Spotting the children at risk of being jobless adults | James O'Brien - The Whole Show

It's three minutes after ten. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

The reason I mentioned Alan Milburn a moment, a short moment ago

is because he is, of course, leading the review into Britain's crisis in youth worklessness

And he is nothing if not thorough. His latest intervention is, to my mind, extraordinary

He is suggesting that primary schools in England, So that are the schools, you know this already, but just to double check, the schools that children attend up to the age of 11, 11 years old

Primary schools should be required to identify children at risk of leaving education at 16 without finding a job

So, I mean, it's not quite minority report territory, which, of course, looks at the likelihood

or the imminent inevitability of somebody currently, non-criminals, committing a crime at a specified point in the future

But it does feel a little bit, not dystopian, because it's not necessarily a bad thing to be doing

but certainly, what's the word that I'm looking for? It's a bit sci-fi, isn't it

It's a bit science fiction. primary schools in England should be required to identify children at risk of leaving education at 16 without finding a job

And I think all I really want to do this morning is ask you how you do that

He said the warning signs are there from a very early age, a very early, early age

You know, frankly, from preschool. So definitely primary schools should be identifying children who are at risk of being neat

And secondary schools and other services should be intercepting, intervening, supporting and helping those young people to get on a different path

And I mean, I've bored you rigid, I think, over the years on why I find this sort of stuff so fascinating

Well, actually, do you know what? I hope I haven't bored you rigid. But I'm conscious that I might have bored you rigid over the years with part of the reason why I find this so fascinating

And the reason I labour the point is because I don't want you to think I'm being all holier than thou

My interest in it is not born entirely of the idea that, oh, we've got to help the underprivileged

We've got to help the people who aren't like me, you know, exercising your middle class privilege

I have an image in my mind of me without having had the advantages that I had from a very early age

as a consequence in large part of being adopted, as we talked about with Carol Homden from Coram earlier this week

And that means, of course, that I'm wondering what I would have been like

what my adulthood would have been like, what my childhood would have been like, what my attainment levels would have been

what my academic performance would have been like if I hadn't had the upbringing that I had

I don't know that I can communicate to you unless you have a background a bit like mine

I don't know if I can communicate to you how absolutely fascinating I find this

I think it might be where a lot of my politics comes from. Actually, this idea of the..

Oh, you know that I am repelled by people who were born 3-0 up and think they scored a hat-trick

You know, I was adopted 3-0 up, if you like, rather than born 3-0 up

but it never for a moment occurred to me that that meant that I was possessed

of particular gifts or attributes. But the gifts and attributes that I was possessed of would not have flourished or been able to grow in different soil

Listen, I'm not suggesting for a minute that nobody born into a poor socioeconomic background can't excel or achieve

But I don't think you're not really going to argue with me, are you, over the idea that it is a huge, huge signifier

the context, the environment, the family, the background, the education, the early years that you enjoy or endure

will have an enormous impact on what follows. It's at the heart of almost everything, actually

I think it's probably where the word comes from, isn't it? Educate, to lead out, if you take it from the Latin

you're leading out from childhood to the adult. And you've got the Jesuits who used to say that

If you give me a boy at seven, I'll give you the man at 18. The idea that our childhood influences and experiences

do not influence enormously our adult results is... Well, I don't even think I need to make that point any more powerfully

Think of it, if you like, as Jenny's just... Johnny, forgive me, as a sliding doors moment

Who would you be if you weren't currently you? it's not quite a phoning question that is it but i bet i'll do it one day who would you be

if you weren't currently you so you would have exactly the same dna right you'd have exactly

the same genetic makeup your hair would be the same color your body shape would be more or less

identical although of course you may reflect some of the socioeconomic evidence regarding

obesity and diet and socioeconomic condition you would but everything else would be different

You don't have to be Philip Larkin, do you, to think that your mum and dad may be responsible for messing you up

But equally, your mum and dad may be responsible for giving you the qualities, the beautiful qualities that you possess as an adult

I just can't. I can't express to you how, I mean, you must have heard me go on about it a lot over the years

but I cannot express to you satisfactorily how utterly fascinating I find it

And it's why I think we circle back together so often to elements of the so-called neat crisis, because it's a central tenet of Christianity, I think, that there but for the grace of God go I

so you look at somebody who has been dealt or is being dealt a really rubbish hand of cards

and intrinsic not only to christian doctrines and i'm sure other religions as well but also to that

difference between empathy and sympathy which i think it was charlie and newton abbott when we

were talking about men's mental health and and people's responses to his travails and difficulties

the difference between sympathy and empathy sympathy is putting an arm around someone and

saying poor you and meaning it empathy is is understanding empathy is like god yeah that must

be awful for you that must be you know beginning to imagine what it might be like to be that person

so christianity teaches there but for the grace of god go i empathy teaches the idea that what

you are going through is not your fault and education teaches or gives you skills that you

can deploy to end up in different places. Who would you be if you were not you? So I, just to

drive the point home before we get to the phone in question, I would have been the illegitimate son

of a 16-year-old Irish farmer's daughter who got pregnant at 15 and didn't want to stay with the

man that had got her pregnant There quite a bit of detail in the paperwork that I found and dug out of the attic to be honest with you when I wanted to apply for an Irish passport And that who I would have been I have been the illegitimate son of a rural

Well, obviously, it wouldn't be an urban farm, would it, in the middle of Ireland? But I would be the illegitimate son

of a single teenage mother in a country that was under the

extraordinarily oppressive influence of the Catholic Church, which of course we've subsequently discovered

the full, or not perhaps the full but the horrors of what many Catholic

priests were inflicting upon children but the teenage, the illegitimate son of a teenage mother

in rural Ireland, a teenage farmer's daughter, not wealthy, by any stretch

of the imagination, there is no earthly way that I would be me today

if I'd stayed there is there? there's just no way I'd be me

and yet of course I'd be me and that's a massive sliding door

there's loads of little ones you know, if your mum or your dad didn't smack you

when you were little, would you be different today if they didn't shout at you a lot and you are still frightened of loud noises

or you still nurse anxiety if you hadn't had that teacher who turned you on to maths

or drama or English literature or poetry or physics or carpentry or whatever it was, if you'd not had that teacher

if your parents didn't instil in you enthusiasms for things that they were enthusiastic about

If your dad didn't drive you to your athletics meetings, who would you be today

Who would you be today? Because you wouldn't quite be you. All these little variables, some are enormous, like mine

full-on adoption, and there's lots of negatives to be taken away from that primal relationship

that first relationship. You're responding to the smells and the sounds and the noises

and the womb even, it's still fresh in your memory and suddenly you're somewhere else

It's bound to affect you. A lot of us spend our lives convincing ourselves that it doesn't

But it must, right? I mean, it just must, to varying degrees. And then right through to little things

Right through to little things, like being forced to eat semolina at school

and snotting and snivelling and crying into the bowl because you had an absolute basket case of a teacher

standing over you and forcing you to shovel this muck into your mouth

You carry that today. It will explain in some part your relationship with food

or your relationship with something. And how much do we really know about everybody else's lives

Particularly if you bring it down to class and education, which seem to me to be the drivers of almost everything in this country

Class, education and family. In fact, it's education and family, isn't it

Because class is an intrinsic part of both of those things. And then when Alan Milburn says you can tell before primary school

that not all of the children, but the children most likely to end up leaving school with no qualifications

Just sit with that for a while. 21st century. Supposedly one of the wealthiest countries in the history of humanity

Currently one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. I know it doesn't feel that way

because of course they calculate it by adding up all the money. not by dividing it between the number of people that are actually living here and trying to scratch a living

So you sit there and you know that they think they can tell at the age of 4, 5, 6

who's most likely to leave school at the age of 16 without any prospect of a job or entering into employment or training

Now, half of you, I mean half of you, not half of the audience listening

Half of you, or 52% of you, is thinking, yeah, well, this is blimmin' obvious, James

Of course it is. But then the other half of you, if you're anything like me, is thinking

God, that's mad. How can we still be on these rails? How can we still be stuck in these furrows

How can we still be stuck in these tracks? But we are

and I don't want to use phrases like hand wringing I was about to, I'm just sort of editing myself

it's right to address these issues from the end of the process

of course it is, otherwise you're consigning 1 million 16 to 24 year olds

to a lifetime of borderline oblivion it's right to say how can we help

the young people who are currently needs how can we help them

get into employment education or training. But my goodness me, when you suddenly clock what Alan Milburn's talking about today

the idea of stopping the conveyor belt of needs at the beginning of the process

is an absolute no-brainer, right? What's the best way of making sure that 10, 20 years from now

let's say 15, between 10 and 20 years from now, we don't still have a million young people

not in education, employment or training? And variables aside, what's the best way of doing it

Well, spotting them really, really early and then giving them the help that they need

I suspect the first bit is much easier than the second bit. I'm going to ask you about both bits

but I suspect spotting it really early is a lot easier than either working out what help is needed

or, hardest of all, successfully, satisfactorily providing it. so you know more about this than i do if you're if you're minded to ring in that there are two

i suppose approaches to this question that you might adopt what one is i i can tell you james

from from the benefits of my experience i i can tell you which should we say five-year-olds for

the sake of argument or just under 11s which children which young children are most likely

to leave school at 16 without any meaningful qualifications or direction or ambition

How do you spot them? What are the signs that you have clocked

0345 6060 973. What is Alan Milburn talking about? What is the red flags

I don't know. The behaviours, the alarm bells that we should be better heeding

It's the first time in more than ten years that the figure has surpassed a million

but of course it has, I think, surpassed it before. So this is a systemic problem

This goes back to basics. It goes, to paraphrase John Major, it goes right back to not satisfactorily spotting

the children who are on this sorry path. Because I don't imagine anybody wants to be

This is a slightly tougher question to answer. what was it like to be one of them when you look back now you kind of realize particularly perhaps

because i don't know how broad your experience is particularly perhaps when you listen to a very

privileged person like me talking about my background and childhood and i do it a lot

because i can ask you to talk about yours without sharing with you what i think is relevant about mine you look back now and think do you know what I think I was doomed when I was five And you may not have fulfilled that prophecy I hope you didn fulfill that prophecy

but you look back now and recognize that you were in precisely the category that Alan Milburn is talking about today

So, first question, how do you think you can tell, or how do you tell, which very young children are already likely to end their education without any qualifications or directions

And secondly, were you one of them? What do you think other people should have spotted about your childhood that might have, and maybe it did

Maybe somebody did. I mean, that was the best story of all, really. That's the call I really want, because I'm a sucker for a good story, for a good luck story

What happened to you that you think pulled you off that path

and meant that you didn't end up fulfilling the prophecies that Alan Milburn's work today kind of makes

The number you need is 0345 6060 973. I don't know what RONI tools are, risk of NEAT indicator tools

They're already in place in some schools, trying to spot the things that make a young person more likely to be a NEAT

And some of them might be obvious to you, but let's work as we often do together from the principle

from first principles, from the very bottom of the story. What are those indicators

0345 6060 973. And am I talking about you, do you think

Hit the numbers now. You will get through. James O'Brien on LBC

22 minutes after 10. At first glance, it is a little bit science fiction

Alan Milburn says you can spot the pupils at risk of joblessness when they're five, when they're in preschool

and most certainly when they're in primary school. And yet, the more you think about it

the more you find yourself thinking, yeah, of course you can, in many, if not all cases

But what should you be looking for? And don't forget that there will be exceptions. There will be outliers

There'll be children from incredibly difficult backgrounds who somehow manage to thrive in circumstances

And there'll be children of enormous privilege, of great privilege and luck and serendipity, who really struggle

That is the rich tapestry of life, if you like. But what would we be looking for

And do you think that this person that we're describing, this mythical child of Alan Milburn's legislation, Alan Milburn's thinking, was you

Was it you? Sue's in Worlingham. Sue, what would you like to say

Hello, yes, I'd like to talk about the parents, because parents need..

I don't want to judge the parents, but surely that's where it all starts

Rich language experiences, play-based activities, talking with them, guiding them, all of this sort of nurtures..

So what would I be looking for at school, at primary school, or even preschool

that would provide me with the indicators of whether or not that was happening satisfactorily

Well, children who arise perhaps with speech delay or not able to have social cues with other children

Also, parents who don't seem really engaged, perhaps, with their kids and don't come to meetings at the school

I'm a former deputy head and class teacher for many years. And, you know, I think it starts right at the beginning

And it's not about judging the parents. It's about there's no support for parents in terms of not training

But, you know, these family hubs are quite good because that's where it used to be Sure Start

You encourage parents, you nurture them. You talk about child development. You talk about enriching their language and their play

This is another Osborne's Razor scenario. If things have got worse as a consequence of Shawstart being closed down

then the responsibility lies at the feet of George Osborne's policies, austerity policies, just for that little element of what you're describing

Well, yes, I suppose so. But for me, it's about encouraging parents

because when I was teaching as well, the children who didn't... The parents didn't come into parents' evenings either

And I always felt you cannot aspire to something that you don't know

So if parents are not modelling going to work or having aspirations

then children, you know, stay stuck. And COVID did have a problem that parents are staying home Friday after

you know, Fridays, oh, let's stay home and wear slippers. Oh, I won't send the children to school

So they fell for, you know, behind a bit more as well. So it's about nurturing that and helping parents understand the importance of the early years

How do you break that cycle? I mean, you know, I don't want to do a role play, but let's imagine a parent who never had the things that you're describing themselves

who thinks that school is a complete waste of time, teachers are all lefties who are always on strike

Whether the kid is going to go and work in manual labour or not work at all is immaterial

How on earth do you persuade that parent to change their attitude to education so that their child has a better chance of receiving one

Well, I think that's where early years practitioners, school teachers, there has been that sort of gap where teachers think they know better than the parents

Just tell me what you think they need to do to reach that particular father

Engage the parents. I suppose I'm asking you how do you engage that parent. Yeah, so break down the barriers between, you know, the walls and the bridges and all that

Invite them into the school to hear, you know, reading. I'm not coming to the school, Sue. Don't be silly. I didn't go to school when I was a schoolboy

I'm not coming now when my kid's there. Well, then maybe the family hubs are a great place

to encourage parents to see that reading with their children is a really great thing

because that empowers the child with all sorts of things. Talking with them, playing with them, aging with them

I don't want to badger the witness, but all of these things are kind of self-evident

It's more, and maybe I'm being unduly pessimistic, but it's more about that initial..

