

and literally every single person we've done a museum about has said to us

I don't know why you picked me. There's nothing interesting about me. And then you asked, like, two more questions

And we had a really great interaction in Charlesmore, which is my home patch where we did the museum

And the local radio were there interviewing people. And a woman kind of went

oh, I was thinking about applying to be a museum star for this

But I didn't think there was any sin interest about me. And then two questions later

it turns out that she and her sister were the first conjoined twins to be separated in the UK

Are you serious? Yeah. That's incredible. How do you pick people then

So people apply, do they? It's a bit different every time. So we're going to do it because we're based on Coventry

Yeah, great. We're based on Coventry. But we've just been promoted to Premier League

And so we're doing it. We're going to be doing it later on in the year when the season starts again

with football fans who stick to the team through sick and thin. Oh, I love it

I love it, I love it, I love it. Where did you get the idea from? My arts degree, maybe

Just while you were studying? You just came up with this idea of recognising..

My degree was in contemporary theatre and performance, so it's a little bit different

but it taught me... The skill it taught me was that there's a future beyond this present

Like what is next for arts What is next for theatre What is next for the world What do they need And so it built in me kind of a way of going

okay, somebody else is doing that, how do I do something different? Lovely story, brilliant thing. And a word

if you would, just on your background, because I got one text, I've lost it now

saying that this was a conversation confined to people of privilege, which I thought was a bit unfair

what was that sorry a word on your background because I got one critical text before you came on

saying that this was a conversation confined exclusively to privileged people and that people who weren't privileged

would not recognise all of the things that we were describing as in

in relation to the art I think they meant private education I just wondered what your background was

I mean for the first five years of my life I'd say I was in a

quite working class background not particularly deprived at any point in my life, but I have moved into kind of a middle class, after that, into

a middle class kind of environment, I'd say. But I live with diabetes, I live with, I'm

a homosexual, like, so there's lots of different ways to decide for what privilege means

That's a very true point. And I'm pretty sure that would not have included you in that criticism

And it was a reasonable point that was made. I just wanted to pick up on it. I love this

So you just Google Museum of Mead to find out more about the work that Paul and his colleagues do

That's absolutely gorgeous. And then every subject has a picture that you can click on and find out more about them

Because that's so true, isn't it? I'd never, ever, ever thought of that. Every person is a story

It's 12.45. James O'Brien on LBC. Bit cheeky this, but I'm going to play you two clips from Full Disclosure this week

Because they're relevant to the phone-in that we're having. and because I've told you quite a lot about the subject

of this week's interview, Beban Kidron, or Baroness Kidron to you, sort of best known for her filmmaking

She made the film of Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

She's got an extraordinary CV, actually. All sorts of films. To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar

You probably remember that. Starring Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze. That's after she moved to Hollywood

something that she talks about. She directed the second Bridget Jones film

with, well, you know who's in that, Renny Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant

loads of stuff. I mean, just loads of stuff. And then she set up the Kids Film Club

which is relevant to what we're talking about today, an educational charity that sets up

after-school film clubs in England and Wales, free to all state and primary, secondary schools

Gordon Brown heavily involved in that when he was Chancellor. But I told you about her yesterday, if you weren't already familiar with her, because she made a film in 2013 called In Real Life, which looked at teenagers and their relationship with the internet

And her life changed direction at that point. She made another film or two subsequently, but she's dedicated most of her energies since then to campaigning for action on children's access to and use of social media

I mentioned to you yesterday that she must be, the first question I asked her during the interview was about how the rest of the world has finally caught up with her, because she's been in this space since 2013

And one of the things she was most interesting on was relevant to what we were talking about in the first hour

So how on earth do we end up with tobacco not being legislated against when its health negatives are so obvious

How on earth does the fossil fuel lobby continue to poison us and have support from politicians, some of whom are being paid, some of them are probably too sick to understand anything and don't even need to be paid

And I think that the social media scandal that has engulfed younger people right across the world probably has similar answers

And that, I think, was one of the questions I'd put to her. And that's what this was in response to

I had a chat with someone who was very, if I could say, you can't get any higher up in the security services in the US. And they were saying to me, you know, that they were looking at a piece of research. They were looking at why government does

I had a chat with someone who was very, if I could say, you can't get any higher up in the security services in the U.S

And they were saying to me, you know, that they were looking at a piece of research

They were looking at why government doesn't work. Of their area. Kentucky, you know, California, New York

What would be good for their constituents? And they were ruthless because they wanted to be reelected

Since the mid-80s, they have consistently voted for what suits the top 10% of earners

Democracy is no longer representative. It is bought. These guys are trying to get in power and stay in power

They are not seeking to represent us. And when people look at their own choices, I ask them to look at that, right

And I'm going to say something so outlandish, which is I don't care anymore

whether they're left, right or in the middle. I get that. What I want to know is, are they independent? Are they for me

And I don't mean me in a tiny way. I mean me in my neighbourhood

Yeah. And that is what it is. And so I think the answer to your question is we've been bullied and a combination of bullied into distraction

