The mother of all privatisation disasters | James O'Brien - The Whole Show

Good morning. I am not ruling it out, okay? If there was ever a day upon which we could

conceivably have a phone-in about parking tickets, today is that day. It's literally

government policy. You can hardly quibble, can you, despite the fact that it is historically

the single dullest topic of conversation in the history of phone-in radio. If we were

ever going to try to challenge that. Today would be the day

to do it, with Andy Burnham's announcement that parking fines will be capped at £100

and the so-called cowboys will be purged. So stand by for that one. I'll give you plenty of warning in case you

want to switch off your radio and go and do something else instead. But I have never heard

in all the times I've heard other people do parking ticket findings

I have never heard a single entertaining or interesting contribution. But you know how this show works

We will try to buck that trend. We will try to defy that stereotype

I say we very loosely because I've got nothing. But who knows, maybe lurking out there somewhere

is a human who has never phoned a radio station before but has a tale of parking injustice

so powerful and so moving that the rest of us will be lips a quiver

Lips a quiver and dewy of eye as we hear the saga of the park

I don't know. We may, but we probably won't. But who knows? It will be later in the programme either way

And speaking of that story about Andy Burnham's parking war, war on cowboy parking companies

which I think we could agree sits alongside in many ways the announcement yesterday that they were going to crack down on people playing loud music on public transport

not just loud music one of the news channels I forget I can't remember which one it was

forgive me I think it might have been local ITV news or

local London BBC they got on a bus and they had footage of a woman

talking really loudly on her phone and they challenged her and she just sort of went yeah and so what

I'm not stopping it and tried to carry on the conversation with whoever was on the other end of the phone

on full speaker and just sort of highlighted the difficulties they're going to have in enforcing that. Fogarty's law, as nobody else calls it

But I'm sticking with it. It'll catch on eventually. Because you've had the powers to

fine offenders in a lot of these contexts since about 2005. It's just that nobody has the

inclination or the wherewithal to do it. And I don't know that the Prime Minister's announcement

is going to change that particularly, unless it changes the mood. Unless it changes the mood

and those two things there just make me wonder whether or not he might

get away with a well at least he tried. Have you seen this

stuff about the government focusing upon the minor irritations as it were, the small things

that blight our existence and dull though the stories may be there's nothing dull about the feelings

of anger and injustice you get when you're rinsed by a cowboy parking firm or even by overly draconian rules. And similarly, the people on the public

transport with the loud music or the extremely loud conversations are incredibly obnoxious

whether they realize it or not. And I think quite often they don't. So he will try or they will try

And it's very much a mark of early Burnhamism to address the stuff that other people have thought

wasn't worth addressing because nothing will ever change so i'm just coming up i'm just putting those

four words out there in front of you early doors in the burnham premiership and i'm wondering

whether we will circle back to at least he tried at least he tried i don't know i don't know but i

do know this the attempts to make some sense or to undo the damage the horror show that is thames

water have so far failed a rather splendid uh exclusive in the guardian today reporting that

the prime minister has told his officials to rip up their plans for how to fix thames water

and it moves us back into similar space albeit with a big big big issue rather than a little one

it's things that previous politicians it's things that previous administrations have perhaps

just thought oh lord let's kick that one down the road let's touch do you do this in life i'm a

terrible procrastinator a terrible procrastinator um anything that feels slightly daunting is highly

likely to be stuck on pause or stuck on hold it's why this is pretty much a job that was tailor-made

for my flaws and foibles because you can't i can't do oh i'll do it in 10 minutes oh i'll do the

monologue after the break Keith oh I'll circle back to that I'll do it next Tuesday I have to

I've got to be here 100% when I was doing other jobs in this media in the industry I just I was

a mess leave everything until one minute past the last minute and then just take this mad flurry

it's no way to live you go you drive yourself bonkers perfect job for me this absolutely perfect

job um but but if I was a politician the temptation to think oh that's too tough that's too big that's

too hard that's impossible whether you're talking about parking companies noise on trains or thames

water the temptation just to think well oh crikey crikey and burnham appears to be grasping that

nettle andy burnham appears to be um grabbing the issue by the by the scruff of the neck and this is

what I find quite exciting about him at the moment and we may have

accidentally or deliberately not done the Burnham Optimism Barometer yesterday. I'll let you decide whether that was an editorial

decision or just a sin of omission rather than a sin of

commission. But it had become a little bit silly. When we had four tens on the row

I began to think that it might not be entirely scientific. It might

not be entirely scientific. But these issues that he is addressing speak to me of the fact that he got out of Westminster

There's a variety of words you can use to describe a sort of, I love the word ossification, which I think means

I should probably have checked before using it on live national radio, I think means turning to bone, a sort of ossification of enthusiasm

When you're confronted with the machinery of government and the machinery of civil service

you begin to think that you know it's it's it's not worth doing we can tinker with that we can put

that tax rate up a bit we can do this but the really big stuff you kind of look at something

like hs2 and you would understand why people balk at the really big stuff not always god knows the

biggest and best things that have ever happened to this country have involved people doing things

that looked impossible most obviously probably a nairin bevan and the national health service

But you can sort of see why, the sense that, well, why do we do things like this

Well because we always have them because we have to and we have no choice We have no choice And what he done with regards to thames water which is in the sort of mess that almost impossible to convey the company has just asked the people to whom it

already owes money for an extra 2.4 billion pounds simply to keep going we'll get to that

more in a moment and he has sort of been presented with a variety of options that we might call

normal and according to this report he has said no um this is what he means when he talks about

calling an end to 40 years of neoliberalism loosely it means this idea you probably hear

it around the puzzle we've got to look after the wealth creators we've got to look after the

business people we've got to look after the companies because that's how growth happens

and then you look at the anemic state of our economy and the sycophantic treatment of wealth

over the last 40 years. And you begin to wonder whether these people have ever opened a newspaper

or looked at the city pages. Oh, we've got to look after the wealth creators

You've got to look after the wealth. Never mind the workers. You've got to look after the wealth creators

And with that philosophy, with that attitude, you end up handing companies like Thames Water to people

to do with whatever they will because they're the wealth creators and we can trust them. And if we haven't got the wealth creators

we haven't got any growth. And guess what they do? They take all the wealth and they leave the company to wither

which is what has happened with Thames Water. It's drawing up a 10-year plan for government

which will be announced later this year, and it will bring more utilities under public control

So that is what is being sent, if you like, down the slipway

That is heading in our direction. There are currently £100 million worth of outstanding fines

on Thames Water's books. They are currently, or they recently asked creditors

i.e. the people that already owe them £2.4 billion, that are owed £2.4 billion for more money to keep the company afloat because it is running out of cash and it needs cash to run

Already a couple of things popping up that I don't completely understand

The government would have to go to court or at least nationalise, would have to go to court to nationalise Thames Water

can't really do that without spending potentially billions of pounds or getting tied up in a lengthy court battle or both

because there are people who are owed billions of pounds and if you take over the company, you take over the debt

And yet at the same time, people have made immense amounts of money

out of their shares in Thames water. People who have worked in the upper echelons of the company

have made immense amounts of money. and the state of our waterways is the worst it has ever been

The worst it has ever been. So I'm going to say something that if you weren't listening to yesterday's program

will sound a little bit silly. France is much bigger than Thames Water

We can all agree on that, right? Yeah. Although I need a little quick reminder on which companies have made a ton of money

out of owning Thames Water that actually turned out to be foreign governments. I'm big fans of government ownership of British utilities, the Tories, as long as it was foreign governments that were owning the British utilities and not the British government

But France is much bigger than Thames Water. And yesterday I needed people who really knew what they were talking about to help us make sense of the riots in France and the French attitude to the riots in France

And it was a wonderful phone-in, if you missed it. A really illuminating and often very entertaining, thanks to some of the callers, nothing to do with me, insight into two very, very close neighbours who are culturally, in many ways, worlds apart

Never more so than when it comes to public protest and up to and including perhaps public violence

Although, of course, the violence was a tiny, tiny, tiny proportion of the people protesting

protesting and I want to do the same with Thames Water today I think I want

and I know this sort of sets me apart from the traditional radio

phone in practices but I would prefer to talk to people who have

knowledge and insights as opposed to just sort of opinions based upon not

do you know what I mean? People who've actually got a little bit of knowledge. You don't need to be PhD

level but you perhaps worked there or you follow things very closely or you've just taken a particular interest in the politics and the

economics of it over the last 40 years. I honestly don't think most of us have got a

scooby-doo how this could happen. The simultaneous three things that have happened. The company

is absolutely scuppered. People have made, and institutions and foreign governments have made epic amounts of money

over the period of privatisation. And the state, the service that they provide

is unspeakably bad. Most obviously, looking at the sewage that is being pumped into our rivers

Do you know that in London now, And this isn't actually entirely due to sewage being pumped into our rivers

because there's also a problem with blocks of flats having been built

either deliberately or accidentally, to put the sewage pipe coming out of a new build into the overflow

that's actually for rainwater and drainage, which makes its way into a river instead of making its way to a sewage works

So you've now got Jim Watterson at the rather splendid London-centric website

has been exploring the amount of vegetation that's now growing in London waterways

because there's no nice way of doing this, Keith. You might want to look away for a moment

The seeds pass through our system, but the sewage containing the seeds makes its way into our system

and, of course, acts as a fertilizer. So you've got tomato plants growing up all over the waterways of London

and, indeed, also things like pumpkins and other chutney-friendly ingredients. That's just a really sort of visceral indication of everything that's going on

but I don't think most people and I've done this before on the radio

and quite often when I don't understand something or I can't get my head

around something, we need to do it three or four times before the really big

lessons land, before I can actually come at this in a year's

time or in six months time and actually have my ducks in a row I can do the lazy stuff, I can go

Thatcher, Thatcher, Thatcher, or I can go privatisation is always a disaster

which is not technically true, is it? Or I can talk about the tyranny of excessive capitalism and what happens when you bow down to the so-called wealth creators or to big business or whatever it may be

But I don't fully understand how this specific thing, how this specific thing has managed to reach such extraordinary proportions

and I have great faith in the simple fact that one or two hopefully seven or eight people listening to this program will actually be able to tell the rest of us interesting things That the challenge That the starter for 10 All right It 1018

How did Thames Water become such an almighty problem? 0345 6060973

How did this company that we once owned become a millstone around the neck of government, potentially, an absolute travesty of natural and financial justice and an appalling provider of the service, the one service that it is supposed to provide

Tell me why, in your view, Thameswater has become the mother of all privatization disasters

0345 6060 973. And genuinely, I just want to get as many voices as possible with a little bit of knowledge and insight addressing this question

Because, listen, there's a reason why it's more tempting for you and me today to talk about parking tickets and loud noises on public transport

There's a reason why Andy Burnham is picking them off. Good luck to him. And I hope he pulls it off

But they're low-hanging fruit. And if you're spending your life going for the low-hanging fruit, you never go for the big-hanging, the high-hanging fruit

And I want to. I want you to help me and everybody else listening to this program come to a better understanding of how something so obviously and utterly egregious can have happened in our home, can have happened in our country

Something as fundamental to our survival and our community as water, the provision of water and the cleanliness of our waterways can have been so egregiously abused by people making huge sums of money

How has this happened? How has this been allowed to happen? And how on earth have or how on earth can Andy Burnham possibly undo it or reverse it

0345 6060 973. James O'Brien on LBC. It is 23 minutes after 10. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

You know, I mean, these things can't afford to advertise. They can't do the things that perhaps the enemy can do or the people who they don't regulate but report on can do