Because this is quite a big ask of a parent who's never thought about any of this stuff before

to expect them to suddenly care about things that nobody cared about when they were young

and that they have never cared about themselves subsequently? How do you persuade them to care

Well, I think the government at the moment around ideas of screen time

is a very important topic, isn't it? Around that, you know, diminishing all sorts of engagement with young children

Yeah, but again, I'm thinking about the parent who's always on their own screen and reaching them with a message about how important it is

that their children behave differently from them. is something we've talked about a lot on the programme

And this is unrealistic to expect you to have all the answers, but I just wonder whether we're starting a bit late in the process

Some of the stuff is indeed self-evident, it's kind of obvious. But what do you do

I'm happy to play the role of the parent who just doesn't really care, not a bad person particularly, just utterly unengaged with education

doesn't see the point of it, didn't see the point of it when they were at school. Why would they see the point of it for their child

There must be something you can do for these people. What is it

Christine's in Aylesbury. Christine, what would you like to say? Hi, James

First time call a long-time listener. You're very welcome. I want to say I would, on paper, have been a neat at five

Why? Tell me why. My father was an immigrant. I was the youngest of five

None of my family had been to university before Not necessarily You wouldn mean you would have left school just on those criteria alone that you would have left school at 16 with no qualifications or aspirations

I mean, the immigrant experience often highlights the importance of education and getting ahead and the next generation doing better than the last one

even more than some homegrown families do. Agreed. But you also then look at what the indicators are that people are going to have to use

So attendance, I was a very sickly child. My attendance was under 80%

Behaviour, I had undiagnosed autism and ADHD, so I would go completely off the rails if I thought something was wrong

And I had free school meals. There were so many indicators. Boxes you would have ticked

Yeah, and I'm just really scared that some teacher's going to leave this open on their laptop

and there's going to be some colour-coded spreadsheet and little Tommy's going to see that, oh, they don't think I'm going to get a job

I'm not going to bother. And I'm just really scared of the self-fulfilling poverty

this could make for a long time. Oh, wow, I hadn't thought of that. So it ends up doing the opposite of what it's designed to do

and it paints a stigma on a small child's back. Yeah, and at the same time as well, teachers are human

You get 33 kids in the class, and you're absolutely told by the data, these five down here that keep playing you up

they're never going to amount to anything. Ignore them. But that's what happens now

Yeah, but it's going to be even worse if someone can go, well, they've always been like this. You know, I'm really scared that it's going to cut opportunities off for people

But how else do you help the children who most need help if you're not going to identify them first

Smaller class sizes, more support staff. So things that would help everybody

Yeah, absolutely, because you have to help everyone. It can't just be targeted on who might be needed

Everyone needs a better opportunity. If you look now, I look at my goddaughter

I look at the other children in my life, and I just worry that the jobs that they thought they might have won't exist anymore

So it's not as easy to predict, I think, as it might look like it should be

Well, I mean, the indicators that they reach for first don't all apply to you

Although I think that neurodiversity and special educational needs are obviously going to be quite a large part of what we're talking about

But being in care, being in poverty and having poor mental health

are the first three obvious indicators. And this is really interesting. I hadn't thought of it this way around, Christine

There's an adage, isn't there? There's an old proverb about if you raise the water level

then all the boats rise. I forget exactly what it is. Whereas this is about identifying the boats most in danger of sinking

and doing special remedial work on them, as opposed to improving the sea level for everybody, for every boat

which means that all the boats benefit, and of course the ones that benefit the most

are the ones that were previously most likely to sink. If I was taking that ogy to its logical conclusion

I'd point out that even if the water levels rise, if your boat's got a hole in it, you're still going to sink

Yeah, quite. And just as your last caller, where he's talking about the relationship of parents and schools

if we can improve the school experience for everyone, you will have less disaffected parents

who are on the school side from the beginning. you know i i taught in schools for over a decade some parents just come in combative because they

didn't get on at school of course of course and and that doesn't help what um but it's not their

fault what what broke the model for you do you think why did you not end up where you think you

might have been predestined to end up um i why are you laughing i use my family as the model of what

I didn't want to be and then I used university to get out of a very small village and I didn't come

back. Oh okay that's a powerful answer but I see why it's a slightly discomforting one. 10.31 is

the time. 03456060973 is the number that you need. There it is. I hadn't thought of it that way

around. I mean is it wrong to try to identify the children most need in need of help because

a you potentially stigmatize them and b you kind of separate them from the herd as it were

Whereas if you're going to improve all of the conditions for all of the herd, then the sickerly child will benefit most

Dominic Ellis is here now with the headlines. James O'Brien on LBC

Rising tide raises all ships is the phrase that I was somewhat clumsily reaching for

And is it a counterpoint to what Alan Milburn is suggesting? Alan Milburn leading a review into Britain's crisis in youth worklessness, calling for children to be spotted even earlier

I mean really early, as being potentially at risk of leaving school

without any qualifications or particular ambitions. The warning signs are there, he says, from a very early, early age

Frankly, even from preschool. And some of the warning signs will be obvious

Some of them, I think, less so. But the question of what do you do to address them or undo their impact

I think is almost impossible to answer. it's going to have a lot to do with luck as well

you are lucky if you have an incredibly inspiring teacher or adult, youth worker, care worker

come into your orbit I'd also say something else about the kind of school I went to

which may land a little oddly with you but I was at school with boys

whose parents were entirely negligent and largely absent I remember the boys who didn't even go home

during the school holidays not the big summer holiday they'd go home for that

but they often wouldn't go home for Christmas or Easter So they'd either go and stay with other boys' families

And, you know, there may have been a whole variety of reasons for that. But if you've got the money and you send your child to a boarding school

then a huge amount of the burden of parenting is being done by somebody else

So, you know, there are socioeconomic anomalies built into the idea that poorness equals underprivilege and privilege equals serendipity

I guess the more privileged your education, the more likely you are to be given the tools to overcome some of the impacts of having poorer parents

less committed, less loving parents. Here's a really good example. I never did any homework ever, James, like literally ever

And I remember feeling very lucky that my parents never asked me about it

I'm not sure I feel so lucky now. So, I mean, that's a really, that's a zinger of an example

uh i i someone i know and i know that that you know they haven't gone on to lead a life of neatness

but if you were looking for a reason as a teacher to keep an eye on a kid or to be particularly

concerned about a kid the fact that they never did any homework ever would suggest that their

home life was not exactly conducive to appreciating the benefits of an education i i just i just wonder

now, having spoken to Christine, whether identifying the exceptions is the best way forward

But anyway, I want you to tell me what they should be looking for, what you already are looking

for, and crucially, I think, how you undo it. What do you do with the knowledge

So here are the warning signs. What do you do? How do you respond to the warning signs

10.38 is the time. Sophie is in Winchester. Sophie, what would you like to say? Good morning, James. I'm also

a listener and my first time caller. Welcome aboard. Why has it taken you so long

Thank you. No, quite. I agree with what the other two callers were saying

I'm also a teacher and have been for a long time. I'm a SENCO as well at the moment, and I've taught in both state and independent sector

And I've also taught right from year R, four-year-olds, all the way up to A-level

And I think ultimately the identification, the early identification, is really, really important

I think we are really at risk of getting the identification, we're getting it wrong

So lots of children are either missed or they have a wrong diagnosis

because we haven't got enough people trained or people that understand all of the ways to diagnose

I also think that we're trying to find reasons for children that are finding it difficult

and they often might end up with a diagnosis that's actually not real

that actually doesn't matter. But I think the biggest thing in all of that is

I feel a bit like, once again, it's the families or the children

or the teachers that are going to be getting the blame when actually I think really what we know is

the education system is broken. And I think it really is going back to that

So if you've got a child that you're looking at thinking, well, they're not going to go into a job

if you can tell that, then surely we need to be looking at the provision

and thinking to ourselves, well, you know, how can we change their education

How can we make sure that their education gets them through their little pathway

and their journey and understands their unique brain so that they get to where they need to get to

so that they can contribute to society and community? Finding something that they're good at or finding something that they can engage with

Absolutely, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not here to defend the government and it's a little bit early for anyone to even try

But I think they're making that case as well, aren't they, with the talk of apprenticeships and Lucy, is it Lucy Powell, the education issue

Yeah, Lucy Powell talking about educational straitjackets and recognising that the system inherited largely, I think, from Michael Gove

but things have never really been perfect in education in this country, is massively restrictive and unhelpful for many children

even though it allows adults to sort of grade and mark and assess almost constantly

So I think that they're making those noises. I think that they're not even making the noise

I think they mean it. You know, Milburn's appointment as well under the last Prime Minister

under Sir Keir Starmer, being relevant to that point as well, may even have been before Starmer

But you must also recognise, I mean, the three things they point out

poverty, mental health, or being in care, increasing the risk of a child becoming a NEAT

I don't like that. I still don't like that word, but it's in common parlance now

There's no harm in spotting it, Arlie. there's no harm in saying we better just keep an eye on James

because he's wearing his big brother's old shoes and they're still two sizes too big

And he's obviously, he spends half of the year in care because his mum can't cope

There's no harm in doing that, surely. No, absolutely. And I think those things are really important

and they are signifiers. I think what is really important is to make sure

that the people that are dealing then with those children can adapt in that moment

And that's a big ask. That's a really big ask. But a child that's five years old

and comes in and has slept last night in the stable with the horses

and hasn't had any breakfast and doesn't know where she's going to be sleeping tomorrow night

she couldn't give two hoots about how to spell the word treasure

And there's a sound in the middle of it. You know, her need needs to be met before that

And her need is, you're safe, you're being looked after, you're cared for here

talk to me about it. So it does go back to that mental health and recognising that really, Ali, certainly

And also mental health in younger children is obviously incredibly different to older children

And if you're doing that with her, there's 30 kids who aren't getting the attention

that they also need in the rest of the classroom. I mean, that is, I suspect

and I hope we will take this in the spirit that it's intended. I suspect you're brilliant at what

you do. You explain it all with a clarity that I haven't really come across much in this

kind of arena, but what on earth is the answer? I mean, you need

to have, so you do identify the children, and you silo them, you

teach them separately, because that little girl that you've talked about, it's an extreme example

but it's an incredibly helpful one. What do you do with her in the context

of a better system? um well that's it that's yeah exactly you're supposed to tell me now

you yeah you make it okay for her in that moment and then there's 30 other kids

yeah not getting your attention yeah absolutely yeah absolutely more training more money please

the government well it's amazing how many of the conversations we have go arrive at two

simultaneous destinations one is sadly osborne's razor the idea that a lot of the things that

we're dealing with are a direct and obvious consequence of austerity, although 2020 hindsight

is a wonderful thing. And the other is that, yes, it will cost money today, but it will

save a flipping fortune tomorrow. Yes, that's exactly right. And then we're here again, aren't we? We're here again. I mean it. You do sound as if

you'd be brilliant at what you do, and up to and including the fact that you're very honest about how hard it is to come up with a really powerful answer to some of these

points. They'll be personal ones, and by personal, I don't really mean anecdotal. I mean, there

will be examples and stories, and you might have one yourself, of being, if you like, rescued. But

that's a sort of almost Victorian language of patronage. I can't think of a better word. Here

is a child on a career course, on a heading for a lifetime of being unfulfilled and possibly

indolent. Here is a future neat, and you rescue them from that future. And I suspect that whoever

rescued you from that future was exceptional. And that's the problem Sophie articulates, is that, you know

your average teacher has got a heck of a lot on their plate without also being

called upon to provide exceptional interventions in the lives of a comparatively small number of their

charges. Time for your call on this. 0345 6060 973. Maybe there aren't any solutions

at the moment, but tell me what you would do in order to rescue these children from

neatness. It's 1045. James O'Brien on LBC. 10.47 is the time you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

where we... I've gone in slightly unexpected directions, the conversation this morning

looking for the warning signs that Alan Milburn identifies as providing the system, adults, teachers

with early indications of young people, very, very young people, who are likely to end up being in neither education

employment nor training when they reach 16, 17, 18 years old, but a real dearth of answers

to the question of what you do beyond the magical inspirational stories the anecdote the magical inspirational stories I think we move on in the next hour to a magical inspirational story

that has turned out to be nothing of the sort. Well, I don't know, you see

I refer to the Cambridge academic, Jason Arday, who has been caught up in this extraordinary avalanche

of allegation and accusation, many of which appear unanswerable which is probably why he's decided to resign

he's been on full disclosure you know might be worth listening back to that

and seeing whether or not you can identify any holes in his stories

because I certainly didn't but I'm not at the moment entirely sure what the phone-in will be

we should certainly talk about it we should certainly try to talk about it and it is another story

or it was originally a story of overcoming epic adversity and achieving great educational honours

And yet many, many, many, many elements of that story are now being called into question

It's not really relevant to the conversation that we're having now, but it did just jump into my mind when I used that phrase

you know, incredible and original stories of overcoming adversity. 1049 is the time

If you think you can help me out with that conversation, then be sure to stick around. Yasmin is in Morden

Yasmin, what would you like to say? Hello, James. So I'm assistant head in a school for children with social, emotional, mental health difficulties

So they've all got special educational needs. Most of them are neurodiverse

And one thing that we've noticed, we have the children from the age of five all the way up to 19

And one thing we've noticed is that actually the children don't have behaviours for learning

So research shows that behaviours for learning are due to three things

Either the student's relationship with their self, the relationship with the curriculum or their relationship with others

And if we identify what those particular behaviours for learning that those children do not have, if we can then teach them to do those things, then they can engage in the curriculum

Because actually they end up in a classroom where they can't engage in learning because they don't have behaviours for learning

And then they go through the whole school system. And I've got children that come to me at the age of 15 and they don't know how to learn because they can't engage in the curriculum

and no one has taught them those specific things that they need to do in order to be able to engage

Like what? And I know this might be obvious to you, but it won't be obvious to everybody listening

So it could be resilience to be able to try again. It might be..