So we're all worrying about the wrong thing. Yeah. We're all sort of just busy scrolling and worrying about how thin we are

And at the same time, you know, the people who are supposed to represent us

have given up that job, and they're representing the other guys. And in that toxic mess comes through five companies that seek to rule the world

Literally. Literally. Because I suppose listening back to that because I conducted the interview a couple of weeks ago listening back to that I suppose if you are not happy with the amount of priority being given to the interests of the richest people in the world by the electorate

then you could just give £5 million to a politician in the hope that the scales would be tipped even further away from ordinary people

Just thinking out loud. She'll get on to the subject of the tech itself shortly

but I want to squeeze in one or two more calls before then on the question of the actual value of an arts degree

rather than the price of it. Matthew's in Bexley Heath. Matthew, what would you like to say

Well, I'm doing a physics degree at the moment and I'll be quite honest

is that the most value I get from my degree is not even the very science-y sort of things

It's quite a lot of the very interdisciplinary modules and the other sort of things I learnt in uni

And looking at my friends who did sociology and all these more political degrees

and more liberal arts degrees, there's immense value that you can get from just being able to grapple with the sort of ideas they learn in the course

And I do have a little bit of jealousy, I'll be honest. Oh, how interesting. And yet your degree is probably more financially beneficial when you graduate

Yeah, yeah, that's why I picked it to begin with. Fair play

I mean, you're describing swings and roundabouts, aren't you, in a way

It's, you know, the trade-off you get may hopefully, will hopefully be financial

but you sense when you look at some of your peers that you're losing something as well

or you're not accessing something as well. Yeah, I think as well, like, as time goes, and also with the over-looming presence of just kind of AI

and also how it's used in media and just kind of information like that

like, I've got my opinion. yes of course well you're obviously not shy of critical thinking either but just give me a quick

sentence on what it is you think they get that you don't is well i i'm trying my hardest to get

to get to their sort of understanding because i've been trying to supplement my myself with

reading and all that sort of stuff but when you do a degree you spend an immense amount of time

doing these sort of activities and tasks and the amount of research that goes into like even for my

lab reports have spent an ungodly amount of time universities they force you to spend a large amount

of time on these very important activities and space I don't want to sound all

like an old beard, a grey beard but you think you're struggling

to find space and time now wait until you're my head but I know what you mean

I do know what you mean And I would say, in full patronising old git mode

I would say that if you're even thinking like this, then you're okay

If you're even aware of what it is that you think that you're not getting, you're probably getting it

You're certainly aware of its value, which means you're okay. The people I would worry about most are the people that Oscar Wilde was talking about

when he described knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. At least I think it was Oscar Wilde. I haven't checked

I know that it was Beeb and Kidron that I was talking to for full disclosure this week

because I've checked, and I'm always slightly gratified by how many people, how many of you have already listened to it

by the time I come to plug it, because it drops early morning on Fridays

And I can tell you now that this has already garnered an awful lot of approval from people who've listened already

She's a magnificent woman. She's a fascinating person. And her life has been dedicated latterly

to dealing with precisely the social media and technology issues that the rest of the world has finally woken up to

And here she is on that subject. The most is when a minister comes to the dispatch box and says, we couldn't possibly have anticipated or we don't know enough or we have to see how this rolls out

And I go, no, we don't. We understand. We've known for a long time. It's political. It's not practical. Stop pretending it's practical

And so, actually, I really welcome this moment. I really celebrate the moment. I think that the public anger about AI, the parental anger about social media, the fury of young people about where their jobs are going, I think that's really proper

it's really important and I would say right from the get-go that's where my

book ends up it says we have to take democratic control back and you know

what guys that means you you who are listening not people like me who have

this privileged place in Parliament so I said bring it on but you have been

warning about the dangers that are now in the papers every single day for well

over a decade I have I have I walked into my kitchen 2012 was the moment when a smartphone

became the price point that an adult might give one to a child I walked into my kitchen and there

were four 15 year old girls not talking and I just thought why aren't they talking I mean I've never

seen four 15-year-old girls not talking and then I realized they were looking at

the phone and I had this thought I just it just popped in my mind and it and I

thought oh I wonder what it's gonna be like to grow up here like in my kitchen

here and there and then I went where is there and that idea that idea that there

was another there at the end of the phone that I didn't know I didn't know

what it was. That changed my life. And that interview could change yours actually. It's that good. Absolutely

fascinating. Beban Kidron on Full Disclosure this week. That is it for me

from me for today and indeed for the next two weeks. I will

be back, I promise. All being well but if you're going to miss me then obviously

The Global Player contains all of our shows going back a fair old distance

LBC app similarly and there's an archive of Full Disclosures and Mystery

Hours and The Daily Show as well. You can listen to all of those and James O'Brien

Daily, the best bits of this show every day. So do download that. It's free from your app store

now. Ben Kentish is in for Tom Swarbrick at four o'clock today, but now

it's time for Sheila Fogarty. Thank you