But you can go to a website called weownit.org.uk and you can find all the details that you could possibly need about who owns what

Stakeholders in Thameswater include companies owned by the governments of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and China, as well as a Canadian pension scheme and a UK universities pension scheme

If you go back a few years to 2022, they knew that 70% of the English water industry was in foreign ownership

So that's not an answer to the question of how has it ended up in such an almighty mess

But it is an answer to the question of who has got all the money

And some of those are not problematic recipients. The passage of the money is problematic

but, you know, a university pension scheme. They're not what you might call sort of economic vandals historically

But the idea that Thames Water and other water companies in this country

are such an attractive financial proposition that other governments, foreign governments, will pile into them

while the service they're actually providing to British people is abominable. And crucially, the company is being so badly run

that they end up with so much debt that the government can barely afford to nationalise it

should it choose to do so. Epic debt, while stakeholders have made

over the years, a fortune. And if you can unravel this, or you can explain how this has happened

then you can go straight to the top of the class today. Ray is in Sunningdale. Ray, what would you like to say

Yes, James, good morning. Yes, so you asked the question, why did it get so bad

It got so bad because they've got a commodity that we all need

there's no choice here about what comes out my shower. I could choose to take the train or I could drive or I could get on the bus

I have choices for it. I've got mode of transport. But with water, I don't have a choice, no choice at all

And Tames Water especially is what you're talking about. They've got the largest customer base of all the water companies in the UK

So it's the extractive economy. It's the same thing that happens with minerals all over the world

They just extract the wealth out of the company. And, you know, when they get into trouble

they go and hold a committee meeting in Westminster and they get some more money

I mean, you're telling me what has happened more, perhaps, than how it has happened

Because you know me, Ray, I hope, unless you've just tuned into this radio station by accident

for the very first time. I am a sweet summer child. I am nothing if not naive

And I suppose the question that I'm dancing around is how has this been permitted to happen

Well, this is good. A privatised company, James, believe it or not, it's a private company

They can do with it what they like. It's just like I said just the other day in a room

Privatisation is the counsel of private equity. Hang on a minute. What do you mean in a room

No, no, no, we've got these political forums. I see. I mean, as opposed to what

On a bus? As I was saying just the other day, on a bus. As I was saying just the other day

what sort of room was it? Was it a kitchen? Was it a sitting room? Political room

Privatisation, James. Privatisation is a cousin. It's a cousin of private equity

They both operate the same way. They take over your company or your asset

whatever it is, load it up with debt, which they call fees. and they're out. That's how they operate

And this, I mean, this is why the idiocy of people who

wang on about wealth creators being the engines of growth in our country

I mean, it might have been true 50 years ago, but today, when you say

private equity, you are describing people who see something that might be doing

might be ticking along quite nicely and they exist solely to get more money out of it

That is, I mean, I think we're sometimes, I mean, I'm naive about this. I think Some people don't get it, whether you call it sweating the assets or whatever figure of speech you prefer

Here is a company. It might be a chain of restaurants, for example. And it's profitable and it's doing fine and its customers like it and it's growing at a natural pace

But some private equity moves in and they say, well, why don't we make the burgers 10 percent smaller because we keep the money that is saved

Why don't we put a couple of extra tables in there because we keep the money that is made, even though the dining experience diminishes

and they make a bit or a lot more money over a relatively short period of time

And if the whole thing, this is the bit I don't really get, if the whole thing then goes under, then they've still done well out of it

So the epic amounts of debt that have been run up by Thames Water

how can the people who've made the money out of Thames Water over the years not somehow be responsible for or on the hook for the epic amounts of debt

Well, that's a good question. And what they do is they run, you know, like I say

they run down the companies and they leave it bankrupt you know toys or us with you know

morrison going through that right now um is going through that i could name companies that are going through this stuff and that is that is capitalism and we can all live with that for good or for ill and we should be a little bit more I mean for the first thing we need obviously is more regulation and all of the most successful political movements

of the last 40 years have been dedicated to reducing regulation, but it shouldn't be allowed to apply to utilities

You know, as Andy Burnham said in his conference speech after being handed the line by someone who listens to this programme

there is a reason why you can't build houses and hotels on the utilities on the Monopoly board

That's you that said that. Correct. Yes, it is me that said that

Andy Burnham just doing a sort of tribute. Nick Ferrari gets mentioned in flipping PMQs

I just get my jokes nicked for his conference speeches. And is there anything that can be done

I mean, because Andy Burnham has sent them back and said, this isn't good enough

We need to come up with a better plan. At the moment, you're looking either at paying the debts

that have been run up, paying billions of pounds to nationalise it, and or a very lengthy court case

what possible miracle cure might his advisors come up with in the next six months

Well, I think the first thing is a decision to take them back. That's the first thing. You've got to take them back

James, if you look around the world, the countries that have kept their state assets

this is simple, simple economics. You sell the asset, the profits, the balance sheet and everything else goes to the private people

You keep the asset. If the managers are cracked, getting better managers to come and run it

Well, that's the next bit of my question, actually, is to people that work there, even in relatively ordinary jobs

I mean, did you see what was happening? Because there's a little bit there

We talk a lot about whistleblowers. Ray, thank you, mate. That's a helpful start

We talk a lot about whistleblowers. I know it sounds a bit odd, but it's as if we've sort of arrived at an enormous disaster

when the signs of it coming must have been in front of us

I mean, Fergal Sharkey been raging about one element of this story for years

and grown as a great campaigner into someone who rages about all the elements of this story

If we started listening to him 10 years ago, could this have been avoided? But if you're on the inside of the industry, if you're on the inside of the water industry

what are your answers to these questions? Because I guess that is one of the things that we need to keep talking about

until it gets baked into our own political consciousness. If private equity move into a sector

they are interested in nothing except profit. What's extraordinary to me is the sectors

that they've been permitted to move into. So care homes, children's homes

homes for troubled children, absolutely hook, line and sinker, lock, stock and two smoking barrels now

owned by private equity companies. Utilities. how on earth can people whose only priority whose only motivation is profit how on earth can they be

permitted to run companies who provide us with water who looks at a water company who look who

normal looks at a water company and sees pound signs the difference between a utility and a

commercial capitalist operation seems to me to have been exploded at some point over the last 40

years, probably beginning in 1979, but by no stretch of the imagination reversed from

1997 onwards. Andy Burnham includes Labour governments when he talks about 40 years of

neoliberalism. But this is textbook stuff. This is academic stuff. I want the nitty gritty

I want the street level answers to the question of how the hell, here it is, how have they

got away with this? I don't even know who they are, let alone how they, whoever they

got away with it. We can say private equity. It's a little bit nebulous

It's a little bit amorphous. We can say foreign governments. That's a little bit easier, perhaps

to get our heads around. But how have... I mean, what have they

got away with? And how have they got away with it? 0345

6060 973. Dominic Ellis is here now with your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC

135 is the time, and you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

where the questions have distilled down fairly helpfully to, how did they get away with it

What did they get away with? And who exactly got away with it? It's easy to get confused

This is no criticism of you, Michael. But when you message me to say, James, Thames Water is not owned by a foreign government

but by Macquarie, a global private equity fund. Of what failed to police this

By the way, Her Majesty's Government, His Majesty's Government, can't afford to make Thames public or fund its operations

I would just point out that Macquarie owned Thames Water until 2017

So it is, I admit, hard to keep up. And I've already mentioned a bit about the epic amounts of money it would cost to bring it back into public ownership and the epic legal actions that would take place

And I don't want to live in a country where the prime minister just says, your boo sucks

We're taking it. And if you're owed millions of pounds by Tenswater, I'm afraid you're just going to have to suck it up

But is there a but in that sentence? I don't want to live in a country like that, but maybe there are circumstances that you could describe as deserving of emergency legislation

And of course, look, if a pension fund is going to go under because they're owed money by Thames Water, or you're looking at a worthy institution coming a cropper as opposed to unworthy institutions, then you've got a problem with it

But, oh, I don't know. The more you think about it and the more you talk about it

the more you understand why successive governments have sort of balked at doing anything about it

And the more you understand why Andy Burnham's government or why Andy Burnham has told his advisers

to go away and come up with a better idea. What if there isn't one

So what have they got away with? How did they get away with it

And who exactly has got away with it? Jeremy's in Teddington, which is, well, I was going to say it's on the River Thames

but then quite a lot of the areas in which we're talking about are on the River Thames, Jeremy

so I don't think you get a special badge. What made you pick up the phone? I picked up the phone because I used to work for Thames Water until immediately before privatisation

Oh, crikey. my ticket out was reporting to the senior management team

that leakage was a lot worse than we were reporting, that sewage treatment works performance was a lot worse

So they didn't want to hear it? You were a kind of whistler. Well, I got an interview with the head of human resources

the following day who told me I wasn't cut out for a privatised water industry

Wow. What a story, mate. I've stayed in the industry ever since and watched with horror what's been happening

The first 10 years of privatisation, we had a strong regulator in Ofwat

Right. Ian Byatt was the head of Ofwat. He retired, and then things went downhill

DEFRA in its wisdom appointed a civil servant to head up off what and they lost grip and at that

point did deliberately or just sort of no no I don't think it was deliberate I think these most

these things are are cock up rather than conspiracy but of course the vultures move in on the cock ups

yeah and and those are early vouchers and I'm not on top of the detail, but those early vouchers need to be studied

because they were the truly rapacious investors who, fundamentally with the water company

the assets are long-lived, but the water company assume that they're going to last a hell of a lot

longer than anyone can reasonably realistically expect. So water mains, oh, they'll last at least

200 years. There's no water main on earth that's ever lasted that long unless we go back to Roman

times. And you have a straight choice then between maintenance and upgrading or profit

Indeed, you know, do we replace what needs to be replaced or can we wing it until I retire or until I've taken the dividends and we'll divert those funds that should have been used to digging up the roads and replacing the assets

Two things occurred to me, and you are the perfect caller this morning, so I'm very grateful to you for stepping up

But two things occurred to me. The first is that presumably things were not perfect pre-privatization

And the second is, to sort of knit the two together, could you have had private ownership, as you suggest, a sort of better regulated private ownership that didn't inevitably lead to the disasters that we're currently witnessing

Let's begin with the first. Things were not perfect, were they, before privatization

No, no, far from it. But we knew, or at least those who looked knew what needed to be done

and we knew we faced a huge period of investment in assets that were 100 years old

of some of the more recent assets were falling apart quicker than the Victorian ones

So we knew there was work to be done. And the new owners did not want to do it

The new owners did not want to do it. And that has been sustained since, I think it was 1989, was it

Did you leave in 1989, the privatisation? I was asked to leave in 1989

And this is because you were saying we need to spend money on this, that or the other

Otherwise, the problems, they may not happen tomorrow, but they're going to happen at some point and they're going to be big

Yes, indeed. Wow. So it is that Thatcherite alert allergy to regulation

Enthusiasm for privatization coupled with an antipathy towards regulation creates this situation

Well, the first decade of regulation of the privatized industry was good

OK. In my opinion. Albeit that behind the scenes, that they were sowing the seeds of what would happen

by getting rid of people like you and trying to ignore them. Yeah, behind the scenes, they were balking at the idea of digging up Victoria Street

to replace water mains that definitely needed replacing. Absolutely fascinating. And, I mean, this is not really a fair question

so feel free to plead the fifth, Jeremy. But has Andy Burnham got any sort of nuclear options here

Does he have any miracle cures, do you think? He might want to look back in his history books

at the creation of the Metropolitan Water Board back in 1903. And a little bit of history is interesting

because prior to the creation of the Metropolitan Water Board, London was supplied by private water companies

and that really was the Wild West out there all manner of companies

competing to supply different areas and students of history will tell you about the cholera and typhoid problems within London

John Snow yeah indeed associated with water quality with poor sanitation I mean, most people don't know what you've just said, that they were at the beginning of the 19th century

It was all sort of a bit like the railways. You had loads and loads of rival private companies building, owning all to us

Joseph Chamberlain was the man that kind of began to get it all under control towards the end of that century

I know he said in 1884, which is a bit like a caller to the show today, could say it is difficult, if not impossible

to combine the citizens' rights and interests and the private enterprises' interests

because the private enterprise aims, at its natural and justified objective, the biggest possible profit

1884. Talking about water companies. Amazing. Yeah, that is true. You have to apologise for the trains that are passing by, but..