Gosh! Oh, wow! Losing. It might be making a mistake and recovering from it

It might be sharing. It might be speaking with others. It might be a speech, language and communication thing

of understanding what other people are asking you to do. And I think lockdown has made a lot of those things worse for a lot of children

A hundred percent. I mean, that has also caused the literacy difficulties that we've got

So you think our lockdown children that would have learnt phonics, early reading in reception

they're now starting secondary school in year seven. So we've got children who have missed being taught

by a qualified specialist in reception phonics. And so those children are starting secondary school

Some of them can't read. And then secondary schools are not set up for targeting early reading

Of course they're not. So what happens to them? They disappear. They have reading ages of perhaps seven

and then their chronological age gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and then they end up leaving school at the age of 19

with a reading age gap of 11 years or 12 years. And the secondary school system ignores them, really

because to engage with them would be so time and cost inefficient

I think that they've got so many other priorities. That's what I mean. You put it better than me

Yeah, that's the thing is that, and they're also not trained to identify early reading

They don't test reading ages in that same way. We've also got some children who have never learned phonics, and so they learn to sight read

And you think, well, that's amazing that you're able to sight read, because you have memorized the shape of every single word, and then you're able to read

But those children can't spell, because if you can't sound out things, you can't then spell

And so those literacy difficulties become quite prevalent in every area of the curriculum

because they've learnt a coping strategy because they've missed early reading. And then we don't know how to..

So the way that you teach those children how to read is totally different to early reading

because they're never going to get phonics. So you need to do repetition with them

So, I mean, you're nudging us towards things that you can use to undo the damage done in the early years

I mean, how easy would it be to undo, forgive me, but all of it

I think that you need to identify which areas that are the biggest barriers

and then specifically target those. But our education system is broken to the extent that we assume that everybody can learn in a particular way

And they can't, and that doesn't mean they can't learn, but there's other skills that you need to do

And the EYFS do this really well, is identifying what the children need

So that's the early years foundation stage. So when children start reception, sorry, nursery

looking at how they play and all of those things. But then once they start reception, we're ready to learn now

But lots of children aren't. And so if we're not looking at exploration

being interested in the world around you, being able to engage in the world around you

realising that the world around you is relevant. So just everything that everybody is saying that's helpful

boils, if I were to be simplistic, boils down to children getting more attention from teachers

People, yeah, and getting a really diagnostic understanding because you can quantify this and you can sort of screen it

and then you work out, okay, so we're going to work on this particular child losing. And then, because we've got classes of eight children

and I've got three adults in those children, we can engineer opportunities

You can, but most schools can't, can they? No, of course they can't. And of course, just something else that I sometimes struggle with

if you've got a class of 20 or 25 people and they are in the educational straight jacket

and there's been quite rigorous streaming even if it's a state school and it's run by the strictest head teacher in the universe

you can put them in boxes you can tie them up intellectually and creatively

and turn that school into an examination hothouse and you can get brilliant results

you may still be doing enormous damage to those children but they're possessed of the right skill set

to get brilliant results and you publish those and everybody thinks that that's the gold standard

the schools that have got all the Oxbridge places and the straight A's, but the bad stuff could still be going on

not just everywhere else, but also there. Yeah, and those are the children that are most vulnerable

They're the ones that go into and become me, and they fall out of education because they're ignored

and so they're a nuisance until they become incredibly expensive to the state

because when I took over as head of form at my current job

because I've done a couple of jobs there, is we had more children in prison than we had attending our sick form

Wow. So they were all now wrong. We were responsible for them, but they were more..

It's just adult intervention. Not even intervention, that's what makes it sound..

So it is just interaction, adult interaction. It's knowledge and skills. On the part of the adults

Interaction with adults who possess knowledge and skills. Who have the knowledge and skills and a different way of looking at it Not how can I get this child to fit this particular system How can I get this system to work for this child It a tricky one and it is underpinned eternally and endlessly

by the fact that it will cost money in the short term and save a fortune in the long term

And our political system, let alone our political discourse, is simply not geared towards that truth

whether you're talking about defence or education. Spend a lot of money now, save a tonne of money next

That was brilliant. Thank you, Yasmin. Angela's in Waltham Forest. Angela, what would you like to say

Hi, James. Hello, Angela. I was lucky to be trained in the Excellence in Cities project

back in the 2000s under the Blair government, who identified that disadvantage and need

And basically, it's all been done. It's all there. The research is all there

I had the best training that I'd ever had, and I still use those skills today in my job as a SENCO

But at the time, I was trained as a learning mentor in schools who they practically vanished

And the job of a learning mentor was to identify what was going on for children

So they weren't teaching the formal lessons. I would spend 30 minutes a week with identified children

And how we identified them in our school was a nonverbal reasoning test, a potential, the potential to achieve

And what were their actual test results? and if there was a mismatch there was like well this this child's actually a really bright child

there you know that they have potential to achieve what's going on for them so the learning mentor

role was to develop a relationship with that child through skilled activities and games and find out

what's going on here for you that's making that's making learning um difficult or and there would be

a whole host of things that would come from developing that relationship. I spoke

to the person that spoke to me on the phone earlier. There was

a child I worked with who I remember who, when we did the

sort of future you, how do you see your future? And I never forget what he said to me

He said, well, is to work or not to work? That's the thing. Because he'd come from a family who had

never worked. Wow. So to have the skills and to have resources

to help them understand different ways and different pathways. That's what's needed

I worked with a girl once who, lovely girl, who when we got to work doing our lone mentor work together

it came out that her mother was agoraphobic. She had two older siblings, brothers

who were basically ruling the roost, beating the mother up. she lived in a home with abuse and with a mother with severe kind of mental health issues going on

and you know and I've got to say to you I see these children now that I worked with

back in the day and they're big people now with beards and babies and they remember the work that

you did with them because you're understanding what is going on for them and I still use those

skills today in my work in school. So it's about relationship. It's about understanding what's going on

It's about not being judgmental. Not being judgmental when a child comes to school and you say, what you had

And she said, oh, I've got a packet of soft mints, yeah, because you know

that her mother's got mental health issues. That's not the child's fault

yeah? What can I do to help that child to change her

pathway? And all that training was, it was with the John Moores University. It was the best training

ever. Excellence in Cities introduced a sure start before they come to school

Learning mentors in school, in primary school and in secondary school and then connections advisors

Every teenager that left school had access to a named connection advisor that would help

you on your pathway. If you've never had an adult that's been into

further education, how are they going to help you? You can't be

what you can't see and that was all or almost all done away with, was it

Oh, it vanished. It vanished. And listen, just in the interest of understanding things

because I think we're probably on the same side of this issue, and I'm sure we are, but for people who are on the opposite side

they genuinely believe that by sort of cookie-cuttering as many children as possible into exam-passing

or exam-excelling conditions, they genuinely believe that that helps break the cycles that you're describing

That's their genuine belief. I think they're wrong, but they're not doing these things for reasons of evilness

No, no, but listen, it's about opportunity. It's about opportunity, isn't it

Yes. You know, I come from a family of a spicy neurodiverse family

We didn't know them, but we know now because all my children are diagnosed. Sure

And understanding is the key. Understanding yourself. I also love what Andy Burnham's saying about, you know

the talk that's been going on about people on PIP. I love the tone of Andy Burnham because it's about let's support and understand

And let's be honest, you know, it's not really worked the education route for everybody

You know, my daughter's worked at H&M and there's youngsters with law degrees there

Yeah, I know. But it's about opening your eyes to opportunities and potentials

We need more opportunities and potentials for children who find that educational path difficult

But let me say, some of those educational difficulties are because of schools not being flexible enough

I also have a son who's been excluded three times from secondary school with ADHD

We're back to the straitjacket, aren't we, in a way, that Lucy Powell has talked about

You've made me a little bit late for the news, Angela. It's the only reason that I'm moving on. Interesting that you mentioned, and I've written down exactly what you said

I love the tone of Andy Burnham. Tom Swarbrick talking earlier about authenticity

in the context of Andy Burnham, this weird story about him being told to de-bloquify his social media posts

But it made me think of Sir Keir Starmer and the difference between them

When their backgrounds are quite similar, I think they're similarly sincere. I don't think their politics are a million miles apart

and yet one of them lands with the public lands with most of the public

as someone about whom you might say I love the tone of Andy Burnham and one of them really really doesn't

and a little later in the programme I think we might try and pick out what that means

what does it mean to be politically authentic what do we actually mean when we say

he gets it or I love his tone or he's authentic because Burnham has it

and Starmer doesn't and it's hideously unfair on Keir Starmer but what do we mean when we use that language i think we'll do that from 12 up next we will

have a proper look at this story of the academic facing extraordinary accusations

beginning with plagiarism um and then moving into almost every single area of his backstory and

i'm not quite sure what question i'm going to ask you about this but um hopefully you'll have

an answer to it when i finally work out what it is james o'brien on lbc minutes after 11 is the

time you listening to James O on LBC Listen I going to say something that going to make you laugh all right Well I mean if you listen to the program on a vaguely regular basis it going to make you laugh

I do worry about making things about myself too much. You know, at the beginning of the last hour, I found myself thinking

you know, should I talk about my own background again? Should I mention my adoption

These are huge elements to my understanding of a given story. But I don't know, you know, I never really complain about it, but I do sometimes find myself thinking, should I try and make it not about me

I've got that problem, like, times a billion with the next conversation that we're going to talk about

Because, perhaps belatedly, actually, given how the story has been dominating the news agenda this week, and I really do mean dominating, it's still, I think, on pretty much every front page

I speak of Jason Arday, the professor who is at the centre not just of a plagiarism row

about which I did have some understanding before all this blew up, but also accusations about everything from his charity fundraising

to the books that he claims to have written and previous academic positions that he has always claimed to hold

And the reason why I have, if you like, a personal investment in the story is twofold

Firstly, he came on full disclosure a couple of years ago, and I really liked him

Not only did I like him, I found his story incredibly uplifting and inspiring

I've got a feeling that I'm quoted in the publicity material for the book that is still due to be published next month

which obviously is going to make me look like a bit of a Muppet now, if the book contains any of the questionable

or indeed already disproved claims that appear in the biographical detail that is..

I mean, I make no apology for that, because I take people as I find

but it is my, if you like, personal involvement in this story

And I feel, if you're interested, I feel really quite let down, to be honest with you

I mean, it was really just not quite luck, but the letter of support that many people are now removing their names from

that was published last week is something that I might quite easily have ended up having my name on

I've been in touch with Jason Arday until relatively recently, only via texts and things

but with the subtext of him seeking and me thinking of offering my support

And the point at which this started was an allegation of plagiarism being made by a man

who doesn't think black people should be in academia, a man who has gone on the record arguing

that if we lived in a true meritocracy, then people of colour would only achieve prominence

in showbiz and sport, which is, I mean, such an obviously disgusting position to hold

that, like, I mean, almost everybody, your initial reaction to it is to shoot the messenger

And, of course, once they started to examine the message, many, many more problems emerged

There's an academic, a professor called Catherine Schofield. who I follow on Blue Sky

And she has put it brilliantly. She's a historian of Mughal and colonial India

and Hindustani music. And she is, I mean, not only active on Blue Sky

but she's, I think, at King's College London. She put it in four simple lines, this story

The other problem I've got is the opposite of worrying that I'm making it too much about me

The other problem I've got is that you really might not care. The newspapers have gone absolutely bonkers for this story

You can tell by some of the language deployed why, describing Jason Arday as a diversity poster boy

and using his elevation, if it turns out, seems pretty likely to be at least in part unearned

as an argument almost against all attempts to improve representation of people of colour in academia

You can see, well, I mean, the Guardian reports today on a letter circulating at Cambridge that is accusing the University of

unleashing grotesque racism because people will use this story as racists always do to make

enormous generalizations about all people of color. Just think what Nigel Farage did when

Henry Novak was killed by a British man who was brown. Think about how on earth Nigel Farage then

ends up talking about immigrants when the killer wasn't even an immigrant. You don't even have to

think about the Southport story, so the Jason Arde story is a story, it would appear

of deception and dishonesty, and it will be used to make points about people who are not Jason

Arde. In fact, it already is. If you're worried about me making this too

much about myself, Dick Littlejohn in the Daily Mail today tries to make it about me