That's all right. You've knocked it out of the park. I mean, I don't know that the lessons of 1904

would enable Andy Burnham to avoid the enormous bills or the enormous legal actions or both that he potentially faces

But it at least gives him an idea of what the pot of gold

at the end of the rainbow, that's not the right ogy to use, what the light at the end of the tunnel might actually look like

what he should be aiming for. I don't know that it alleviates the potential hazards and horrors

of the journey to get there. But you, Jeremy, are top of the class. It's 10.45

James O'Brien on LBC. I don't even know if you even knew that we're currently in severe drought

For the first time since 1995, Dale Vince suggests that the situation is the worst in modern history

So you won't see this scale of severe drought in our history books going back for 100 years

And the books don't go back any further. So severe drought. Where I live in London, I'm still living under a hosepipe ban

The first couple of months of this year had record-breaking rainfall. This is all linked, you know

Spoiler alert, the rain comes out, the water comes out of the sky. Well, that's part of a process

And the water companies don't just take charge of sewage and making sure your tap works, but also storage of water

I mean, every single link in the chain appears to be corroded

appears to be corrupted. And yet we sit here, I could probably make a list of the people who've made all the money

but why they're not remotely responsible for the mess that's left behind

and what on earth Andy Burnham can do about it are questions for the ages

But just remember the next time you hear someone using the phrase wealth creator without bothering to explain what it means

or why we've got to look after the wealth creators if we want to have growth. This is what they're talking about

Private equity companies are wealth creators. They create enormous wealth for their shareholders by making your water supply rubbish

That's what they do. Oh, we've got to look after them. So, you know, who do you care more about

The people who use the water or the people who make money out of the provision of the water Because that the choice you being offered by a lot of right people And you made that choice We had it made for you for 40 years

They've prioritized the so-called wealth creators. While, in fact, what they've done is absolutely screw all of the customers, all of the consumers

Most obviously, probably on water, but it's far from unique. So, how did they get away with it

Who got away with it? and what exactly have they got away with

Steve's in Hastings. Steve, what would you like to say? Morning, James. Hello

Just that they'd more aptly be described as wealth extractors. Yeah, I prefer that

That's funny, isn't it? Call them creators and everyone misses the fact that they're extractors

It's the consequences of neoliberal economics on a microscale in the water industry

So Andy Burnham does have a nuclear... By the way, I agree with everything your previous caller said

By the way... You've got a similar background, I think. Yeah, yeah, 36 years in Thames

Gosh. I wonder what I did right today to tempt you two out of the woodwork

because I've had this phone in before and not got those calls. But anyway, I'm interrupting you. Crack on, what do you want to add

I was going to say, yes... Could you see this coming? Don't worry, mate

Could you see this coming? Could you see this coming? I mean, even 30 years ago

Yeah. Yeah, because the private equity companies, Macquarie's Bank in particular, saw the Thames Water as an opportunity to extract assets

And the whole purpose was to drive down costs to extract value

And they sold off land. Well, they didn't. Their private equity vehicle called Kemble Water

which was a holding company actually actually performed the did did the deeds but to get back

to your original question Andy Burnham has got a nuclear option he could say and this is quite

clearly true Thames Water is bankrupt it cannot pay its debts now under normal company law

a company that is bankrupt goes into administration and when it's in in administration you put a team

to run it and and you have a process for uh partly paying off the debt i'm not sure how we

well you get sometimes you read about getting 10p in the pound for the creditors don't you

yeah well the government could legislate say oh it's one penny in the pound the rest of the money

goes into investment uh into the assets but over the years they they sold off land they sold off

property to increase the value to shareholders. They also got rid of maintenance operations

people, people who are skilled, and they changed the system for maintenance and operation

which meant that works failed regularly. I'll give another example. When I joined the company

the leakage level was at 28%, 27%. The leakage level today I haven't checked

the figures, I could be flying a car here, about 27%. Oh, okay

So it hasn't changed. What has changed then? Well, the value for money

So the whole idea of privatisation, the Fatshia government and neoliberal proselytizers decided that fixing the water industry

was a too difficult problem, and so they privatized it with selling us the idea that that would allow the market

to raise money and improve the assets. And your man was right

It did happen for six or seven years. And then things changed

the priority became maximization of profit there's a naivety i think steve and i feel it myself you

can't quite but i mean i mean it's an idiotic naivety but you you're talking about people

whether they're in the civil service or they're in government or or elsewhere and or even in the

industry perhaps working a bit lower down the food chain from the from board level and and they

sort of think well hang on this is a water company they're not going to treat it like a sausage

factory. They're not going to just come in and extract as much money as they possibly can, because

it's a water company. But that's just, that's sort of suicidal naivety

isn't it? I'll give you another example. Yeah, go on. Hampton Water Treatment

Works, biggest water treatment works in the country, possibly Western Europe, huge works

And it had additional reservoirs, which weren't being used. But, and the people who bought the company could see that as an opportunity to invest in housing, which it could then sell off a massive profit because Hampton's a very wealthy area in London, as you know

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the world. And the whole process for water treatment was chlorination at that stage

Now, chlorination uses, or we used at that time chlorine gas, and that's a very, very dangerous product

And so it came within the auspices of a coma regulations. There were all sorts of safety requirements around controlling that substance

for chlorination of water, including an exclusion area of, I forget now

Doesn't matter. I think it was about 500, 600 yards. which included this area which was ripe for development

So the powers that be insisted that we move to another process

not as good, more costly, huge investment to change it. More costly in the long term but throws up the money from the property development in the short term

Exactly, so you could take it out of the coma regs and you could flog off that land to a developer

I know there's a lot more in the middle but the beginning and the end of the story is simply

that these institutions, these utilities fell into the hands of people who were interested only in extracting as much wealth as they possibly could

And yet, you know, we sit here wringing our hands about it and we still have people contributing to public discourse

who think that the protection of these people is a political priority

And, of course, you con the public by calling them wealth creators

rather than wealth extractors. I shall remember that distinction, Steve, and I shall think of you every time that I do

Thank you. 10.56 is the time. Neil is in Rushcliffe. Neil, what would you like to say

Hi, James. Well, obviously I'm conscious time's ticking. I think you've probably had most of the explanation of..

Well, there's always room for more, isn't there? I'm an enemy of simplism, but actually sometimes..

Let me throw two particular points in. One of the things that comes out of this

which probably should have been predicted, was that government and our form of government

is its own worst enemy. Because governments change so often and because of the way we do it, we are incapable of keeping any long-term focus on anything

So the regulator, as has been pointed out, may have been effective in the early days

but it not long before they drift offline for a whole variety of reasons And the ability to regulate what is in effect a monopoly capitalistic enterprise is non So that the first thing

But the second thing is, let me just give you a very quick scenario. Each of these utilities that's been privatised

every few years they will have an exercise. It's usually called some sort of regulatory view or whatever

And around that table, you will have, in effect, representatives of the regulator

you'll have the representatives of the company, and the aim of the meeting is for the company to convince the regulator

that they're going to be investing money and to put on the table all their facts and figures about where things are

and where they need to be and all the rest of it. But around that table you will have a team of very, very highly paid people

employed by the company whose whole job is to prepare for those reviews

and who will have spent the last 12 months non-stop doing it. On the other side of the table you'll probably have a couple of regulators

who have paid maybe £100,000 max for the top guy and less for whatever

And it's an unfair competition. It's like tax accountants. It's like accountants

They're like rich people who can afford a team of accountants to pick all the holes in the government rules and regulations

because the motivation and the cash is there to make it a very one-sided competition

And some people go from being gamekeepers to poachers, of course, don't they? Well, they do, but, of course, on the gamekeeper side

it's impossible publicly to pay people enough or the right people enough

to actually be proper poachers. The temptations are immense. And, of course, a lot of the people that the right-wing newspapers tell us

are leaving the country because of the tax regime are the people that are at the top of these companies

are the private equity. Not all. Some of them are manufacturers, and they probably deserve different treatment

but some of them are private equity. The other thing I would say, though, James

is it isn't, in my view and experience, as simple as, if you like, good and bad

No, of course not. Lots of shades of grey in between there

and perhaps when you've got time to discuss it in a bit more detail, it might come out

But one thing I would say is binary, and I think as the months pass

I've become more persuaded of this, that there are some elements of national infrastructure

that should not be exposed to the vagaries of markets. I know it is simplistic, that line about the Monopoly board, and I am obviously quite proprietorial about it

But it is fair to say that things like energy and water and I would add education to that list, actually, and even some housing should not be exposed to the vagaries of markets

It shouldn't be exposed to the risk of rampant capitalism and wealth extraction

So, of course, some people who invest and some even private equity people are good for companies and good for businesses

But some businesses should be ring fenced from even the possibility of the practices that we've seen

Because if a water company ends up in the sort of trouble that Thames Water is in, then as we're learning, it's everybody except the people who've made all the money out of it who suffer

So droughts, host pipe bombs, all of these things, let alone the sewage in the rivers and the paucity of service, they are all consequences of wealth extraction

Neil, I look forward to when we have time for a slightly more nuanced conversation

But before that, let's engage in some sort of two-dimensional mischief, shall we

Who do you think was the, if not the, then certainly a key architect and strategist in Margaret Thatcher's government who helped formulate the 1989 privatization of the water industry in England and Wales

in fact I'll make it a little bit easier for you which prominent Brexiter

do you think was among if not the chief architect and strategist in Margaret Thatcher's

government who helped formulate and champion the 1989, in fact I'll make

it even easier for you, which prominent Brexiter and former Welsh secretary

who now sits in the House of Lords despite having been wrong about everything for

40, oh go on then it's John Redwood here's the news James O'Brien on LBC

Four minutes after 11 is the time. It is an almost impossible habit to break, you know

Simon Marks, I think, is probably the only one who's managed to do it

He'll be with us at about half past 12 today. But the temptation, the desire, the need almost to actually try to understand things happening in America

happening in Donald Trump's regime, actually. It's confined to that, of course

There's a mystery about how his approval ratings, although historically low, can still stand at 33%

Are these people conscious? Are they sentient? Are they sort of human fungus

I don't know. Maybe there's still some time to be spent or some purpose to be served by trying to work out

what on earth is wrong with them. But the habit of trying to work out

why Donald Trump is doing what he's doing is an almost impossible habit to break. All I can say

to you with confidence is that if you want to know what Vladimir Putin wants, have a look at

what Donald Trump is doing. And that, of course, extends to his closest acolytes. Some of them

for shame, knew exactly what was going to happen when he got into power because when they were

standing against him during his run for the first term, they said so out loud. Some of those people

went on to become his closest political allies, even the one whose own wife was roundly abused by Donald Trump

on several occasions in public. So I don't know what to do with this impulse

It's like an itch that I can't scratch. Why are they doing it? Do you suffer from this at all

If you listen to this program, you must suffer from it a bit. Why? I want to know why things happen

like that little kid. Why, Dad? Why? But why? And eventually someone's going to say, because I say so

That sort of infernal curiosity. That's where all the good stuff comes from

you know. If you do not understand a problem, you can never fix it

I think Trump's the exception that proves that rule. I don't think

we'll ever know why. I mean, how shocked would you be if it emerged that

he had been blackmailed by Vladimir Putin for the duration of both his administrations

and then how shocked would you be to discover that he hadn't been he'd just been bribed or how

shocked would you be to discover that he hadn't been blackmailed or bribed he was just so uh smitten

with the idea of being a dictator in the style of Vladimir Putin or or um uh I always get the name

of the Chinese leader wrong so I try not to say it and then I noticed that I haven't said it and you

pointed out to me. But he just, he envies the North Korean dictator. He envies Kim Jong-un

Those are your three options. Why Donald Trump has done the disgusting things that he's done

most recently, the utter and abject betrayal of Ukraine, of the Ukrainian people

Why has he done it? I think there's three options. He's doing it for the money

the full extent of which will only emerge in subsequent years to come. He's doing it out of fear

of exposure by Vladimir Putin who has something on him or he is simply driven by a desire to be an untrammeled dictator in the style of most obviously Vladimir Putin who seems to be

oh, we know he's Nigel Farage's hero, Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, might be Donald Trump's. He

seems to admire the bones of both of them. And there I'm doing it. I'm doing it again. Eight

minutes after 11 we should have an alarm i'm not actually trying to yze it i'm just reminding

you of what the three possibilities are and i'd do it as a as a three-way split 33 and a third

percent on each of them or rather 33.333333333 recurring chances of it being blackmail bribery

or just simple greed or rather envy blackberry bribery or greed um the betrayal of ukraine

we find ourselves talking about today, the betrayal of Ukraine. So resist the urge, perhaps

as we turn our attention to Pete Hegseth, his idiot Secretary of State for Defense, his idiot

Defense Secretary, attacking allies, attacking the United States allies, downplaying the role

of NATO allies in helping the US with combat operations in Afghanistan. Do you know it's

worth thinking about that in the context of Ukraine. The war in Afghanistan was a consequence

of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. And the United States of America sent out a clarion

call to its allies around the globe for help in that war. And the United States allies answered

in their droves. And many of whom, or members of the armed forces of those countries, many of those

countries made the ultimate sacrifice. I think per capita, Denmark lost more service personnel

in Afghanistan than any other country, including the United States of America per capita

The United Kingdom lost 457 people on duty in Afghanistan. But the point I want to make is a

contrast with Ukraine. When Ukraine asked America for help, Joe Biden agreed, but could have gone

further. Donald Trump has now reached the point where his answer is no, I'm on the other guy's

side. That's what I mean when I talk about the guardrails, that the invisible guardrails of

civilization and decency is I think we were right to go to war in Afghanistan, less so the second

Gulf War. But the and the failure of what happened doesn't make the original decision to do it wrong

But that the difference between how the world responded to America's plea for help and support and how Donald Trump's America is today responding to

Volodymyr Zelensky's plea, Ukraine's plea for health and support, both victims of hideous crimes

One under the guise of Islamist terrorism, one under the guise of imperialist war crimes

Think about it. Listen, if you're a historian and you think I've got this completely wrong

send me a polite message by text, please, and advise me on how to steer away from this hazardous

course, because I like this, but I don't like it. I buy it. I buy this parallel. The reason why 457

British people died on duty in Afghanistan is because our government answered the American

request for help and support. And today, Donald Trump is responding to the ongoing Ukrainian

request for help and support by not only telling them to get stuffed, but also siding with the

man who's killing them, including just in the last 24 hours, two children who were

one child who was in a pushchair in a park, three dead, two women and a child in a pushchair died

at least 14 other injured after a Russian drone hit a park in Ukraine. I don't know if you've

I heard the clip of him yesterday saying that things weren't that bad, that Russia hadn't been that bad in regard to Ukraine

An extraordinary intervention from the president of the United States of America when you see it in the context of how the rest of the world, particularly America's closest allies, responded to their request for help and support in Afghanistan

I'll play you that shortly, but I want to play you a couple of other things first. I want to remind you what Donald Trump said about NATO troops, and that includes us

And remember, after Donald Trump said this, his cheerleaders in this country, whether in politics or the media

continued to cheerlead for him. Dick Littlejohn at the Daily Mail continued to call for him to be in charge of this country

while berating Keir Starmer for not joining Trump's ludicrous war in Iran

which Nigel Farage and Kemi Baden-Ott felt that he should have done. This was after Donald Trump had committed the ultimate insult directed at the men and the women and the families thereof who had made the ultimate sacrifice. 457 of them died on duty in a war that they joined as a consequence of NATO membership and the United States need for support

request for support this is how donald trump described those people at the beginning of this

year we've never needed them we have never really asked anything of them you know they'll say they

sent some troops to afghanistan or this or that and they did they stayed a little back a little

off the front lines but uh we uh we've been very good to europe and to many other countries

and you know now under my administration that began because we had a very successful first term

That began then, but it has to be a two-way street. Fiona Hill, his Russia advisor during that first term

has told a congressional committee about the conversations regarding Putin letting Trump help himself to Venezuela

if Trump would let Putin help himself to Ukraine and look at what has transpired subsequently

I don't know why some things make you angrier than others. That makes my blood boil, that clip

the betrayal of Ukraine is immense absolutely immense, it's epochal it's impossible to convey what an appalling

moment this is in western history that Donald Trump siding with Vladimir Putin

but that there, that was such a big alarm bell wasn't it, it was such a big canary

down the coal mine and don't forget Farage and Badenov, never mind the two

bit columnists, Farage and Badenov stayed on his side after this, sided

with him and his ludicrous war in iran against the british prime minister after he'd done this

after he'd said those terrible terrible things and yesterday or rather on saturday it's not

great audio this so pay attention his idiot defense secretary p hegseth said this i was a young i

a captain in Afghanistan, and we would go to the headquarters in Kabul

and there would be 50 flags at the headquarters. And it was a beautiful thing to see, 50 different countries contributing to the NATO alliance

and the ISAF mission there, except there were like maybe five that contributed

It was actually close to one or two that actually, by the end, were actually involved in genetic operations

In fact, the PACS, ISAF, would joke that it meant I saw Americans fighting

which is sort of a joke but it's demoralizing when you feel like it's not burden sharing it's

actually a burden. Pete Hayes there who served as a Minnesota Army National Guard instructor

in Afghanistan insulting British military insulting British military six months after his boss insulted British war dead. And this is Donald Trump yesterday talking about his new ally

because as he insults the old allies in January and Pete Hegseth insults the current allies today

Donald Trump has made it crystal clear who his new ally is. And you're not going to hear a more

disturbing contribution to discourse surrounding the war in Ukraine than this one. Until, of course

the next one. Have you agreed to a trilateral meeting with President Xi to talk about Ukraine

No, but I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine, because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine

They haven't been doing much. And the same thing with China. We would have it to talk about nuclear

weapons and denuclearization. They haven't been doing much. A kid in a push chair was killed

yesterday. A child in a push chair was killed. They haven't been doing, just think about that

for one nanosecond. They haven't been doing much. Listen to it again because I think I might be sick

Have you agreed to a trilateral meeting with President and Xi talk about Ukraine

I don't know, but I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine, because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine

They haven't been doing much. And the same thing with China. We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons and denuclearization

Frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine

They haven't been doing much. But Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine

They haven't been doing much. Boris Johnson defends Donald Trump over the 6th of January capital riots and Ukraine claims

Hysterical reactions to Trump's re-election only alienate voters. Someone called Zoe Strimple in the Daily Telegraph

Trump derangement syndrome is over. His haters have finally grown up, writes someone called Brendan O'Neill, also in the Daily Telegraph

The real problem with the anti-Trump protesters? They're so embarrassing. wrote someone called Tom Slater in the Daily Telegraph

Nigel Farage claims Donald Trump learned a lot from me. That's possibly true, actually

which is by no means guaranteed where Nigel Farage is concerned. And Suella Braverman says she would vote for Donald Trump

as the world would be safer. Rhys Mogg tells young Tories he wants to build a wall in the English Channel

and would vote for Donald Trump if he could. Play the clip again, Keith

Have you agreed to a trilateral meeting with President Ken Shee? Talk about Ukraine

know, but I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine, because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine

They haven't been doing much. And the same thing with China. We would have it to talk about nuclear

weapons and denuclearization. I want to know what it's like to have been in the military and to have

been an ally of the United States of America. You don't have to have served in Afghanistan

although obviously your contribution will be more powerful if you did. And to hear both in January, the President of the United States of America

and in October, and indeed this week, this weekend, the idiot Defense Secretary

describing you and your comrades, some of whom fell, describing you and your comrades as cowards

as people who didn't really... I just want to know what it does to you and what it does to your understanding of the rules of engagement

and what it does to your... I hope it doesn't dent even a tiny bit

It can't dent your pride. How dare I even suggest that? But I want to know what it means to you to hear this happen

What does it do moving forward to NATO? And this is where the resistance to..

The urge to yse, why are they attacking NATO? So just ask yourself, what does Vladimir Putin want

And you will see Donald Trump's regime doing it. But I want to know from service personnel, past and possibly present, if you're allowed to talk to me

I just want to know how this lands with you. The idiot defense secretary and the hideous president attacking America's allies in Afghanistan

saying they didn't really pull their weight, saying they stayed back from the front

saying that they didn't really do anything. How do 457 people die doing nothing

What does this mean in the context of your service, in the context of your understanding of alliances

your understanding of NATO? I don't want to hear from anyone who hasn't served

I make no apology for that. And I appreciate that I'm including myself in this conversation

But I'm just here to invite you on and tell me what does this mean to you

I know that it's a little bit simplistic. I know it's a little bit two dimensional

I know that America is a flawed, massively flawed country. I know that the CIA has done terrible things in foreign countries

But we all live in the shadow of the Second World War. We all live in the freedom secured as a consequence of defying the Nazis

and we couldn't have done that really without the help of Frederick Delano Roosevelt's America

a country that feels a million miles away from Donald Trump's, but is still, of course, the same country

But what does it do to hear our ally, the president of the country that we sent troops to Afghanistan

to support and to help and to fight, deriding our contribution, deriding your comrades

deriding their sacrifice. Again, I'm not going to say, I am going to say

I'm not going to say, I am going to say it. I can't believe it. And I sometimes sit here

reading the people saying, oh, Trump derangement syndrome or the politicians say

well, we've got to join forces with him in Iran or we can't afford to upset. And I just wonder

what planet they inhabit. I mean, Farage is probably beyond ysis, but Bader not

What's she playing at? And now you see, It was so bloody obvious who he was, what he stood for

I don think I would quite have conceded that he would eventually side with Putin against Zelensky in public But God you could see that it was going to happen in private But this goes further back

This goes all the way back to Afghanistan, and it invites the question

You served. How does it feel to hear your allies describing you as cowards

It's 11.23. James O'Brien on LBC. Five minutes after 11 is the time

Nigel Farage calls Donald Trump the bravest man he has ever met

Donald Trump says this about our military. We've never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them

You know, they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that. And they did

They stayed a little back, a little off the front lines. But we've been very good to Europe and to many other countries

and now under my administration. That began because we had a very successful first term

That began then, but it has to be a two-way street. And this weekend his idiot Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth joined in