More on that later, because even by his standards, it's hilarious. And that's the point

that I think is interesting. It is now impossible to defend him from some

of the accusations against him because they are written down and educational institutions are

coming forward to say he didn't hold that role and um publishers are coming forward to say

he didn't publish that book and it appears on his uh on his record on his cv the original

investigation into plagiarism conducted by liverpool john moores university was was quite

self-exculpatory it was quite um you know all they ever really released was an announcement that

they hadn't found any evidence of plagiarism but wiser heads than me would argue that it actually

found that they'd let him down by not properly supervising his phd thesis the person he's accused

of plagiarizing is cited 17 times in the phd thesis if i was going to plagiarize you i don't

think i'd mention you 17 times in my thesis so up until that point some of these accusations were

certainly refutable. They were certainly arguable. But then the floodgates opened and an awful

lot of what came pouring through the floodgates is unanswerable. So it began as a witch hunt

It's almost like it began as a witch hunt and they found evidence of witchcraft. That is a really weird way of putting it, but it speaks to what Catherine Schofield identifies

in this four-point summary of a brilliant article in The Guardian by Jason Ockenday

Point one, his academic misconduct and fantastical claims are pretty clear-cut. He should not have been appointed

Point two, the press-stroke public wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't black

Point three, they noticed in particular because Cambridge made a huge song and dance about appointing a black person

and point four this is on cambridge that's i think a fair pricey of jason ockenday's piece

in the guardian from a couple of days ago which also went on like somewhat to my naive mind

somewhat surprisingly to give other examples of plagiarism and worse among the cambridge

academic community that have not been widely investigated reported or even resulted in

sanction there's one cambridge process professor who remains in post despite having been found to

have published an article that contained large parts of essays copied from one of his own

students um there were also um allegations of Sexual misconduct, which didn't see Professor Oriel Careers brought to an end

And all of this is contained in an article, as I say, by Jason Ockenday

that appears under the headline, The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right and must be a wake-up call for the left

And I can't really argue with any of that. And then you've got the next chapter of that particular process

which is the University of Cambridge's leaders being blamed for the grotesque racism

that is now being unleashed by the original appointment of Jason Arday as a professor

and the subsequent findings against him. And some of them are findings, some of them are, for now at least, allegations

He resigned on Wednesday after more than a week of questions over claims of plagiarism in his PhD thesis and other publications

And the reason why I'm personalising it a little bit is that when I was in touch with him a couple of weeks ago, he must have known that he hadn't held these roles in academic institutions that appear on his CV

He must have known that he hadn't published a book that appeared on his CV

And while he is canvassing for support from people who are sympathetic, usually, to victims of racism, he must have known that there was stuff there that was going to prompt some people who signed that letter to remove their names from it subsequently when other things came out

He must have known that there was stuff in his backstory that was not going to stand up to scrutiny, and there was no indication of that

you know there's a little bit of me now that wonders whether i'm sort of being unkind and

unfair or betraying somebody even by sharing this with you but you feel personally i feel

i should stop using the second person here i feel personally betrayed um sat down for an hour with

the man and marveled at his story had no reason to doubt it you don't really doubt the wisdom of

an appointment that's been made by Cambridge University, do you? Had no reason to doubt it

and was profoundly moved by it. And I'm just a white bloke with a good job. You know, his story

doesn't improve my life chances. His story doesn't open or kick down doors that may previously have

been closed to me. I feel betrayed maybe a bit strong or a bit hyperbolic, but profoundly let

down on a very personal level and i wanted to share that with you because the story is absolutely

everywhere and there's a very strong chance that the only um reason why you were aware of him was

because of the full disclosure interview that he did with me a couple of years ago so what's the

question that we're going to ask i've got almost no idea um i urge you to read jason ockenday's

piece in the Guardian, the Cambridge academic, he writes, has rightly now resigned, but that won't

end the targeting of senior black figures, or the lazy way that institutions promote faux equality

And as is often the way with polarizing issues in this country, you don't have to pick a side

but almost everybody will. And the people that actually pick both sides, like me, and like Jason

Ockenday, the people who say this is going to be appalling for black academics, and it is also

a consequence of really bad behaviour by people who were kind of half-heartedly

or insincerely promoting equality. That's both sides. What you'll get in right-wing newspapers

is this proves that they're always over-promoting black people and that diversity, equality and inclusion

is an evil, evil doctrine that discriminates against me and it's therefore grossly unfair

They won't say, obviously, this story is about Jason Arday. It's not about anybody else

It's about Jason Arday and the Cambridge University selection process, the people that appointed him and defended him

You'll be able to open up... You can open up the Daily Mail today and read why it's all about me

if you are, God forbid, a Dick Littlejohn fan. But for the Telegraph, for the Mail, for the Spectator

I presume, for all of the usual suspects, this will be about loads, loads more than Jason Arday

So, I think the interesting question to ask... I think the interesting question for me to ask you is, how does this story affect other people

03456060973. I mean, I haven't listened back to the interview that I did with him

And the big selling point for much of his coverage previously was always that he was the first black professor to be appointed to Cambridge University

and the reason why I mention that I haven't listened back is that I may misremember

but for me the most fascinating element of the story was that he had overcome not being able to speak

again every single element of his story is now questionable that's a terrible situation to have ended up in

but only one person is responsible for the fact that he's ended up in this situation

and that's him but the element of his story that I found most extraordinary

and incredible and magical and uplifting and inspiring and, I mean, I'm almost using the word unbelievable

but that's taken on an entirely different meaning in the context of what's emerged subsequently

was the idea that he went from being non-verbal, I think, until quite late in life

non-verbal until he was 11 years old, to being a Cambridge academic

That is just funny, isn't it, how that word unbelievable is actually the one that I just reached for

And that's unbelievable. I say that to you as a good thing, right, when it's true. Something's unbelievable. It's unbelievable

He went from being non-verbal. I've got no reason to doubt that, except that there are so many other things in his story

that it turns out there are, and indeed were, reasons to doubt

So, how does this story affect other people? how does it affect for example black academia how does it affect other academics who have

expressed retrospective surprise at the original appointment with one sociologist saying they'd

never heard of him before when it was announced i looked for his body of work and it was disappointing

to say the least so these are things that only really fellow academics could understand or talk

about. For the rest of us, it was just an incredible story that you couldn't wait to share

with your listeners. And what I want you to tell me is how it affects other people. Let's talk

about the unleashing of grotesque racism. Let's talk, if you want, about the faux equality that

some institutions promote. But let's talk also about the impact that this story has beyond the

individual at the very centre of it. Because I don't really know what the ripples from this rock

being thrown into a pond are going to do. I don't really know. I think the youngest black person ever

appointed to a professorship at Cambridge, forgive me, not the first. But that was, again, part of the

extraordinary story of transformation wasn it And overcoming all the odds I don know quite why this story is as big as it is

I don't think that my own fascination with it was born chiefly of Jason Arday's ethnicity

It was the non-verbal, the transformation of a non-verbal boy into a world-beating academic

that I found most extraordinary. but the ethnicity is, I think, what is driving almost all of the coverage

Daily Mail, the Cambridge plagiarism scandal exposes in chilling detail how many of our institutions have now been captured by woke dogma

Does it? Or does it just expose one man? And what is it about this man that has prompted such an extraordinary level of coverage

when another Cambridge professor remains in post despite having been busted for plagiarism

And Financial Times picked up on this story, I think, and found even more evidence of plagiarism

than was contained within the original investigation. A Cambridge University professor who copied parts of an undergraduate's essays

and published them as his own work will remain in his job despite an investigation

upholding a complaint that he had committed plagiarism. Dr. William O'Reilly, an associate professor in early modern history, submitted a paper, and on it goes

And this story appears in the Financial Times, possibly some academic journals, and you never heard of it

You never heard of it. So what does this story do? 0345 6060 973 is the number that you need

Do you understand, can you explain to me why Cambridge academics are furious with Cambridge University and calling for them to hold an independent inquiry into the affair

Can you explain to me why they are describing the unleashing of grotesque racism over this appointment and the subsequent emergence of, I mean, I think pretty much indefensible conduct on Jason Arde's part

The extent to which this appointment was paraded in the media by the university raises questions about whether the university sought public kudos for itself rather than teaching and research from this appointment, said one academic, alleging that Cambridge had been too tempted to cut corners on the hard work of fostering equality and inclusion by opting for a media appointment

I mean these are powerful powerful words that's uh pre-amvada gopal who's a professor of post

colonial studies at cambridge's english faculty and one of the group organizing the letter

condemning the um uh uh unleashing of grotesque racism so that's the question I've got is is how

does this story affect other people i want you to tell me how this story affects you as well

actually or just what what what's your takeaway here because mine is very very personal i can't

separate the personal from the public i feel that i feel like a mug actually is the short answer i

don't feel uh guilt i don't feel oh you should have done differently or you should have done

better because, I mean, who would? Who would meet a Cambridge professor and immediately start

thinking, God, I wonder whether you actually deserve to be a Cambridge professor? I certainly wouldn't do

that. If I was a racist and I met a black Cambridge professor, then I probably would find

myself thinking, yeah, really, black guy, professor, I don't think, but I'm not a racist, so it didn't cross my mind

But it's more the personal contact that I've had with him subsequently that makes me feel like a mug

The fact that he thought I was someone that he might be able to persuade to stick up for him when he knew

he knew that he'd done wrong that's the thing, that is personal right

you get that so what's your connection with, reaction to this story

a few of you reminding us of Ian Duncan Smith's CV which didn't stop him

attempting to become Prime Minister I don't know how relevant this is

I don't even know if it's Whataboutery but I wanted to get all that off my chest because it's not often that I find myself

with a connection to somebody in a personal connection. I've met the guy, I've interviewed the guy

I've talked to the guy. It's the first time ever, really, that this has happened to me. And I just want to know what you think

the bigger ramifications, the bigger impacts of the story are. And yeah, me feeling like a mug

as Claire suggested in a text, might be too much of my ego

coming into the conversation. But good God, if you're not used to that by now

then you must have been listening to somebody else by accident. It's 11.26. What do you think of this story

0345 6060 973 James O'Brien on LBC It is 11.28 Good lord, that was a long introduction

I clearly had even more to get off my chest than I realised, so I won't insist that

Josephine in Westminster squeezes herself into the small amount of time that's available. I will, however

ask you again what you think Thank you to Chris, who's texted

content for the con and compassion for the con I don't know if that quite applies

fully here, but it's certainly a happy thought um this this story of the cambridge academic jason are they facing all manner of

allegations now not just of original original allegation of plagiarism in his phd thesis some

years ago but also almost every element of his cv almost every element of his biography

subsequently and i've i mean you've never seen anything like it i've never seen anything like it

But what does it do beyond this personal experience? What does it do beyond his current situation? What does it do to the people who are victims of a grotesque racism which is being unleashed according to Cambridge academics

What does it do to attempts to improve representation of people of colour in academic scenarios

What does it do to you, perhaps, as a black academic, knowing that for good, well, not for good or for ill, for ill

knowing that this is going to be a story that gets hung around your neck

Seriously. If a white middle class bloke on the radio can be somehow held responsible for this story by a Daily Mail columnist

imagine how a black sociology PhD student or a black professor is going to feel about what those

kind of people will do with this story. Grant Shapps had about 17 different names, didn't stop

from becoming a cabinet minister or chairman of the Conservative Party. Again, is that what's

about to read? I do not know. But I do know that it's half past 11 and that Dominic Ellis has your

headlines. James O'Brien on LBC. It is 1133. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I suppose

the question is actually twofold. And the first question is asked in search of genuine answers

It's not a sort of rhetorical, God, why are they paying so much attention to it? Why do you think

this story is so huge The story of a Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism and found to have at the very least embellished many many many elements of his backstory Why do you think the story is so huge

And what impact will it have? And I think that your answers to both of those questions are

probably going to involve the phrase because he's black. But I could be wrong and I kind of want to

be. So if you think I am then please tell me. Josephine is in Westminster. Josephine what made

you pick up the phone good morning james so i look at this from a very different perspective

and not from the racial perspective but um i am for context uh white middle class girl i have a

degree from cambridge and a phd and i come from a family of academics and i guess my first thought

was i was immensely sad hearing the story and it also really worries me for the future of the

humanities in particular and the university sector in the UK. At the moment, the humanities

lots of humanities departments in the UK are closing. They're really fighting for their lives

like struggling financially and struggling to stay open. And I feel like this completely

this story just undermines the credibility in the public's eyes and also, you know, the government ultimately

which has to provide the public. So sociology itself is in the firing line as a consequence of this story

Sociology and the humanities in general. I mean, most people won't necessarily distinguish between sociology and say subjects like anthropology and even history and history of art

So I feel like it really undermines it. What this represents is really a failing of the university sector as a whole

He held numerous positions, I think, in Durham and other UK universities before he arrived at Cambridge

and then he was appointed to a very prestigious professorship at Cambridge

Not just, I think, the other professor you mentioned who was accused of plagiarism, you said he was an associate professor

I mean, he was... Arde was a really senior professor at a very young age at Cambridge

which is a very different situation. Did you know that before? Exactly, his position

Did you know in 2023 would you have been of the view that..

because this is what one sociologist has told a newspaper this morning

When it was announced, I looked for his body of work and it was disappointing, to say the least

So they felt that there had been acceleration or inflation at the point of appointment

I don't think most people did. I just wonder whether you did. I didn't. I personally didn't

I'm not a sociologist. I'm not in that field at all. You see, you laughed at it

I wouldn't have necessarily questioned. I would have probably raised... Had I been on top of it, I was in Japan at that point

I would have probably raised my eyebrows and been like, it's a very young age to be a professor

I mean, I'm in my late 30s now. But that cuts the other way. That's why it was such an extraordinary story, isn't it, as well

So it is both the positive and the negative of the same story. He was so young. He must be incredible