I just want to know how it feels to people who have put on the uniform

Stu's in Plymouth. Stu, what would you like to say? Good morning, James

I'm absolutely beside myself in anger. You can probably tell by my voice

I did 24 years in the army. Did a couple of tours in Afghanistan, 2002, for a couple of months up in Bagram

with the Americans, where we worked well together. We were sharing intelligence and doing joint ops, and it was really good

American troops will be disgusted by this, I think, as well. Yeah, I think so

My second tour was in Helmand in 2006 into 2007. we lost a lot of guys out there

some pretty horrendous examples of that sang in we lost quite a few guys

we lost about five guys within the space of about three days I think it was and just to add context

to it and not just us as Brits but our allies as well I got a

how can I call it a kind of fact finding mission in 2009 I was in

an operations department at that point we went out to Afghanistan to

just look at our current troop numbers and how we're going to do future force

generation. I was only there for a week. We flew back from Bastion

on a C-17 back to Bryce Norton and on that plane was the body of

an Estonian soldier who had been killed in action. No. So to say that, you know

holding back a little, staying back a bit. Yeah, exactly. It's, and

I've lost friends in Afghanistan. I went to the repatriation with a good friend at Wettem Bassett

I've lost friends in Iraq that were all there working with the Americans

It just... I just find it absolutely disgusting. I'm an 80s child. I was born in the 70s, but I can remember in the 80s

Ronald Reagan and the Cold War. And he would be turning in his grave now at what his party

and how they are appeasing Russia. I just... Do you know, there's a little bit of me, mate

Even as you say those words, there's a little bit of me that kind of, it's probably my internal

Ofcom alarm. And Ofcom, don't regulate over stuff like this. You can

say what you want, but there's a little bit of me that sort of wants to go, oh, I don't know if

we can, of course we can say that. He is appeasing Russia. He has signed it with Vladimir

Putin against Ukraine. But the way I'm wired is that I still balk

when you say the words out loud, even though I've said them out loud myself. Do you see what I mean

it's such a mad thing to hear you've just played a clip there

where he said Russia's not doing much to Ukraine I know, I know

I think according to some reports there were six killed in that blast

in the park including two children the report I saw said two women and a child

had been killed and 14 others injured and he on the same day in the same news cycle

is saying that they're not doing much yeah and just to finish off my point

I've worked in the Balkans, in Bosnia, with American troops as well

We've had good relations. I've worked really well with them. We've had good times and good joint operations

Yeah, there's banter there, and sometimes we feel that we do things different to them

But I made some good friends in the American military, and I just hope that they are able to see through this absolutely abhorrent rhetoric

that he's pushing out at the moment. Do you think it's more than rhetoric? Do you think, I mean, it does have real world consequences

I mean, there'll be some American military, certainly there'll be some ex-military personnel from the States listening to this

They're more than welcome to get in touch. Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three

But does it, does it, I mean, it might be a bit early to ask this question, although Trump's comments were in January, Hegseth's on Saturday

Is it going to change the way that people feel when they arrive on active duty together

I don't think it's like that, really, in the military. I'd like to think not

Lions led by donkeys is probably a helpful phrase at this point. Yeah, I mean, thankfully, we've changed a lot since the day of the First World War

Good leadership, and it does exist, and the officers, the senior officers, the NCOs

if they're worth their salt, they will lead their troops and show them what's right

and the fact that they would honour work or we'd be proud of working with the NATO allies

and just put a bit of reality to what they're hearing from Washington

But there's just that little part of me that there are some people, the American political system is so polarised

so divisive that there are people that they'd rather their party be in power

at the expense of an absolute idiot heading that party. At the expense of anything

Actually, that's the point, isn't it? Because these are things that were once inconceivable, and now they're just the latest examples of the speed and the scale of the civilizational decline

And it's absolutely extraordinary that Ronald Reagan's successor, as Stu points out, is siding with Brezhnevs. I mean, incredible, but here we are

And that's a perfect example of how someone who has served in the uniform of the British Armed Forces will feel about the intervention in January of the president, but more recently and therefore for our purposes more pertinently, the intervention on Saturday of Donald Trump's idiot defense secretary, Pete Hegseth

And I'm not going to apologize, actually. I do feel, listen, Brexit was different

And a lot of idiots got away with being idiots after Brexit

They continue to get away with it now. They hold positions of prominence despite having done untold damage to this country

But supporting Donald Trump, I think that's unforgivable. I think after January the 6th, it was clear who he was and what he was

And if he can treat his own vice president like Mike Pence was treated that day then why on earth would he care about Ukrainians And I not going to stop reminding you of who came back after January the 6th to blow smoke up his backside to mock people who were fearful about

what having someone so hideous in power again would mean or portend. I'm not going to stop doing

it and I'm not going to stop listing them because it's hideous. And we live in a country where it

It won't matter one jot. No one's going to lose a seat in the House of Lords, not even Lebedev

No one's going to lose a newspaper copy. Well, that might not be true. One of them's lost one at least

Nobody's going to lose prominence in the British media. Nobody's going to lose sleep over this

Boris Johnson will shift effortlessly from claiming that Donald Trump was going to be brilliant for the Ukrainian people to, I don't know

blaming Brussels for the fact that Ukrainian has now been abandoned if he hasn't already

None of them. None of them. Anyone who used the phrase Trump derangement syndrome as an insult to describe people who

have been proved hideously right about everything, none of them will face a single scintilla

of consequence. And none of them will lose a single second of sleep

Because they're built differently. They're built differently. And I don't know what justice would look like

But I do know that this is unforgivable. 11.34 is the time

Dominic Ellis has your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC. 11.37 is the time

And just a quick heads up. The rioting that we have seen in France this weekend

the narrative that it is a consequence of immigration, you may have heard it being parroted by Donald Trump

but that comes from Russia as well. There's an extraordinary column in The Times today by Melanie Phillips

in which she buys in entirely to the Russian propaganda and then has the audacity to write a line saying

Oh, and also Russian propagandists are capitalizing on this and quote someone from Vladimir Putin's inner circle, describing it as a sort of globalist immigration driven problem, which is so utterly at odds with the problem, with the reality

As you know, if you've spent any time talking to people in France, that you again find yourself wondering whether these people will ever be capable of giving their heads a big enough wobble

But that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're talking about the idiot defence secretary Pete Hegseth joining his idiot boss Donald Trump in attacking British service personnel who served in Afghanistan

457 dead, but according to those two, we didn't pull our weight

I just wonder how that makes you feel. Stuart's in Yeovil. Stuart, what would you like to say? Yes, good morning. Sorry about my voice. I've got a bit of man flu

I was unfortunate enough the first British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan

was a young lad called Kit Magoda who was on a gap year

he was a reserve soldier, one of mine and he was blown up in January 2004 in Kabul

and we worked so closely with Americans I was also part of intelligence

Bagram Air Base at the time was being guarded by the 7th Cavalry

Colonel Custer's lot, and we gave them the intelligence to find the biggest weapons cache to stop them being mortared

and rocketed that night. Got pictures to prove it. Received commendations from the Americans

We worked so well hand in hand. But for him, to come out with this utter man

and early swarden. Rubbish. It's just such a slur on young Kit's memory

We were over there helping. We were working with the Americans. We were building schools

We were liberating children to go back to school. And then Kit got blown up

And then his memory is just tarnished by this utter... It's not

It's not. Well, it's not in our eyes. You won't let it be

Everyone knows. But I know what you mean. I know what you mean. and the american troops we got on so well with them they used to call us the borrowers because

we would always deal with our kit that's what our nickname was and they still they call us that

but our intelligence was so much better than theirs because we had better hearts and minds

campaign and they would come to us all the time and so you know the lads on the ground both forces

yeah not a problem not an absolute not a problem whatsoever do you think it will damage that i mean

I mean, I can't actually conceive of circumstances in which the history would be repeated while Donald Trump is in the White House and that a proper NATO force in the full sense of the meaning would be deployed in defense of Western freedoms or Western values

I can't see that happening. We've heard what he's had to say about Russia. We've heard what he's had to say about Ukraine

but how and you may not be able to ask this nobody may be able to answer this but how far down do the

words of the leaders percolate to the rank and file do you think i mean it's a it's i mean i don't

know and i don't want to cast aspersions on anybody's service but i don't know what a minnesota

army national guard instructor did in afghanistan but i know he didn't do what you and your colleagues

did i i don't it wouldn't affect you know if we were up against it like there was numerous times

when we were in actual combat situations. You know, the Americans sat next to me

I'm still going to protect him and he's still going to protect me and we fight for each other. But I can see it in non-combat situations

where you'd be in the bar afterwards and we'd be, you know... Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. ...being thrown down if some idiot tried to defend what he said

Yes, yeah, I do understand that. And it makes me wonder, actually, what..

I mean, what American troops will think about him saying this, anybody who served, anybody who served when you served

I mean, and they lost 2,500 personnel in Afghanistan. They know the truth

They know that this is simply not the reality. Yeah, they do know

They know that we came to their aid. There was times they'd come to our aid

We worked together like all the other troops, the Germans. just before we got there

They had lost nine men in one bomb that nobody talks about, you know

I'm sure they do in Germany. Yeah. But, you know, we were all in it together

the repatriation of the first British soldier, like I keep saying, they all lined the runway

because it hadn't been done before then. We were the first one and it was a tear

I can't imagine what this does to people like you and indeed to the families of people who died as well

Well, I just hope its family don't hear about this. Yeah, well, it's one of the reasons why I thought I did have conversations about whether we should cover it or not

But you have to because of what's happening now. I don't know what the link is, mate

I don't know if anybody does. But the abandonment of Ukraine in the context of attacking the allies who fought and fell in Afghanistan

feels like part of some sort of hideous plan or recalibration of Western alliances

Yeah, and if I can be honest, James, for once, I actually agree with you. Normally, normally, in my job as a driving instructor

I'm screaming at the radio. That can't be healthy. Can't you put some music on

Put some James Blunt on. Keep everything nice and calm. It like a self I just do it to just What is he going on about today And I normally go mad at you But there is a few times when you talked about SEN at school and in this I am 100 on your side

And it hurts me to say that. No, it doesn't. Don't be silly. Don't be silly. You're a work in progress, Stuart

That's all. Thank you. No, thank you. And you honour your comrades' memory

Jonathan Kittalagoda or Kit as he was known to everybody apparently, he was a student man

a student Stuart meant when he said he was a reservist in the TA

23 years old from Clifton in Bedfordshire, member of the Rifle Volunteers which is a TA battalion and

Pete Hakeseth the idiot defence secretary deigns to suggest that they didn't really fight

and Donald Trump says they stayed back. It's coming up to quarter to 12

You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I'll go to Matthew first after the next break

I don't want to squeeze anybody into the relatively small amounts of time available

before the next junction because I am for once intending to hit it on time

But it's an extraordinary scenario we face. And I feel the urge

I felt a little urge then to start picking Stuart up on the areas where he would disagree with me

But now is neither the time nor the place. I would just remind you of some of the politicians who have questions to answer, shall we say

So that's all I would say. I think it has been obvious forever who Donald Trump is and what Donald Trump stands for

I go back to his treatment of the Gold Star family, his treatment of the disabled journalist, his boasts about how he treats women

I go back to first term, first administration, and I don't have any real sympathy for people who looked the other way or decided that that didn't really matter

But by the time you get to the second term, by the time you get to 2025, by the time you're getting to the second term, it becomes criminally inexcusable, or at least in a moral sense, morally inexcusable to still have been supporting this man

I'll give you a few examples. I was just about the only public figure in Britain that stood up and defended for Donald back in 2015 and 2016