And then we're back to that word incredible, which is, of course, in a different context, a synonym for unbelievable

That in itself is worrying, because why did Cambridge appoint him to that position? I don't think that's ever been made clear

Did they appoint him to this position? just to be able to prove that or make headlines

Is academia now chasing the viral clicks, the full disclosure interviews, to remain credible

Is that where we've got to? Well, that's the accusation. Well, exactly

And this is incredibly worrying for the future of the humanities, that we're now actually almost undermining ourselves

in trying to chase the money and the finance to stay alive

So I'm really concerned by this story. I think on multiple levels, not just revealing that it represents

but also how this is going to actually affect the humanities and the funding we receive in the future

And you've explained brilliantly why, and I hope this isn't an unfair

I hope it's not a criticism, it's just an observation. You haven't laid any responsibility at the feet of Jason Arday yet

Well, I think you shouldn't have, I mean, to lie on your CV as an academic

I can't understand why you would do this. from a personal perspective

From my perspective, it feels quite insulting because a PhD is such, you know

to write 70,000 words of your own original research is such a feat

And it's such hard work. I'm a visiting professor in Japan, and to get that position involves so much work

and to submit papers that are properly, that are your own original research

This is incredibly, to lie about this. it's just extraordinary. I think just for, you know, to be legally careful

I think he still disputes that he's lied, but it's also fair to say that there's stuff on his CV

that he never did and that never happened. The universities have just said flat out

that he wasn't visiting professor there. Exactly that. And it seems if you do make it to that position

and he is clearly talented, why would you need to lie if you're talented

Why undermine your own talents by lying? This might surprise you, Josephine

but um in fact it will surprise you i was reading the review of a biography of the wrestler hulk hogan

in the new world newspaper yesterday uh are you surprised yet that i'm mentioning this in the

context of this conversation um not really i'm the person to come to you for complete non-secretary

okay it's not actually a complete non-secretary because there's a line in this review of the

biography i think it's a quote from another biography of the of the wrestling star hulk

hogan and it said the thing is that his achievements were so extraordinary he didn't need to lie

and he did hogan had a long list of extraordinary achievements but he told loads of other lies as

well like the fact that elvis presley was a fan when when i don't think he was even born at the

time so that's the thing isn't it is that that gets lost now nobody's ever really not for a very

long time no one's going to circle back to the qualities and achievements of this guy they're

just going to focus on the embellishments and lies. Maybe there's something in human nature. It's like

when people obtain money that they can never have enough. They can never have enough money. There's

kind of Elon Musk nature to everyone. Maybe. Perhaps that's the same for a kind of intellectual

endeavor as well. That once people attain a certain level of fame, they just need to kind of

they keep going. Nothing is ever enough. It's why not embellish this a bit further. You get a bit

addicted to the admiration and the adulation. Thank you. That's a brilliant, really helpful

contribution. Worth listening back maybe to the full disclosure interview that Josephine

alludes to and just seeing whether 2020 hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it, to spot stuff

We've done something that we have never done before on this program. I got a text, I started

reading it, and I signaled to Eleanor, I really, really want to speak to this person. And I am

about to speak to this person. Joe is in Brighton. Joe, I can't say what made you pick up the phone

because you picked up the phone because Eleanor rang you. I did, yes. Thank you. Good morning

Thank you for getting in touch via text. Well, just tell me your story and why this is of particular interest to you

Well, the short story for me is my father was a very prominent academic fraud

both academic fraud and a fraud in the pharmaceutical community. And as a result of finding out a lot about his fraudulent behaviour

I wrote a book about him and about me which is called The Scientist Who Wasn There which is currently out at the moment if anyone wants to read it Exploring that idea of suddenly as you have experienced in the last few days that kind of deep disappointment

and then the question why. Why on earth did this person do this thing

Not just to me, but to everybody. And that's what the book is mainly about

Your dad, Professor Michael Briggs, was forced to resign from his position

at Deakin University in Australia after it was discovered that he'd faked results

of, you know, supposedly of experiments pertaining to the contraceptive pill. So you get hit much harder than sort of mere interviewers

by this kind of event in this moment. What did you find? What did you discover

Well, yes, I mean, I don't know anything about Professor Arde and I can't comment on that

But what has happened last week is a direct parallel of what happened with my dad at Beacon University in Australia

which is that the heat started to get too much. There was an inquiry taking place

There were criticisms. There were questions being asked about his work. And consequently, he very quickly resigned

and disappeared not just from the university but from Australia and moved to Spain, in fact

to a very remote house in Spain, where he died suddenly and unexpectedly

about two months later. And this was all happening in 1986. So many years passed with me only knowing really

about that particular scandal in his life. he died in the midst of this huge scandal

which obviously affected contraceptive pills worldwide. It was really big news in its day

But in 2020, I discovered that he was involved in a whole other scandal

about which I had known nothing at all 20 years before, which is the Primados scandal, which I know you know something about

Yeah, my friend Jason Farrell at Sky News has done extraordinary work in this field

Exactly so. And so my dad was a linchpin of the Primados story

20 years before that scandal that actually resulted in the end of his life arguably

and he was the clinical director or research director of Shearing Pharmaceuticals in the UK

at the key time when primidos was on the market and questions were being asked about primidos

so we can now cast back into the 1960s and say well what we now know about this fraudulent

individual, not just that he was carrying out fraudulent research in the

1980s, but what I discovered in 2020 was that he'd faked his qualifications

What, entirely? Largely, yes. He pretended to have a doctorate from Cornell University. I actually

have the book that he used to have on his shelf, which looks like a doctorate

from Cornell University, but it actually isn't one. Do we know how he

made that? He must have broken open what was a doctoral old. Like a kind of blue Peter, here's one I prepared earlier scenario. Precisely. It's

interesting you say that because the craft side of that has always fascinated me. Well

same here. I don't know why. Yes, because that's the point where you sit there and think to

yourself, what on earth am I doing? Exactly. Exactly. That absolutely fascinates me. There's

another fraudulent thesis, which I call the red one. There's the blue thesis and the red

thesis. Another fraudulent thesis, which claims to be a doctorate of science, which is sort

super doctorate. And again, he's gone through the process of actually building

something, in that case, out of photocopies of old articles. Did he ever work for NASA

Yes. Oh, he did actually work for NASA. I mean, you must have spent the last 20 years just

questioning every single thing that you ever learned about him. Some of them turned out to be true

and some of them didn't. Absolutely. I mean, NASA was very early in his career. I'm just

commenting on the age of the person who's obviously the focus of your discussion

this morning. Yes. My dad was very young too and it and in his generation it was more common and you know this is talking about the

kind of mid mid 60s when people were younger in those sorts of positions but my dad was only like

33 34 by the time he was he was research director of shearing pharmaceuticals he was in his 20s when

he was at nasa he was 23 so he was a prodigy well he in his own mind yeah and i think if you present

If you present yourself as knowing everything, particularly as a man, I'm sorry to say

I think gender's part of this story. If you get into the periphery of a monoculture

and you stand there and say, I know all about this, I can do this

people won't question whether you're right or not unless they have a lot of evidence to the contrary

And that's what you're doing. Yeah, and so it is like a kind of build-up of water behind the dam, isn't it

And there needs to be a hell of a lot of water before the dam breaks. And in both your father's case and Jason Arday's case

it was the breaching of the dam that prompted the resignation. It became impossible to hold it back

And while I appreciate that you can't talk about Jason Arday, in terms of your dad, and I bet your book is absolutely fascinating

what do you think drove him? Because, you know, it's not hard to feel sorry for someone who ends up..

Well, maybe it is hard to feel sorry for them, but it's a mad scenario that you are utterly, utterly hostage to fortune

What drove him to keep pushing himself deeper or digging deeper and deeper into this hole of his own creation

Because this is my dad, obviously, I'm kind of standing very near this story

and I want to find out what you might call the truth

and part of my dad's story has a potential parallel in that he was a working class man

growing up in Chadderton in Manchester in the post-war period and he wants to be a scientist

He wants to be a spaceman actually. He reads a lot of science fiction and he's looking at the world and thinking

there's loads of people at Oxford and Cambridge and elsewhere and MIT

and they're going to get what I want. Right. And the only way you can bridge that gap

or the way you could see it bridging that gap is to kind of stretch the truth a little bit

because I want to get into that world and I think I could do well in it, but they won't let me in

Fake it till you make it. Exactly. And I think that becomes so much part of what you're doing

that you just can't stop doing it and you forget even... I think he'd forgotten that he'd made up some of this stuff

to be honest. What was the first thing he made up? Do you know? Well, you see, it's hard to say

I mean, he wrote a book called The Handbook of Philosophy when he was 20 years old

knowing nothing at all, as far as I know, about philosophy. And it's a terrible book. I've got a copy of it

Someone was prepared to publish this thing in Canada. And I think he's got a good result

And I think once you start getting good results, you carry on. Another thing that's important about the Are They story

is moving from place to place. Because when I saw my dad's history

he moved constantly from university to university. And it looked like progress when I read it from my standing position

Got it. But once I found out more about him, it's actually slight. It's mainly moving away from the possibility..

Because if I move away from these questions, then they will not be... I might have to start again, but the questions disappear

because the institution is not under threat anymore by the presence of a potential fraud in its rank

So, goodbye and good luck. Yeah, and you encounter more people who don't know very much about you

who you can persuade again that you know the answer to all their problems. This is absolutely fascinating. Absolutely

And as you write in the book, he kind of forgot he was faking it

Yeah, I think so. I think so. And I think just to look at the story that you're looking at

Today, from the perspective of race, I think is reductive, really. Yeah, I mean, it is from where you're..

It's not more tuit than that. No, of course it is, but also I would point out to you

that this will be the first most people have heard of your dad's story

although not Vic. Vic's been in touch to say, this lady who's going on about her dad, I've heard this story before

Has she been on your show before? If not, can you ask where she's told the story before? Vic embarking, it doesn't really work like that, mate

You can't turn your radio on and then get a bespoke explanation of where the contributor..

But you obviously have, you know, given interviews and written the book

I've done a long interview on the World Service. So there it is, Vic

You might have been up late and you might have heard that, Vic. The scientist who wasn't there by Joanne Briggs

And you're right, the race element is reductivist, but it's also the biggest element of the story

for 80% of the coverage in this country at the moment. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, that's true

Which is the tragedy, really. And perhaps moving on to a wider..

Into a wider perspective. I mean, I don't want to comment too much on all of the aspects. No, of course

Sociology has been under pressure for a long time anyway, and they have had frauds in sociology

The thing about my dad's work is he moved from academic work into proper science, as it were

when he stepped across from university into Shearing Pharmaceuticals in 1966. Right

And at that point, it starts to matter what you're talking about. I'm sorry to say it, but what academics say matters, of course

in a certain context. But what you say about oral contraceptives and whether they're safe or not matters in a rather different way

And that's an element of the story. Listen, I'm going to mention it again because I really think you deserve to sell a few books as a consequence

Oh, thank you. Not just of contributing to this show, but of having done the work, actually

The Scientist Who Wasn't There by Joanne Briggs. You texted me, Jo, so I presume you're vaguely familiar with some of the rubric of this program

Yes. So you know that we reserve something for people who don't know

We reserve something. I'm not going to explain why, but it is reserved for people

whose qualifications for the contribution that they've made to the program are beyond belief

And I think everybody listening would agree that you are 157% in that category

So, Joe Briggs, here it is. I'm Waelia Yoder and you're listening to

James O'Brien on LBC that's one of my favourite ever if not the favourite ever

take care seriously and thank you so much for that what an extraordinary

insight into this continuingly extraordinary story it's 11.51 James O'Brien on LBC

it is 11.54 and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

I don't know that I've got time left this hour to have a look at how Dick Littlejohn of the Daily Mail has tried to make

the Jason Ardate story about me with a succession of ironically enough, given that we're talking about

embellishments and untruths, a succession of embellishments and untruths because I want to squeeze in at least one more call but do not

let me go home without having a proper look at that, alright? And

indeed a little reminder of what is or who is featured on

this week's Full Disclosure. Dan speaks for many when he writes Please could you stop interviewing such interesting authors

This is a reference to Joe Briggs, whose contribution to this programme must surely go down as one of the greatest ever, really, examples of how if you set your stall out right, you get contributions from people whose qualifications to contribute are beyond belief

I've just bought yet another book that I have no time to read. That's all right, mate

The royalties still count, whether you read it or not. Hind is in Woodthorpe in Nottingham

Hind, what made you pick up the phone? well I've heard the story a few times

on the radio but I didn't have time to pick up for various reasons

I might stand a little bit biased go on then I know Jason

I am an academic I am a non-white academic I came to this country 10 years ago

it was bloody hard I'm sure bloody hard to finish my PhD as a single mum

have enough money to live and to take care of my daughter

a low-finding job. I think there was a bit of luck there, and I might

have been hired as a token, but something I want to talk about as well is that

we really don't want to be tokens. I mean, that's not the point

We have merit, and maybe just look at our merit rather than

making us all the time feel like we're tokens. But this is a criticism more of Cambridge University, if that's what they've done here

They've kind of let themselves down, and in a way, they've exposed him to a level of scrutiny

that his record would never have been able to sustain. It is, absolutely, it is

I'm not here to scrutinize whether these allegations are correct or wrong

Well, some of them are clearly true. So, I mean, you know, claiming that you were a visiting professor somewhere

and then the institution comes out and says, no, you weren't, and claiming that you've written a book that's never been published