And I've never, ever wavered in thinking that even if his brash New Yorker style is not your cup of tea

that actually this man was a good thing, not just for America, but actually for peace in the world

Look forward to his latest thoughts on that. I don't really care what this woman has to say on the subject, but it's worth reminding you what she did say

That under Donald Trump, when he was president of the United States, the world was safer

You know, I think that our opponents feared the Trump presidency more than they fear the Democrats being in office. I think that's a reality

And here's a sentence I struggle to read out loud. Suella Braverman standing in for James O'Brien on LBC in July 2024

James O'Brien on LBC. It is 10 to 12. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

I don't know off the top of my head how many Ukrainians

wouldn't have gone to Afghanistan, would they, as a NATO exercise? I'm not sure

Someone's been in touch to tell me that they did, but I'd need to double-check that. I don't need to double-check this

Donald Trump and his idiot Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, maligning the memory of NATO allies' service

and sacrifice in Afghanistan, if you are one of those allies, or one of those families

How does it make you feel? Matthew's in Bradmore, near Wolverhampton. Matthew, what would you like to say

I believe off the top of my head, Ukraine contributed 6,000 Ukrainians to Afghanistan. Really

Yeah, I do research, but yeah, I'm sure I read it again recently

But one thing I did want to say while I was sort of listening, because I was there on Operic 10 in 2009 for six months

and I was in Camp Bastion and Lashkagar. Two people I served with, they died there

and my job was comms and ECM, and part of the comms, part of my role

was setting up the PA system. every time someone had died and they were being repatriated back to the UK

And we'd have a meeting beforehand, like with the Padre, all bearers

the guy's close mate who'd say some words and then the Padre would say some words

And I remember once, we had a Fijian who died. His name was Pat Susu

Right. And the pallbearers, Paul Bevers asked if they could sing as they carried him

because that was part of their tradition and you can just imagine, I mean how would you even say no

I mean it was like, it was just one of those things that everyone has got their own

like, you know, I mean so many different countries so many people who died

so many different traditions and things like that that we try and

like accommodate. Yes. And then you've got someone like Trump who says that people were a little bit back in Afghanistan

It's incredible, isn't it? When he was a bit back from Vietnam, he was about 7,000 miles back with his..

Bone spurs. ...war dodging. And then Hegseth, who, as far as I know, never saw any kind of combat

He was just there in an instructional role. And then people like that, they sort of say this stuff

And I mean, I've been going through a combination of just raging to being upset

to Beijing again and trying to hold it together because I start thinking about everything that happened there

and it starts bringing it all back again and then I start getting angry

I don't know what to say. It feels like we're living in some kind of

weird upside down world. It really does, doesn't it? The people that protect our freedoms

are now on the receiving end of the abuse from the people who must resent our freedoms i mean they must there's no other i can't see any other argument

or explanation and i resist the urge matthew to try and yze this man now because i've wasted

too much time and energy yeah i feel the same you can't yze it this sort of behavior but

the freedoms that you fight to protect are not freedoms that these men value

yeah and i i just think how can you have just absolute zero humanity for like anyone how can

you how can you sleep at night how can you be like this say nothing say nothing you don't need

to say anything even if you're stupid enough or nasty enough to think it you don't need to say it

out loud like what possible purpose is served by saying it out loud i i honestly hope that

people are finally starting to see through Trump, America and everything and we have to look after ourselves

from now on because America is not there for us at all

I think also, I think there's gonna be nuclear proliferation If you were Poland or Eastern Europe or South Korea, you can't rely on America for anything

And if you've got a neighbour that's got nuclear weapons or something, you're going to have to start looking at some kind of new club, some new organisation, something, because America's just not there for you anymore

And Vladimir Putin calling for a tripartite meeting between him, Trump and Xi Jinping just before the reality of the midterm elections kicks in is not a coincidence

to carve up ukraine to carve up ukraine and god knows what else i mean the best chance the west

has is china china china wants economic dominance not military dominance so the best chance of

resisting some sort of like you know yelta style carve-up would be china saying no i'm not we're

not getting involved in this i'm sorry that i put you through this today but it's important that we

talk about it and voices like yours remind anybody listening of two things number one the hideousness

of what Trump and Hegseth do. And also, I'm afraid, and this is really important

if we want to have a safer future, the idiocy of the people that didn't think it could happen

or who were cheerleading for Donald Trump until relatively recently, some of whom, of course, still are cheering

It's madness. Thank you for your service. I know that's an American habit

but I think it's one we would do well to adopt. Yeah. Yeah, fine

Thank you, Matthew. Take care. 11.55 is the time. I'm not going to play the clips anymore

I think that we can probably move forward without them. Susan is in Redbridge

Susan, what made you pick up the phone? My son was killed in Afghanistan in 2011

Oh, Susan, I'm sorry. I've been doing really well these last 15 years

In January, when Trump let rip, and then with this latest bit

and the clips you've been playing and things, it just brings it back

And it's just so wrong. It's beyond words wrong, right? If you see what I mean

It's ridiculous. I mean, when Dan was killed, after Dan was killed, the American senior officers and leaders out there

all wrote to me, sort of offering condolences and things. It's not the military

When Dan was blown up by an IED, he wasn't killed instantly

And it was an American helicopter. that flew him back to Camp Bastion

He died on that helicopter. And it was Americans who were trying to save his life

And now it's just awful. I mean, it was bad in 2014 when they came out

and everyone started saying, oh, it's all a waste of time, waste of effort, waste of life

And you think, no, it wasn't. But this has just brought it all up again

and I'm sorry for that and you know it's a consequence of what Trump

and now Hegseth have had to say and we don't know, I mean I'm resisting

the urge to yse Susan but I can't for the life of me think what this is

supposed to achieve except a massive weakening of the West, a massive weakening of our

alliances. Exactly, it's just it doesn't do anybody any good they can't

Except our enemies, except our actual enemies. And we know who they are

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just wanted to say that I really think it's the politicians, not the military

Of course it is. I don't think we'll get a more powerful. I'm glad you're the last caller because there's no more powerful thing to say

than the fact that the people who tried to help Dan were the Americans

Exactly, exactly. Brothers in arms, brothers and sisters in arms. Exactly, yeah

I mean, you know, like the other guy said earlier, speaking to you, yeah, we were nicknamed the borrowers

and all the rest of it. And in Camp Bastion, they had everything. And if you could sneak some sweet, yeah, and stuff like that

And the banter and that was there. But when Dan needed them, they came out and tried to help him

Did he always want to be a soldier? Oh, yes, absolutely. He was in the cadet force at school

He was in the OTC at Exeter. He went to Sandhurst. That was his whole thing

He didn't want to do anything else. And he would have been so proud

He was actually the last one to come back through Wattenbathrop. Oh, my days

I think we might have heard from the comrade of the first one and now the mother of the last one in the course of this hour

Exactly. I'm sorry about that. Well, I mean, it's heartbreaking on every imaginable level

but you'll allow me to say that you honour his memory, Susan. Thank you

Thank you. And there it is, the real people who are responding

to the words of two American politicians in ways that the rest of us can only listen to

We can't feel what they feel any more than we can walk a mile

in anybody else's boots. There it is, and the words aren't there. I'm sorry

I'm not sorry, not sorry. I haven't got the words. I just think every now and then you have to shine the light

into the dark heart of what's happening to our civilization as a consequence of this man being president of the United States of America

Or, of course, as Nigel Farage prefers to call him, the bravest man I've ever met

James O'Brien on LBC. It's three minutes after 12. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

Simon Marks with us at half 12 to touch on some other stories

involving American politics, not the ones we've just covered. Thank you for all your kind words

not to me but to the callers that we had during the last hour

I hope you don't mind me saying that we should have done that last

because it takes it out of you doesn't it listening to that sort of pain from people who've been through

what we were talking about there but as I said a million times it's really important to shine a light on this stuff

because on this side of the Atlantic never mind the other one there are countless very very prominent people who would much rather that we didn't

and those who do not learn from history are condemned forever to repeat it

And I thought twice, pardon me, I thought twice about the next conversation

partly as a consequence of a couple of things that popped up during the last one. The relatively funny title

given to the people that we're going to talk about next is Grumps. It's one of those, is it technically an acronym

I can never remember the exact definition. I think it is. Grievance-ridden urban midlife perpetrators

there's something really weird about this story because because if it were younger people who

were being recorded as engaging in more violence it would be the end of civilization as we know it

you know there would be a uh at in time well there certainly wouldn't be an acronym

it would simply be yet more evidence of uh um the younger generation being the root of all evil and

all of the problems that our societies face can be laid at the feet of young people but because

it's older people it's all very jolly and funny we're talking about new statistics right showing

that while in every age group under 35 we have seen a year on year decline in crime in people becoming crime suspects one area that bucks the trend is older generations being held in connection with aggressive crimes we not doing a phone about why this

happens i don't think we may do it may become a side order some experts suggest that older men

particularly drink more alcohol while younger people are increasingly eschewing alcohol altogether

or consuming far less. Or I am fascinated. There's one thing that fascinates me at the moment

about the whole NEATS conversation is that it completely overlooks the impact

of some of the things that have influenced young people on old people

And, I mean, social media is a wonderful example of an issue that we spend our lives discussing

through the lens of concern for young people and the damage being done to young people

without ever acknowledging the damage that is done to older people or indeed as we complain about teenagers scrolling and what have you

we never mention the fact that mum and dad are both scrolling in exactly the same way, in exactly the same room

at exactly the same time. But I'm interested in the word regulation

not in the context of the first hour of the conversation where we explored the mess that is Thameswater

I'm interested in the question of personal regulation, self-regulation. how good are you at regulating and i i do wonder whether recent events whether it's the lockdowns

or something else the cost of living whatever it may be people getting worse at regulating and

these statistics would suggest that it is men of a certain age who are becoming measurably worse

at self-regulation as in keeping a lid on it or for the purposes of this conversation I think

not losing it now I don't want to talk about the crimes themselves because as many people have

opined if you're talking about actual violent crime then you probably are looking at a link

with alcohol consumption and the average heavy drinker is now going to be much older while the

young people are drinking less. This isn't my theory. This is Professor Jonathan Shepard

one of the authors of the report that we're discussing, the rise in older people becoming

suspects for violent crimes, looking very much at alcohol consumption since the pandemic

But I want to talk about feeling sorry for people who can't control their temper

I'm not suggesting for a minute that they are the most deserving people of our sympathy in society

Of course they're not. In many ways, I have more sympathy for the victims of anger

But I don't think we talk enough about, we can be quite sympathetic towards addiction, can't we

I don't think we used to be. I think we're getting better at that. We can be sympathetic towards addiction

We accept an absence of choice almost in some people's behaviors. You know, an addict cannot help their behavior

And I think I want to talk about anger in the same way because I'm blessed with a relatively long fuse

But I've had times in my life, the more stress, for example, that I've been under, the more likely I have been to lose my temper

I was very much raised in a working environment where anger was an energy

newsrooms. I just got in the back end of an era where newsrooms were routinely the site of

screaming matches and shouting and throwing things across the room. When I began at LBC

there might have been occasions where my headphones would cross the studio at 50 miles

an hour. And this was my attempt to, in an empty room, I stress, I'd be the only person in here

to impress upon my colleagues how seriously I was taking a given issue or how keen I was that my

latest request was acted on and the vocabulary of of anger was very much part of the workplace

but as the workplace changed so those of us who don't have anger issues if you like though that

as the workplace changed so we changed you saw it on the floor of the reform uk conference didn't

you when men started attacking a young woman because they couldn't control their tempers i'm

not necessarily suggesting that we should feel sorry for them but you're welcome to if you want

to if you think you were looking I don't know what criminal proceedings are underway at the

moment so we should probably be careful but I'm thinking of a teacher that I had

I'm thinking of a teacher that I had who I really liked but you couldn't really like teachers back

in the day you know that they were technically the enemy but this this was a good guy he was a

funny guy taught me French when I was a kid a really young kid taught me French when I was seven

or eight and he had a heart attack and um and and he was away for a couple of months and then he came

back and in my memory in my memory it was his first day back the question that i'm moving towards

is going to be what's it like if you can't control your temper and i'm asking from a position of

concern that you cannot control your temper. No one ever feels sorry for you. I think I do

And here's one of the reasons why. He came back having had a heart attack and he was famously

um, provocable, this teacher. He was one of the teachers that you could as a cheeky

chappy schoolboy, you could enrage. And his rage was a sight to behold. His rage was

epic, volcanic, he would erupt. And when you're a kid, you never think about it, do you

When you're a kid, you never think about adults. You don't think of adults as being fully sentient

emotional creatures. You just think about, so you don't even know what their first names are

Mr. This, Sir, That, Mrs. That. You don't think of adults as being fully formed human beings

which is odd because they're more formed than you are as a kid, but they're not proper humans, teachers

and this one broke through that for me. It was his first day back after having a heart attack

It was something entirely trivial that they, he asked someone to pass him the salt

and it didn't arrive and he went berserk. I mean, absolutely berserk

There was 140 kids in that dining room and every single one of them would have been watching

and I'm sorry to say possibly enjoying the fury on display. I'm talking about the steam coming out of their ears

I'm talking about, and I remember the color of his face and we're going back, how old am I now

We're going back more than 40 years. I can remember his name, I can remember the color of his face

I've never seen puce like it, like abject fury. And this was all relatively normal

except for the fact that he'd just come back from recuperation after having had a heart attack

And the headmaster, this is the thing I remember, the headmaster who was also a violent man actually This is a man that would beat us both formally and informally Sometimes his temper would be uncontrollable and he hit us

But he would not normally, normally you'd just let these moments pass

Prep schools in the 1980s were still quite Victorian or Dickensian and, you know, some terrible, terrible things happened

at the worst end of the scale of behavior, human behavior. these were relatively normal occurrences but I will never forget the speed with which the

headmaster came over to the table and the concern that was on his face and I'd never seen concern

on this man's face before and he obviously knew the relationship between anger between losing your

temper and the medical condition that this teacher suffered from I don't ask me for the details all I

can tell you is that he'd been off for a few weeks and I think he'd had a heart attack but he couldn't

control his temper. And you know when you start thinking about things, like sometimes when I'm in

the car with Mrs. O'Brien and somebody else has road rage or someone else behaves abominably. Now

I'm usually the passenger in our car, although we've got a new one arriving tomorrow and I may

rediscover my inner Lewis Hamilton. But sometimes I'll say to Mrs. O'Brien, I'll say, you don't know

what's happened to them this morning. It doesn't always help. I'm not going to lie to you. We're

not doing a motoring topic, but sometimes I'll say, look, his wife might have just left him

You never know why someone is behaving in the way that they're behaving. But what interests me

not necessarily about this specific story, but about anger in general, is the way in which you perhaps as someone who gets very angry very quickly

you feel, as I have described to you, about getting into trouble as a child. And

And a lot of neurodivergent people report that weird impulse you have when you're in trouble again

The Ben and Sebastian song, The Boy Done Wrong Again. And that sense of shame that kicks in almost to me

Why am I in this situation again? How have I ended up in trouble again

I want to know, and this is quite a straightforward question. I want to know what it's like to lose your temper and start regretting it almost immediately I want

you to describe that to me because I don't think we spend enough time and again I'm not suggesting

for a minute that I should feel sorrier for you than than the people that you're getting angry at

but if you could work through that if we came to a better understanding of what's going on

then nobody would be on the receiving end of it. I don't think we ever talk about this

I don't think we ever talk about it. The idea that your anger or your short temper

is something that you hate. Tell me what it's like to hate how angry you get

No one's ever asked you that before. You quite possibly have never phoned a radio station before

I think it could be really interesting for you to tell me and and you know everybody else

what what it's like so everybody thinks you love being angry everybody thinks it's part of who you

are everybody steps around you with um and I thought of this in the last hour when one of my

callers described how angry he had got and how you could hear in his voice he didn't want to be angry

albeit that a military man responding to the hideous words of Donald Trump and Pete Exeth is

if that's not justified anger then i don't know what is but but i think we're talking actually

about shame what is it like to hate the anger that you regularly display

oh three four five six oh six oh nine seven three and who knows maybe some people will have

road maps to a calmer more peaceable existence because listen i know that i'm a sweet summer

child but I can't believe anybody really wants to be angry nobody really wants to be Mr. Angry

do they so what's it like to know that you are and to not want to be what's it like in the actual

moment nobody wants to lose their temper with their kids some people can't help it and I mean

that most sincerely I don't think some people can actually help it because if you if you were to

somehow you know cut them open and read their minds then you would see that they hate the thought

of being angry shouting can be as traumatic as as as physical violence i think if you get right up

in a child's face and bellow in that and you in that moment surely you're going i hate myself

i hate myself and i've done it again i don't know what that would be like but i know that you maybe

do. 03456060973 is the number that you need. And it's not about pride or celebration or my anger

is justified. It's about that moment that that teacher had. I get sad thinking about it. He

didn't live much longer, actually. I should have mentioned that. He died not long after. And

it was probably a consequence of this uncontrollable temper and you you would know every single fiber

of your being would know that you do not want to be this person and you do not want to behave in

this way but then boom and it's gone how does it feel what's it like to live with that okay that's

what i want to know what's it like to live with that the more traditional phone in would be what's

it like to live with someone like that but i want to do it the other way around because no one ever

really wonders about you and i and i do think that a better understanding of this might be

helpful in the greater scheme of things so so you you you get really really angry and soon if not

immediately afterwards you feel deeply deeply ashamed and regretful and it happens quite a lot

and no one else knows what it's like to live with that, which is why I want you to tell me

On 0345 6060 973. It's 1219. James O'Brien on LBC. 21 minutes after 12

And, of course, underpinning all of that is why? Why do some of us lose it on a regular basis

while others essentially never do? Adam is in Manchester to kick things off

Adam, what would you like to say? James O'Brien, hello. Thanks for having me on

I'm a massive fan I must say before we get started thank you um yeah quite nervous actually

which you don't think you will be so I think I've struggled with anger for quite a large

proportion of my life and I think growing up you sort of see how your parents deal with emotions

and anger yes you just kind of take that on yourself and I've had situations where I've

struggled with you know arguments with my partner over what you would deem sort of trivial things

like driving is a really good example of it kind of losing it when you're driving quite frequently

or I find if it's things that don't go how you expect them to go

those kind of unwritten rules almost, those unwritten contracts, that kind of really triggers the anger off Frustration I mean everybody faces frustration The interesting thing here is why some of us tip over the edge and some of us don yeah so are you conscious of not wanting to be like that

but yes i think this is the the interesting part like i've trained as a psychotherapist now

so i've done a lot of work around my anger and also the anger of other people as well yes

and i think that a lot of it comes from that sense of threat so have you ever heard of the

anger iceberg before no go on so you know how an iceberg you know the bit that you can see on the

top is actually the smallest part of the iceberg yes underneath the surface is where all the

you know the deep blue ice is that kind of keeps it afloat so everybody who has anger issues is

going to have a story there's going to be there's going to be a a a journey if you like to the to

the cause to the root absolutely yeah definitely and like anger is a primary emotion so we all

experience it and it has an innate function but sometimes anger can actually be a cover for

secondary emotions that are happening under the surface does it serve any purpose anymore

absolutely what purpose does it serve psychologically or even evolutionarily so it kind of gears us up to deal with things in a bit of a different way yes um you know there's

the idea of being able to maybe solve problems that are happening immediately there's the idea that it physically allows you to do things that you know maybe previously you

weren't able to do but i think when it becomes not helpful is when what you're actually responding to

is guilt shame regret fear but what you're accessing is anger so it's that surface level

how much progress have you made since you started training as a psychotherapist

plenty yeah so i've done really well with anger um but do you still lose it sometimes

no so i think like many people that are kind of talking about anger i'm i've got a diagnosis of

adhd is there a link there do you think is it is it because the frustration kicks in and you

don't know where to go with it and so it it blasts out as anger yeah i think the angular

the anger is like an emotion-driven behavior because you are feeling either so overwhelmed

or you don't know how to process other emotions that are coming up. And again, because men experience anger to a higher extent than women

Yes, that's true. So you will experience that anger more formally as a man

So if you are experiencing threat, danger, even if it's internal danger

like if I don't like the way my leg feels, maybe I get angry at a dog or maybe I get angry at my partner

Wow. Did you get to a root cause? I mean, you mentioned witnessing your parents' behavior

Did you get any further? You don't have to tell me. I'm being very noisy. No, I don't. No

But you are a psychotherapist. You are a psychotherapist. It'd be a bit pot kettle, wouldn't it

Yes. Yeah, I think I've listened to this program enough where I kind of see the questions coming. Because when I was in therapy, it turned out that I carried the consequences or the trauma, actually, of corporal punishment with me a lot more than I had ever realized

It wasn't really anger that I was exploring, but it was other things that were not healthy and were not doing me any good

So what did you unearth? did you did you find anything yeah so i think um upbringing i think that it's kind of a lot of the

stuff where my anger comes from it was an angry house um it was it was an angry house it was also

a house that grew up in poverty as well so there wasn't really a lot going on in the house and so again you spend a lot of time going to the pub as a young child and then you know that's just how

you learn like how a man should be like if something goes wrong you punch the wall that's it

you know yeah that's it you don't need much more than that no but then like i think the

neurodiversity aspect of it as well like you're constantly told you're not good enough you're

not doing enough you're not trying hard enough you're always talking you're not focusing and then how do i use that well i see my dad punching the wall i'll just do the same thing

yeah and then after you've done that it works right like you're not as angry anymore yeah that's

a really good point actually i mean the wall is i mean your hand is going to hurt and the wall

isn't going to thank you for it but that's an inanimate object and it's your own hand but of

course it's a thin the likelihood of hitting somebody else is higher if you're routinely

hitting walls yeah absolutely um punch the wall anger goes away regret takes over but the anger's

gone yeah regret and shame i mean they go hand in hand what made you want to change adam so i think

when i started training to be a psychotherapist i started to like uncover a lot more about like

aces and adverse childhood experiences and things like that yeah i think then i started to see how

i think at the same time i was going through a little bit of a difficult time with my partner

as well right um because i didn't really know how to be a husband because i never like grown up in

an environment where that was a thing wow and and then i responded to that with anger because how i

wanted to do things wasn't the right way to do it if that makes sense it makes absolutely perfect

sense yeah as you know yeah and then that is why so you you want to do they i know you lot call it

doing the work and it's a really helpful phrase actually it makes you want to do the work i often

think and it's only a one line from one film it's not really a very healthy example of either

personal behavior or the benefits of therapy but it's such a powerful line in as good as it gets

when Jack Nicholson shouts or just says to the love interest, I forget who played the love interest, forgive me

It wasn't Holly Hunter, was it? It just says, you make me want to be a better man

And sometimes it can be the desire to be, as Adam has said

a better husband or a better human that makes you want to address this thing that you know is toxic