I mean, some of them are clearly untrue. I understand all that, but we're now looking at these

but we're not looking at the achievements as well. I wonder, you know, I cited his work and I wonder

he's written with famous and successful professors like Heidi Safiyamirza, Gehinde Andros

have they not seen that there is, you know, an issue with the work

I've listened to him in conferences. I've got him to talk at Nottingham Trent University

and there were professors, you know, in the auditorium listening and everybody was inspired by his talk

I don't think you can fake that. No, I don't think you can either

I mean, I don't say it with full confidence anymore, but certainly when I first interviewed him

I thought he was incredible. I mean, truly incredible. So, I mean, two things can be true at the same time

He has done many of the things that he is accused of, but he is also an extraordinary communicator

and a brilliant sociologist. I don't know. I'm not qualified to say the second bit

but it could be two things being true at the same time. This is what I'm thinking

But again, you know, as an academic, as a non-white academic, I just feel like, oh, it's good that I'm not famous

because if I'm famous, people will just, you know, try to shoot me, basically

Metaphorically speaking. I just feel like if it's a white academic, the story wouldn't have been that big

No. That's chicken and egg, though, Hind, isn't it? This is why the story is so, I mean, difficult in a way

because it's chicken and egg. He is famous because Cambridge and others, and he himself

really cooperated in the promotion of his story. For me, I think that it was, I'm pretty sure

it was the non-verbal childhood and the autism and the overcoming of diversity that would be neurodiversity

as opposed to ethnic diversity that made the story so extraordinary. But the line is that it was hung around his neck from a very early stage that the youngest ever professor and the black professor the youngest ever professor to be appointed at Cambridge University is black And that was the problem is that was the thing that inspired many people and that was the thing that upset many people because they were racist

But just because... That's on Cambridge, but also, you know, I got the job at Nottingham Trent University and before that I applied to over 60 jobs

Wow. while I was finishing my PhD and basically dog-sitting because I couldn't rent

because I didn't have a work contract. Will this make things harder

for people like you in the future, do you think? It might, but also I'm thinking

I'm thinking now, you know, again, Jason has got a job at Roehampton

and then got a job at Durham and then got a job at Glasgow. Is it all on them

Was it all talking? I mean, it's just so confusing, but yes, it feels like as a person of colour, an academic

I'd rather not show off my work so much because I might be accused of whatever

And, I mean, who could survive this level of scrutiny? So again, two things can be true at the same time

most people would not, this level of scrutiny would not throw up anything like as many questions as it has for him

but, you know, who would emerge from this level of scrutiny entirely unscathed and untainted

especially if the scrutiny was motivated by a desire to uphold the idea that there wouldn't be any people of colour in academia

unless they were there unfairly or unless they'd been advanced or promoted there

not because of their work but because of their skin killer, which brings us back, I really recommend

have you read Jason Ockenday's piece in the Guardian hint? Not yet, not yet

I really recommend you read that because it's the best by some distance that I've read

and it covers an awful lot of the points that you've both made

explicitly and implicitly I'll just remind you of what Professor Catherine Schofield boiled it

down to in conclusion to this conversation, although with the little postscript of how Dick Littlejohn tried to make it

about me, number one his academic misconduct and fantastical claims are pretty clear-cut. He should not have been appointed. Number two, the press

or public would not have noticed if he wasn't black. Number three, they noticed in particular

because Cambridge made a huge song and dance about appointing a black person. And then

just to tally entirely with the point you've been making, number four, this is on Cambridge

And then they mention in Jason's article an associate professor, a history don, who was

found to have committed plagiarism and who had sexual misconduct claims against him upheld, but who remains

in post-Cambridge, which brings you back to the point about what would happen to you if you

were or were not famous. Wow, it's 12.02. James O'Brien on LBC

It is five minutes after 12 and you are listening to James O'Brien

on LBC. I don't know how much store you should set by this

story. It's a good little story. I mean, I'd have been delighted to get it into the diary columns a million years ago when I was a newspaper journalist

But I don't know how big a deal it is. Andy Burnham has been told to tone down his blokish videos by number 10 social media experts

Team Burnham are receiving daily reports from the unit, which includes experts in data and social media ytics

and last week the Times reports today they advised the Prime Minister to limit the number of references

to football and the pub in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience

So it's one of those stories that will do whatever you want it to do. So you need to come at it if you can

without any hidden agendas. I think that Keir Starmer mentioned too often

that he was the son of a toolmaker or did he mention it in a way that created the problem

And listen, you're perfectly entitled to think that there wasn't a problem. I feel quite a lot of sympathy for what you might call continuity Starmer supporters

I'm not going to call you Starm Troopers, as some people have done, because I talked to you just briefly in the last hour about how hard it is sometimes

to admit that your opinion of somebody was wrong, that your judgment of somebody was wrong

And, you know, a bloke you interviewed once is a much smaller challenge

than an actual Prime Minister who you thought was going to change your lives. he thought was going to be brilliant

So I do feel very sorry for you. I get some very strange messages from people who have managed to turn their love for Keir Starmer

into quite a real hatred of Andy Burnham. So I'm not going to join in with that

I think it was horribly unfair that Keir Starmer couldn't cut through

couldn't show people who he really is. And one way in which he tried to do that

was by talking about being the son of a toolmaker. And I don't think it worked

Sadiq Khan, when he was in campaign mode which he hasn't really had to be in

since his first victory in the London mayoral elections would mention, again, entirely honestly

that he was the son of a bus driver I mean, in a way, Starmer left room for questioning

so you've got all sorts of mythologies springing up around it up to and including the idea

he wasn't a toolmaker at all he owned a factory in which a hundred people worked

my understanding was that he had a workshop at the bottom of the garden

or something similar where he did his own engineering work. But it didn't work. It didn't land

Burnham's never really talked about what his parents do. I happen to know, because I'm a geek

that his dad was a British telecoms engineer, like the bloke who comes around to have a look at your phone lines

if they've gone all crackly. And his mum, I think, was a receptionist in a GP's

which wasn't quite the job then that it is now. They've become sort of demonised, haven't they, in recent years

GP's receptionists. but back then it was a sort of much loved member of the community

And they will be judging this stuff. I don't really know how you yse responses and reactions on Twitter

because they're usually bogus these days. They're either bots or they're just weirdos harvesting hatred

So I don't know how you say this one's not going down very well, but I'm sure they're better at it than I am

We've got people here. Do we have social media ytics here? We just look at how things perform

We certainly don't look at the reactions as a gauge of whether or not they're working or not

because our job is engagement. So it doesn't matter whether you spend your whole days

your whole life on social media writing about what an awful person I am in response to every clip of me that goes up

That's a win for us. So I don't need your vote. But if I needed your vote

and they could identify things that I do that do seem to turn you off

then it would matter. so if you're in the media and this is a terrible thing

because it explains why there is so much madness and evil on social media in particular

the engagement is the win it doesn't have to be true the thing that you're engaging with

your engagement doesn't have to be positive so the thing that you're responding with

to the thing that I have done doesn't have to be positive

it's still a win if you respond at all the more people watch it

the better for us so if you share it to show everybody what an absolute

monster I am or Nick Ferrari is or Sheila Fogarty is That a win because the more people that watch it the better for it So our ytics are going to be entirely different from number 10s Number 10 are going to be saying a million people have watched this and that a disaster

because 80% of them come away with a more negative opinion of you than they went in

So, Kirstama's father was a toolmaker, didn't work. Sadiq's father was a bus driver, did work

To the point where he now takes the mickey out of it himself. So if you interview Sadiq Khan now, he might say something

I don't know if you're aware of this, James, but my father used to be a bus driver. And Sajid Javid's dad was a bus driver as well, wasn't he

That kind of worked as well. Because it's easy to understand. You know exactly what it is

How much of the failure of the toolmaker narrative was caused by confusion about what a toolmaker was

So you've got to start from a negative perspective. You've got to start by not wanting Keir Starmer to come out of this well

and then he hands you something that you can mould into negativity. You can't really do that with a bus driver

Unless, of course, it's not true, just to nod back to the last hour. It turned out he lied about his dad's

Imagine if Sadiq Khan's dad had been a merchant banker and he'd spent 20 years claiming he was a bus driver

That would be, particularly for a politician of colour, that would be game over for a politician

But he didn't. So what the heck is authenticity? What is it

because I heard some brilliant calls to Tom Swalbrick's show earlier. Tom was standing in for Nick this morning, if you weren't tuning in

Nick's fine, by the way. He's off for fun, not anything else

He took calls on this story, prompted by this story, about Burnham being told to tone down his bloke-ish videos

and he got some really moving responses, actually, by people who don't want Burnham to do anything of the sort

because his authenticity is giving people that most hateful of political phenomena

It's giving them hope. I tried to write about this in my newspaper column

either last week or the week before. I think it was the week before

and I use that line I always use with you, a reference back to the Clockwise film

Brian Stimpson, I think, is the name of John Cleese's character because I can drop it on you without having to look it up

If you're writing it down, you've got to get all the details right. And I can deal with the despair

Joanne, I think he said, was the name of the other character. It's the hope I can't stand

It's the hope that gets you. And I think that Andy Burnham is giving people hope

partly because of what he does, but mostly because of how he does it

And that's not fair on Keir Starmer. I think a lot of the mental health stuff that was announced yesterday

was already out there. but it landed completely differently and that's not fair

and for once it's not something that we can chalk up as right wing media bias

because they're going to be just as tireless in their pursuit of Andy Burnham

as they were in their pursuit of Keir Starmer so this is something about chemistry

this is actually something about chemistry and it is the chemistry of authenticity

at risk of making it sound like an article for um the the new yorker or prospect it's the

chemistry of authenticity and here's the thing right nobody knows the formula

because if if they could work out the formula then a half decent actor could do it who just

thought of ronald reagan right then i said a half decent actor could do it if you could work

out the formula for authenticity, then a half-decent actor could do it. Some people have got lucky

They've stumbled upon it. Most people who come across as authentic are authentic. Farage came

across as authentic for years, but that's falling apart now, because as some of us have known all

along, he dreams of nothing more than being the plaything of foreign-based billionaires

who will reward him with £5 million secret gifts for unspecified services, or maybe for no services

at all, just because they like the idea of giving five million pounds to a man that they're

working day and night to help become Prime Minister. Just an extraordinary coincidence

So the bloakiness that they refer to is similar to what I would describe as authenticity

And that's why I think they're probably wrong. So what I imagine they're getting, and this is why

I said you can do with this story whatever you want, I imagine they're getting

some people are getting a little bit bored of the football shtick Andy

and it doesn't matter that it's authentic you can have too much of a good

thing also you're the Prime Minister you know it's fantastic comparing pub snacks with John Healy

for a clip but you wouldn't want to be doing it every week mate right so I

imagine that this isn't quite as exciting or as significant as the

headline might suggest Five million views of the pub snacks clip on Twitter

That's a win. But it ceases to be a win when three million of those people

are concluding that as a consequence of watching it, they actually like you less than they did before

So I imagine that this is about tweaking the edges. A source told The Times that the social media team, and I quote

have cautioned against some of the content, advising to tone down some of the blokiness

such as the bar snacks stunt. He is a strong communicator, but it's about balance

So there comes a point, potentially, where you find yourself thinking, I don't want my Prime Minister to be doing this anymore

If he did a series on bar snacks, I had an idea for it, but someone's already done this

I categorically know that someone has already done this. But someone brought home some crisps the other night

that were prawn cocktail and Bloody Mary flavour crisps. Have you heard of them

I think they're Marks and Spencers, are they? Or Waitrose. Just trying to think who brought them home

then I'll be able to work out whether it was Marks and Spencers or Morrison's. If it was me, it would have been Morrison's

If it was Mrs. O'Brien, it was probably Waitrose. And I just, I tasted one and I thought

you could do this. You could do, but I wouldn't want to do it

just as you watching me eat crisps. That would be weird. could you like have a book club for snacks

could you do it online like a zoom where we all agree that we're going to do two snacks tonight

and then we take it into, I'd find that fascinating but I wouldn't want the Prime Minister

to be doing it do you see what I mean, I don't think the Prime Minister should be doing

regular weekly content on bar snacks but when he did do it

it seemed really authentic and that's the question I've got for you

whether you like it or not Andy Burnham comes across as authentic

and Sir Keir Starmer did not so what do we mean by that word authentic

what is political authenticity what is it 03456060973 is the number you need

I've got a couple of clips by way of an example but I'll show them with you

in a moment first but that the question I want you to answer What is it And you might begin by thinking who got it So Boris Johnson charmed millions of people with an entirely inauthentic shtick

He would put on that personality. Very occasionally you could see the quite ruthless character

that lurked beneath the P.G. Woodhouse-style exterior. But you would probably put Boris Johnson

or you would once have put Boris Johnson, on a list of authentic politicians

Is it whizzy-weak, Terry? What you see is what you get. And he was one of the least authentic politicians you'll ever have the misfortune of enduring

Liz Truss, I can't even handle it. I'm not bringing Liz Truss into this conversation

Andy Burnham has it, and Keir Starmer doesn't have it. What is it

0345 6060 973 is the number you need. Starmer didn't have it, Andy Burnham does have it

What is it? James O'Brien on LBC. So the... This is LBC

Good grief. Was that me? Did I press the... Did I sit..

I hope everyone's all right. The challenge is to persuade the public that you're normal

Right? That's challenge one. Persuade the public that you're normal. So here's Keir Starmer offering Rachel Reeves some pancakes from inside his red box

And this was deliberately posted on TikTok in February of this year

Chancellor, I've got something for you. Oh, very good. Come in. are you all right uh very good this is your box

happy pancake day thank you very much prime minister are you gonna have one as well i like it that's what i keep in here very good

i mean maybe you need to see it in glorious technicolor but there's no one bad involved

in that process there's no one trying to fool you or con you or mislead you at some maybe it

was even his own idea why don't you surprise the chancellor by hiding some pancakes in your

ministerial red box but it was awful right it was cringy here is andy burnham with the chancellor

of the exchequer john healy talking about um sitting in a pub talking about pork scratchings

and scampi fries real scratchings this looks good old school but we're quite old school aren't we

when did you last buy a pack of pork scratchings in a pub two weeks ago Yeah

Number one for me. I'll go two then, just to spice it up. Now, talking about old school, I mean, come on

Come on. And that bit, John Healy comes out of it better

because, I mean, just absolutely no messing two weeks ago. When's the last time you bought some pork scratchies in a pub

Two weeks ago, mate. What kind of a southern pansy are you? I loved that, and it really worked for me

I wouldn't want to watch it every day. So what are we distilling here

What are we discussing? What is it that we're talking about? What is it? Because however much you would

and that's the bottom line actually, Keir Starmer's background is every bit as

quotes, working class, end quotes, as Andy Burnham's, arguably more so. Keir Starmer's political ideology and motivation

is comparable to Andy Burnham's. Many of the policies that Keir Starmer announced

didn't get noticed or land properly, but Andy Burnham has subsequently either re-announced them or rejigged them

and received a lot of early praise and admiration. There's something going on there that is not about the policies

but it's about the people. What is it? What is it? What do we mean when we talk about political authenticity

Sandra is in Salford. Sandra, what would you like to say? Oh, wow. First time on the radio

Whatever? Yeah. How exciting. Oh, I feel we should mark the moment somehow, Sandra

We can't just let it pass as if this is the sort of thing that happens every day

Thank you. Okay. No, I was listening and I thought, well, they're calling it authenticity

but actually what they're doing is they're dressing up charm, personality and charisma

It's just a word that's much more acceptable to people, I think, because they want a reason for having got rid of Kia

But also... But also, you don't want to admit charisma, because you can have charisma and be a complete wrongman

You could be a serial killer and have charisma. In fact, some serial killers did have quite a lot of charisma

so you don't want to call it that, do you? Well, the thing is, I think Abeddon has also got integrity

as well as those things. I do too, for what it's worth. Yeah, and he's proven it in things he's done

You know, he's not perfect, but, you know. Well, hang on then. So authenticity is charisma plus integrity

Possibly, yeah, possibly. Because I think Starmer had integrity, but I don't think he had much charisma

Exactly. Exactly. And you can't learn it. People either have it or they don't

Are you sure? There's a lot of money in media training, but it doesn't really train you how to be charismatic

It just trains you how not to get yourself in trouble in interviews. What's Simon Cowell have run a programme called The X Factor

Looking for it, if you could train it. Hmm. All right, clever clogs

Sorry. Well, it's a good point, but I'm just trying to think of... There was a band, I forget who it was, but they had like a..

When I used to knock about with comedians a bit, you can't... I mean, can you teach that

They always used to be very sniffy about the ones that they said had plans

You know, the comedians who had plans, had clear career goals and career paths

So they really did think that you could sort of engineer success

and you wouldn't necessarily be the most naturally funny comedian, but you were the one with the best agent

and you knew which agent you wanted and which venues you needed to play and which people you needed to suck up to to get the TV gigs

So you can kind of finesse or engineer success and achieve more success with less talent

than somebody who hasn't got the cynical approach to the thing that you've got

So it's not quite that simple. Can the X Factor be taught? it can't, can it? It can't. You can have two

people with brilliant voices and one of them will make shivers go down your spine and one won't

Well, who was that girl who was on the contest, the Scottish girl? Susan Boyle

Yeah, no, not Susan Boyle. She did brilliantly. There was another one

She wasn't exactly overburdened with charisma. Again, I don't know what word you'd use to describe her

She was mesmeric. There was a charm about Susan Boyle. There was a charm

So what are we talking about? What didn't Starmer have? Charisma. I don't know whether it was the charm or the charisma or confidence

or a combination of all three. Or maybe he had all of them, but not enough of it

And Boris Johnson had them in spades and he had no integrity whatsoever. But no integrity. No, you beat me to it

Actually, I think I just beat you to it. Thank you, Sandra. 26 minutes after 12 is the time

What is it? Just articulate what it is that we are talking about

And then tell me how you think or what you think about this suggestion

that he's coming across as too blokey. As I say, I don't want to undo the phone-in

by pretending not to understand what the story is really about. I suspect that this is tweaks and twinges

rather than major, major instructions on behaviour change. But can Andy Burnham..

Is he in danger of being too blokey by talking about football

And pubs, 0345606096. Staying in Sandra's neck of the woods, Andy's in Bolton. Andy, what would you like to say

I don't think Andy Burnham needs to do anything. I think what he's been doing is just being Andy Burnham

And it's really obvious when you watch someone, when you see someone's feet talking

you can tell whether they're being themselves or whether they're trying to get themselves across in a particular way

What was Boris Johnson being? Boris Johnson was never being himself he was putting on an act

but people bought it massive millions of people thought it was completely real

so it's not as simple as you describe is it well I wasn't saying it was simple

I was saying in Burnham's case it's simple because all he's doing

is being himself and I think the more he has to adjust his behaviour

the more obvious it will be to everyone that he's not being himself

anymore. I don't know if you remember the West Wing. I watched a lot of it when I was

younger. The first two series, they have a nightmare for the whole thing and there's a turning

point and they write a note and they write a little note to the president and all it

says on it is, let Bartlett be Bartlett. And that is the

turning point, the crooks on which the entire series turns. I didn't know that

Yeah. because that's the whole point is to let the... If someone's got to that position

by being themselves, then what's the point in all of a sudden

starting to micromanage all these little things about their behaviour? So do you think that Starmer

was never Starmer? I think Starmer really struggled to get across who Starmer was

Yeah. Like, I can't tell you really what Starmer had a passion for

He was a human rights lawyer, but, you know, his policies didn't really reflect that

That's true. I don't know what he was. What does Andy Burnham stand for

He stands for, for a start, spreading power out away from London

I think he passionately believes in that because everything he has done has had that running through it

And I think that's how you succeed at something, is by being passionate about it and actually wanting it to happen

And I think his love of football and stuff is sort of absorbed into that

the way you'll stick up for the Hillsborough people. That's true. So, I mean, this may well be a big fuss about nothing

But when number 10 wonks or social media experts supposedly worry about him being blokish

what do you think they mean? I think they mean, please don't get rid of us

We need a job. Basically, they need to justify their position, which means they need to be telling him something

I know. This is so interesting. What is it that you need to tell him

He's doing fine. I mean, he hasn't been tested yet. Not really

We should be clear about that. He'll be judged when he comes up against real adversity

Let Burnham be Burnham. Let Burnham be Burnham. And he's old enough and he's been around politics long enough

to have arrived at a place of comfort in his own skin. Possibly if he was 10 years..

Well, we know that he wasn't that comfortable in his own skin when he was in Cabinet, and Starmer hadn't really been in politics long enough

to feel as comfortable at the dispatch box as he did perhaps in a courtroom

There's something about being comfortable in your own skin that is relevant to what we're talking about as well

I hadn't really thought about that, but, you know, that is true, definitely

because it allows you to be yourself then and to be natural

And I don't know, it's hard to explain with words. Well, I know it is. I know it

That's why it's a phone-in. I like, you know me, they're my favourite phone-ins. It's not a phone-in, James

It's hard to explain with words. Right, we're going to do it, because it's hard to explain with words

And here we are, trying to do it. But yeah, I mean, it's all there. Let's see if anyone else can do it with words

What is it that we're talking about? Because Johnson is a fascinating character

Farage less so, because I think for all but the most committed admirers

his gloss has fallen off. His so-called authenticity is circling the plug hole

He can't say he's all the things he pretends to be, while he also accepts secret £5 million gifts of foreign-based billionaires

and claims that it's none of your business. It just, I mean, it gives the complete lie to the thing he seeks to present to the public

Boris Johnson was more of a caricature, perhaps, but lots of people bought it

And the thing about Johnson that is arguably the most interesting, innocuous fact about Boris Johnson

is that he would ruffle his hair before walking onto a stage. He would deliberately ruffle his hair

and then in the opening lines of a speech, he'd pretend he didn't know where he was

He's done it several times. Some people started noticing because they were attending more than one speech that he was doing

Is it Manchester? No, it's Tuesday. It must be Birmingham. And someone would point out

do you know, he did the same shtick six months ago when I saw him in Yorkshire

And it really worked. People lapped it up. But it wasn't authenticity

So what is authenticity? 0345 6060 973. It might not be a good thing

because I suppose if you can fake that, then you've got it made. It's 12.32

Amelia Cox has your headline. James O'Brien on LBC. 12.34 is the time

It's a misinformation technically, but I think it's a mystic, Jim. It's a combination of both

Yesterday we made Radio History. Not in a good way, just in a silly way

Not the kind of Radio History that is made when you present the most popular speech radio programme

in the history of UK commercial radio. But we made radio history because we had a single feature

that was a missing word round and a woke watch and an unhinged headline

Cammy Badenow says she'll never do a coalition with reform because they're too woke

If you don't believe me, you can look it up. That was perfect. This one is sort of a combination of Mystic Gym and missed information

Now I come to think of it, they sound quite similar. Don't let me go home without doing that

I want you to call me on the question of authenticity, but I'm not going to lie. I don't think you can

I think Andy and Bolton nailed it. He said, you can't really put it into words, James, which is both why I'm doing it as a radio phone-in

because I'm nothing if not a masochist, and why I don think anyone going to do better Well you proved me wrong Go on put it into words What is it that we talking about 03456060973 if you just joining us Andy Burnham got it Keir Starmer doesn It not fair

Football, for example. Keir Starmer's love of football could not be more authentic

His Arsenal season ticket was in his pocket, in his wallet, in his jacket

long, long, long, long, long before you'd ever heard his name. He's been an Arsenal fan since he was in short trousers

Andy Burnham's love of Everton, similar. Identical, in fact. They are both bona fide, or bona fide, which do you prefer

Bonafide football fans. And yet Keir Starmer somehow didn't wear it as comfortably or as easily as Andy Burnham did

And they both play football, even though they're arguably old enough to know better

They both play football. They are utterly authentic in their love of football, both as fans and players

But somehow it lands differently when Keir Starmer is in the frame

than it does when Andy Burnham is in the frame. And I want to know why. I want to know why

What is it that we're talking about? Whether you call it authenticity or something else

what is it that we're talking about? 12.37 is the time. But as promised, I'm just going to share with you

the attempts by the Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn, to make the Jason Arday story about me

This is what he's written. The far-left defenders of phantom... Just in case you're not familiar with who he is

he's a very prominent Daily Mail journalist who often provides social commentary on modern affairs

by pointing out how different things were in 20-year-old episodes of the bill

The far-left defenders of fantasist Cambridge professor Jason Arday have had the rug pulled from under them following his resignation

Prominent among them, so this is me, Jeremy Corbyn fans, this is me being far-left, lads

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. I'm far-left now. Prominent among them was the odious LBC radio renter-gob

bitter failed Fleet Street journalist and former suits-user, inside leg measurer, James O'Brien

Shall we just pick through that slowly? Odius, very much in the eye of the beholder

LBC Radio Rent-A-Gob. Guess who used to have a show on LBC for about five minutes

20-odd years ago, and then disappeared down the plughole without ever troubling the scorers

Actually, that's not quite true. When I say the scorers, I mean ratings, of course

but I suppose scorers would also include the Radio Authority, who found that Richard Littlejohn, when he was here

had breached broadcasting rules on several occasions, culminating in a report stating that he had broken half a dozen rules

and had incited violence due to an addition of his phone-in show

In this slot, by the way, one and a half million listeners now. I think seven listeners when Littlejohn was doing the same slot

So anyway, LBC Radio, Rentagob, bitter failed Fleet Street journalist. That's a terrible thing to say

When I left Fleet Street, I was show business editor of the Daily Express and the Sunday Express

And I chose then to pursue a career in broadcasting. I am currently, of course, a Fleet Street columnist

although that's a relatively recent occurrence of which he may well not be aware because he certainly used to spend most of his working life sitting in a gated community in Florida

writing about how awful everything is in Britain. So maybe he still does. I don't know. I don't really care

But do you know who else was a showbiz journalist on the Express newspapers? a chap called Peter Dacre

I don't know if you've ever heard of him. Peter Dacre was a Sunday Express showbiz journalist

mostly on the features department. I think he secured the first ever British interview

with Elvis Presley, which is a wonderful achievement. I secured the first ever British newspaper interview

with Eminem when I was on the Sunday Express. And then, obviously, I got promoted

and ended up being the showbiz editor of both titles, which was my job when I left Fleet Street

Peter Dacre didn't, I don't think, end up as showbiz editor, but had a brilliant career as a showbiz journalist on the Sunday Express

He is the father of a man called Paul Dacre, who is currently editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail

and so Richard Littlejohn's boss. So if the showbiz editor of the Express titles is a Fleet Street failure

God only knows what a mere showbiz writer on the Sunday Express would be described as

So there's Littlejohn calling his boss's dad, effectively, a failure. Former suits user, inside leg measure

I think I'm supposed to be embarrassed about the fact that I had a job in menswear when I was younger and trying to get into journalism

How on earth does he know about that? How does he know? How does he know about that

Oh, because I talk about it all the time with great affection and warmth

And actually, with a degree of wondering how my life would have panned out if I hadn't managed to get a job in journalism and have carried on working in menswear, which, as you know, because you listen to this program quite often, I absolutely love

I loved my work in, but why is that supposed to be embarrassing? Why am I supposed to be embarrassed by that

It goes on. Predictably, he spat his usual racist smears at our day's critics

who pointed out correctly that the prof's CV was a work of fiction

That's just not true, sadly. I haven't commented on his CV. I pointed out that the original investigation

into whether or not he'd committed plagiarism on his PhD at Liverpool

had been investigated by Liverpool. And they'd found that he hasn't. And I suggested that there's probably some questions for them to answer

about how much supervision he received when he was doing that PhD. The stuff about his CV, absolutely indefensible in my view

An awful lot of it, which is why I haven't sought to defend it. But since when did this character worry about telling the truth

It gets worse. Still, O'Brien's never met a fantasist he doesn't like

He was the main cheerleader for non-sfinder general Tommy Watson's smear campaign

against senior Tories and war hero Lord Bramall. based on false accusations of rape and murder made by child molester Carl Beach

who was subsequently jailed for perverting the course of justice. I used to get this a bit when I was on Twitter, and it used to confuse me

because, look, the show wasn't a very big deal when we covered Operation Midland

but obviously it's quite a big deal now, which is why people like Richard Littlejohn get so upset

But, I mean, where do you think I was getting my information from when I was reporting on the allegations being made by Carl Beach

I was getting them partly from Exaro, the news site who were talking to him and interviewing him

but mostly I was relying on what the rest of the media was doing to decide what was newsworthy and what wasn't

For example, where do you think this was published? At least 20 high-profile members of the British establishment

formed a VIP paedophile ring that abused children for decades, the whistleblower claimed last night

That was in 2014. Or where do you think this was published? Did VIP abusers murder a boy

That was in November of the same year. Or this, where do you think this was published? I saw Tory strangle 12-year-old boy to death

claims abuse victim. Writing further, Leon Britton abused teenage boys during sex parties

which are at the heart of claims of an establishment paedophile ring. It was claimed yesterday

It goes on, abuse claims that lead to the heart of power. That was March 2015 in the same newspaper Which newspaper do you think it was Go on have a guess Because I the main cheerleader for this right I had what What did I have back there About half a million listeners

Maybe a little bit more? I mean, obviously half a million more than Dick Littlejohn ever had when he was on LBC

but still a tiny fraction of what I've got now. So what newspaper do you think published all these stories

Well, it gets worse, actually. Because in December 2014, when Scotland Yard described Beach's allegations as credible and true

including allegations that a Conservative MP had strangled a boy of 12 and a Tory minister watched as another boy was murdered

which newspaper do you think said this? There's a clue in what I'm about to read out

as to which newspaper printed all of these stories and indeed which newspaper printed the phrase that I'm about to read to you next

It comes after months of Daily Mail investigations, the paper reported. describing the Yard's announcement as a victory, wait for it

for the Mail's battle to uncover the truth. So there is the Daily Mail literally cheerleading

for the fantasist and child molester Carl Beach. Although to read this Daily Mail column listed in the newspaper today

that was all me with my little LBC show. Little, but still about 50,000 times bigger

than the one that Dick Littlejohn had when he was presenting on LBC. More recently, he was forced to make a public apology

after reading out on air a fake email claiming that young Jewish children are being taught

that Arabs are cockroaches to be crushed. I wasn't forced. That was an authentic and sincere apology

made when I acknowledged that I had made an error on air, thanks to the help of an awful lot of guidance and input

from people, Jewish people, in fact, who I still respect, value, and consider to be friends

So that's what you do when you make a mistake that you find regrettable. You apologise

I don't know that Dick has ever apologised for his work regarding the teacher Lucy Meadows

the transgender teacher Lucy Meadows, who took her own life. And I don't know that he ever responded to the coroner

at the inquest into her death, who stated that press coverage of her gender reassignment

was ill-informed bigotry, and that Dick Littlejohn personally had carried out what can only be described as a character assassination

having sought to ridicule and humiliate Lucy Meadows and bring into question her right to pursue her career as a teacher

I don't know if you'd describe that as having somebody's death on your conscience

but you'd need to have a conscience for that to work. They removed the article, by the way

but I don't know that he ever apologised for it. He certainly wasn't forced to, was he

Because he never did. And there were other stories as well, involving allegations of homophobia and various other bigotries

But probably my favourite was when he wrote a column condemning Haringey Council for using taxpayer funds

to pay for hopscotch lessons for Asian women. um i mean that's a great story right god can you believe that they're using taxpayer funds to pay

for hopscotch lessons for asian women problem was despite the fact that this was published in his

daily mail column it was complete nonsense there was a a center offering support services for asian

women and their families because they were victims of domestic violence or they had housing problems

or health problems and needed advocacy and support, particularly people with learning disabilities

And guess what it was called? Yeah, it was called hopscotch. So this journalistic genius

this man who sits in judgment on pretty much everybody else from his Florida beach house

wrote an article about taxpayers' money being spent on hopscotch lessons for Asian women

because a very important women's centre offering desperately needed support to vulnerable Asian women

was actually called Hopscotch. 1246 is the time. If he'd been a right-wing talk show host

he'd have been sacked unceremoniously years ago. Why does LBC continue to allow this vile smear merchant

to pollute the airwaves? They're not smears, Dickie, mate. They're paragraphs from your own CV

They're facts. They should be ashamed of themselves. I can answer your question

one of the reasons why they continue to allow me to pollute the airwaves

is because I've got the biggest audience in the history of the radio station. In fact, if we did the top 100 shows in the history of LBC

yours wouldn't be in it. Mind how you go. It's 12.47. James O'Brien on LBC

And we're back in the room. It's 12.49. What has Andy Burnham got that Keir Starmer has not

Elaine's in Dorking. Elaine, what would you like to say? Hello, hi. First time caller

Well, welcome. I'm apologised for ambushing you with that extraordinarily unhinged rant

that you had to endure a moment ago, but I'm glad you stayed until the end

What do you want to say? I had to pay attention, didn't I, just in case you popped up

Yes, go on. Yeah, my feeling is that you don't just have to be comfortable in your own skin

but you have to be comfortable in the limelight. And I think Andy Burnham really is

and I don't think Keir Starmer ever was, really. And that's not fair, right

No, it's not fair, no. It's not necessarily something you can do anything about

Do you think he was surprised to discover that he wasn't comfortable in the limelight, Keir Starmer

Yeah, quite possibly, because he was confident in his presumably past occupations

obviously, you know, highly thought of, and yet being a politician and being constantly

out there is probably an entirely different experience for him. And Andy Burnham probably wouldn't have been like that 15 years ago

but he is like that now. Well, that's right, yeah. He's had that range of experiences

that have helped prepare him to be out there and be comfortable with it all

And obviously he's very good on social media as well. Which again is probably something quite new

whereas Starmer would entrust that. It's a terrible thing, Because Kemi Badenow is clearly on there too much

which is how she ended up defending a former neo-Nazi because he happens to spend a lot of time online

bigging up Kemi Badenow. We worked that out on yesterday's programme with Henry Riley

So the temptation is to say to politicians, get off there. But you can't really say that because so many people get their news

and indeed their opinions from there. So what Keir Starmer does is essentially trust people

to tell him what to do on social media despite not really having any antennae himself

whereas Burnham, there's no way Burnham would have done that pancake thing, would he

No. And there's no way really Starmer could have done the pub snack thing

and seemed so natural, even though I'm sure he loves a bag of crisps, Elaine

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he does but he obviously doesn come naturally to him to be on social media and it was fairly clear that that was all put there in front of him for him to deliver So what the word then Can you put it in a word just being comfortable

That's what we mean by authenticity. Because Keir Starmer is an authentic person

but we don't put him on this list of authentic politicians. No, I guess that's true

Being entirely comfortable in almost any situation. And there it is. And hopefully it will sustain, hopefully it will last

but for now it's what he's got and what Starmer hasn't got. Thank you, Elaine

A sparkling debut. Paul is in Eastleigh in Hampshire. Paul, what would you like to say? Yeah, I think I'm with Elaine

I'm also with the previous caller. When you said to him, well, what do you think the Downing Street media team are wanting

He said, well, I keep our job. Yeah, there's a great line here as well on that as well

This is from Stephen in Isleworth. Everything is going well and you don't need to change anything

said no consultant ever. Yes, well, there you go. I think the reality is, I think, with Starmer, I think he had a lot of pressure on him, you know

come from a very well reputed profession to leading the opposition and becoming prime minister in a new government

after God knows how many years, you know, with the Tories. He had a lot of pressure

Burnham has spent his whole career in politics. I think as authenticity goes

I think really with Burnham it comes down to a carefree attitude in respect to himself

personally. Keir Starmer has come from a very serious background and I can't knock him

he's a father, he's the son of a toolmaker, I'm the son of a car trader

we've all got a background but I'm the son of a Daily Telegraph journalist

but I try and keep that quiet otherwise Dick Littlejohn might stick it in a column next week well that's fair enough I suppose

but I think the reality is I think you could look at it as a little bit like dad dancing

right, it's the political Burnham is the political equivalent of dad dancing

if your kids moan about you dancing you dance more as a dad, we all do it

but there's a carefree attitude about him if you put Starmer in a similar situation

he would have crumbled not crumbled but we would have cringed we would have cringed in a different way

that's an interesting point, it's like two flavours of cringe because kids cringe at dad dancing

and the rest of us love it or the dads love it whereas if Starmer did it, everyone would cringe

Other dads would cringe as well. It's got a touch of Ricky Gervais dancing. But this is brutal on the man, isn't it

Because he's clearly the real deal. He just couldn't communicate that to people

I've got a lot of sympathy for Keir Starmer. Me too, more than ever. Similar sympathy I had for him

believe it or not, for John Major. Did you do now? Did you have it at the time? Did you have it at the time

I think I did. I don't think you did. I felt like I wanted to fight his corner and I felt like he was getting a lot of undue criticism

For being grey. Fundamental thing, yes. Talk about him a lot. We talked about him yesterday in exactly the same context

the old Cones hotline. Thank you, mate. Thank you, Paul. It is just coming up to 12.56

I need to give you a quick heads up for this week's Full Disclosure

Obviously, I've given several heads up to a rather old episode of Full Disclosure

if you're just joining us. the one with Jason Arday the academic who has found himself at the centre

of all manner of allegations accusations and many of which have been found to be well

founded already, that's definitely worth listening to, if you just want to get an idea

perhaps of why so many people found him so persuasive, myself included

but this week is a rather different character, Dr Ranj, who you

will be probably familiar with from his work on the telly and writing

particularly good at communicating with children in medical matters. You'd probably seen him on Strictly Come Dancing as well

or with the kids on the CBBeast show Get Well Soon. I really liked him

I didn't know a great deal about him, but I knew that I really liked him. I decided to interview him when I was at the theatre

I think I was watching Elf with the magnificent Aled Jones in it. And the children were more excited

about seeing Dr. Ranj in the audience than they were about, not my children, they're far too old

but lots of children there were more excited about seeing Dr. Ranj in the audience

than they were about seeing the show itself, it seemed. Such was the length of the queue

waiting to shake his hand or get his autograph. So I couldn't wait to sit down with him

and I'm very glad I did, because he is absolutely fascinating. We used to go to Punjabi school on Sundays because my parents wanted us to be able to read and write

and speak it, and I learned that very quickly. And I hated school, because no kid really likes

school at that age. But the proviso was that you can leave, and you don't have to go once you've

you've got your GCSE. So in my parents' minds, they were like, good, we've got a good seven or eight years to go yet. I took that challenge head on. And I think I've kept that mentality

through my entire life. Whenever someone says, gives me a challenge or says, you can't do

something, I come back and say, here you go. And that's what I did. I took my exams. I passed

Did you arrange it all yourself? No, no, no. It's all done through the Sunday school

You did it through the Sunday school. Okay. So you went up to the teacher at Sunday school and said, I'd like to take my GCSE six years early

Well, I think they kind of said, are you ready? What sort of shifts were you putting in? What sort of homework were you doing

Well, it was a few hours every Sunday, and then you get a bit of homework as well

And they said, well, I think you're good enough to take the exam. So I did. And I passed. I got a C

And then I took it into my school, my junior school, my primary school. Took it to the headmaster

I was naff at sport. How old were you? You know, eight, nine, ten

I was eight that age. Yeah, I wasn't very good at sports. So I never got sports certificates in assemblies. I used to

watch all my mates getting swimming badges and things like that. So the first certificate I ever

got, I took it in to my headmaster. And I said, would you do that thing that you do in assembly

Do the presentation of the certificate? And he said, I remember him saying to me, do you know what this is? And I was like, I've got absolutely no idea. It's like, I've done an exam

basically, and I've got this certificate. And he got some other teachers and he goes

this is a GCSE O-level, which is what they were called at that time

Yeah, of course they were, because you'd have sat GCSEs just looking at your age

When you were 16, you sat GCSEs. But when you were eight, they were still O-level. Yes, yes. When I was talking, I was born in 79, so I was, what was it, 1986, 87-ish

Yeah, so that's... That's actually some sort of record. I don't know about that

I bet it was. It's coming up to one o'clock. That's it for me for another

Day will be back Monday morning from 10. If you missed any of today's show

you can listen back on our free Global Player app, or the LBC app, where you can also stay up to date

with all the latest news, videos, and opinions. You can listen to a range of podcasts

including James O'Brien Daily, the best bits from my LBC show every day. Download the official LBC app for free

from your app store now. Coming up at four on LBC, it's Ben Kentish, who's in for Tom Sawbreak

because Tom was in for Nick this morning. But now it's the one and only, Tai Chi Fogarty