You know it's poisonous, and yet you possibly need a little bit of help

realising that it's optional. It's optional. That's the crucial lesson of all of this

Darryl's in Braintree Darryl, what would you like to say? Yeah, good morning James

Thank you for having me on Very much like the last gentleman

I'm sorry, I didn't catch his name Massive fan Adam, thank you I've always wanted to call in

but never really thought I had enough to say on the topic and then I heard you mention this

and thought, I've got to call in This is me This is me

I have been struggling with I would call them anger outbursts So the best part, I don't know, probably 15 to 20 years

I had what you put as a breakdown, like a nervous breakdown that led to about a year off of work when I was 19, 20 with depression and anxiety

Right. I dealt with that for about four or five years and that seemed to pass

But what seemed to happen was that the anger outbursts took over from the anxiety and the depression

It was almost like my brain was like saying, OK, well, you've crossed this bridge

You've got a remedy for what I'm throwing at you here. How are you going to deal with this

And where I mean by anger outbursts, they will be over completely nothing situations

Got it. So I will just wake up in the morning and I don't quite feel right sometimes

and I will go downstairs to my partner and she will say oh you know what have you

got planned today and I'll just say oh I have nothing planned haven't you planned

something no I haven't and that's it you're off I know why is it always me

and the thing is with it that's exhausting isn't it and the

is with it James that I say to a lot of people is that I've had a lot of counselors and I'm still

have counseling now over the years saying can't you just do the count to 10 thing yeah and and I

I'd swear on my my children's lives that you can't no I can't even get to two James it's almost

seriously it's almost like I believe something takes over and you you have this burst of energy

You have this burst of adrenaline that you didn't see coming that you have to expel, that you have to use

And then once that's gone, it could be 10 seconds. It could be maybe two, three minutes

And then once that's gone and you've used that energy, you are exhausted

You are embarrassed. You are just exhausted. I've had times before, James, where I've had to just go and sit down for half an hour because it takes so much

It's like running a race. It takes so much out of you. And it's an explosion, isn't it

So, of course it does. It's energy. It's a transfer of energy. And the energy that you've expended has got to come from somewhere else

So, you're going to be depleted. It is. And we've got a very close friend of my partner's

And she recently got up with a new gentleman. A lovely guy. And we had a sort of a deep, meaningful conversation a couple of months back

And when I was explaining it, he just sat there with this look of shock on his face. And he said, if I had one word that I would not describe you with, Darrell, it would be an angry man

You're not an angry man. And I say, because I tried to hide it

With my partner, because for all the wrong reasons, she's kind of used to it

Yes. I don't try to hide it too much from her because she just says, let's let it go

Right. But with other people, I have done it a few times at work

You know, because it's embarrassing. Has it got better over the years or is it sort of a constant

With medication and with help from counselling, I've come to more understand it

I think the thing is with anger like that, that you can't just go, I'm not going to get angry

It doesn't work like that. I know, that's an easy answer to a complicated question

So my route at the moment and has been for a good few years now is that I try to understand it and why

Why I have this sort of like bubbling volcano that only needs the smallest of stone removed for everything to spill out

It's like that. It's like the kettle's always nearly boiled and it just needs one more thing and you have to let the steam out

but understanding things from my past from my childhood um the way that sometimes my father

was with me my counselors all seem to agree that it is just retention retention of trauma

um i think it probably always is isn't it and i mean the body keeps the score as the as the saying

goes and and i mean you can things can get better but the uh but the idea of it being as easy as

counting up to 10 i'll tell you what anyone's going to make me lose my tempo when i'm about

to lose my tempo so have you tried counting up to 10 oh boy and and of the gap i've run out of time

but i just want to know of the do the gaps get bigger with that with the help and the support

that you're getting do the gaps between the outbursts get bigger yes and and also yeah and

you can get some coping mechanisms so small things like and especially with my partner so

there'll be things like she'll say look if you know or you feel like that's boiling go out

walk your dog go out go out you know don't try and bury it

because that's always just go out got it just do something else instead she um

I hope you don't mind me saying this she sounds amazing oh if it was

long story short James if it wasn't for her I probably wouldn't be on the phone

to you now I wouldn't be here she's the most understanding you know

she's just a rock she stood by me for all of this

what a wonderful thing what a wonderful wonderful thing it's 12.34 Darrell

You're going to have to go to the news before you set me off. Here's Matt Hewitt with the headline

James O'Brien on LBC. 38 is the time. Back to that conversation shortly

But first, Simon Marks is here to bring us up to date with a couple of other things that are happening in the Trump universe

We've done his hideous comments about Russia being fine and doing nothing in particular to Ukraine

So I can't remember whether I said it would happen or noted that it already had happened

And Donald Trump and sundry other fellow travellers will be trying desperately to pretend or to claim that the events that we've seen in France recently have nothing to do with protesting students and everything to do with immigration

Yes, absolutely. That is happening on a continuing basis coming from the White House

President Donald Trump insisting that what is taking place in France is a preview of what he describes in his own national security strategy, James, as the civilizational erasure that is heading towards Europe because of open borders, because of the arrival in so many countries of so many migrants and because of the refusal of leaders like French President Macron to do what Donald Trump told him to do

Trump insists that he told Macron, just as he told Sir Keir Starmer, and will undoubtedly tell Andy Burnham that you've got to close your borders if you want any kind of civilization

So take a listen to what Donald Trump was saying last night about events in France on the campaign trail and listen to the racism that is absolutely lacing these comments

If you want to see what is at stake in this election just look at what happening in France a once great nation that is being conquered looted and burned to the ground by migrants jihadists and communists who hate Christianity

and they hate, frankly, the Western civilization itself. And as we're seeing in Europe

globalist left-wing politicians have treasonously imported millions and millions of third-world migrants who are totally incompatible with West. And they are incompatible with Western values

They despise everything about France and they're destroying that country. And we're not going to

let that happen to this country. So his argument there, and that was in Kansas last night

is that France today is America tomorrow if the Democrats return to power

because like European leaders, presumably including our own prime minister, the Democrats are globalist, left-wing, treasonous politicians

who are going to bring millions of people incompatible with Christianity and Western civilisation into the United States

And of course, none of this reflects what is actually happening on the streets of France

But it does reflect what's happening on Twitter. Yes. Well, that is that is very much probably not a coincidence

It also reflects what the Russian economic envoy Kirill Dimitriov had to say of the French riots

He described them as left wing globalists sowing migration driven chaos. So once again, once again, if you want to know what Vladimir Putin wants, have a look

at what Donald Trump is doing. It probably won't work on this occasion

And neither, it would seem, is his lawsuit. I mean, again, when we're talking about people who are complicit in what Donald Trump was obviously always going to become

the Daily Telegraph, of course, aided and abetted Donald Trump in this defamation lawsuit against the BBC

But it ain't going well. No, it's going to fall apart. And I mean, I'm last time you made that prediction

It was Zakaria, Katie. Katie Zakaria. Yes, absolutely. Well, and I'm bound to say I was making the prediction right from the get go

You were. The BBC should absolutely fight this lawsuit because this is a completely spurious lawsuit

Donald Trump has lost other lawsuits that he's lobbed against major media companies in the same Florida courts where he is bringing this lawsuit against the BBC over Panorama

And the BBC is, I think, on the brink of success in this lawsuit

I think it is highly likely that it is going to fall apart. The judge in the case, the magistrate, is already warning Trump of sanctions if he doesn't comply with a discovery order which requires him to sit for a deposition

And he keeps putting it off and putting it off the more the BBC push and make greater demands of him and his lawyers

So they've already said that they want copious amounts of evidence of the financial dealings that exist between Donald Trump and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric

And they might well indeed want some kind of witness testimony from Donald Trump and Eric regarding the events of January the 6th, 2021, that Panorama undoubtedly and they've they've admitted this, they've apologized for it, engaged in a clumsy edit in that Trump documentary

But it was only a clumsy edit. Trump wants the world to believe that in that speech on January the 6th, 2021, he did not actively incite his supporters to march to Capitol Hill where they then carried out their riot

He absolutely incited them to do that. It's just that the BBC cut together two sections of the speech without indicating that they were separated by several minutes

Now what Trump is saying is that one of the leading experts in the United States over the events of January the 6th is the former special prosecutor Jack Smith

who was appointed by the Department of Justice to investigate Trump's efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election

He might be a helpful witness. Culminating with the events of January the 6th

which, of course, Jack Smith investigated in depth. Why wouldn't you want him to testify

Of course, Donald Trump absolutely doesn't want Jack Smith going anywhere near this, because Donald Trump thinks that Jack Smith is a phony and a traitor

He's practically an expert witness. And, you know, himself is under investigation

for the role that he played as a special prosecutor during Merrick Garland's time as Attorney General under Joe Biden

The judge is getting fed up with Donald Trump's delaying tactics. He was supposed to be sitting for that deposition no later than October the 16th, four days ago

On Friday, prior to that, the BBC's legal team were told that Trump was no longer available by his attorneys because of matters of national importance

So it turns out that those matters of national importance included Trump attending and addressing a campaign rally in Georgia, boosting or trying to boost Republican candidates' prospects there, and then heading to Mar-a-Lago for a Republican National Committee fundraising event

So they clearly argued, the BBC through its lawyers, that these were not actually events of national importance. And it's perfectly possible the judge is going to sanction Trump for, so far, refusing to sit for that deposition

The point of course also is that he, and I know you made this point at the time

it's a mafia tactic. It's putting the frighteners on a news organisation

which has worked in the United States of America, but the BBC is not American

Well, I mean, to believe Donald Trump's claims that are made in the lawsuit

the BBC is portrayed as a titan of broadcasting in the sunshine state of Florida I mean the lawsuit suggests that all over the state of Florida people were clearing their schedules

They were sitting down over the dinner table early to consume supper so they could race to the TV to see Panorama go out

Of course, they haven't provided a single example of one Floridian who was aggrieved by that Panorama

or indeed changed their vote as a result of it. And, you know, much as the BBC is very proud of its efforts

to conquer the American market, I'm not sure it really is a totemic titan of broadcasting

particularly in the Sunshine State. So, look, this is a shakedown effort

It has worked with other broadcasters. We saw, for example, ABC News bending the knee

and caving in in an action that was brought, that focused on some comments made by George Stephanopoulos

one of their star anchors. We've seen... We wouldn't last four minutes, would we, in America at the moment

You and I? No, not a chance. Absolutely. It would be toast. Toast by tea time

Oh, boy. So we'll watch that one. Any idea when it might finally implode? Well, I think day by day

I mean, there's just a lot of activity taking place. If he doesn't sit for this deposition, you've got to sit for the deposition

You brought the lawsuit, you've got to sit for the deposition. If he doesn't want to do it

I think the judge will pretty rapidly conclude the magistrate there's nothing to see here. It's game over

Simon Marks, lovely stuff as always. It is 12.47. Back to the questions of uncontrollable

rage after this. James O'Brien on LBC. One is the time. Anger is

the topic of conversation and not the kind of anger you feel

when we are talking about Donald Trump. That's righteous anger, I suppose

But the kind of anger that you almost immediately regret. Almost in the moment of outrage

or fury or outburst, I think more accurately, you are feeling shame and you are feeling regret

And most of us don't know what that's like to live with. So I'm asking you to tell me

Samantha is in West Bromwich. Samantha, what would you like to say? Hi, James

Hello. I wanted to say that I don't come across as an angry person

I come across as very calm, very laid back, very easygoing. But then what happens is that something can happen

and it might be quite trivial and it's like a switch is flipped and I'm just it's like I'm on

fire with the rage it's almost it's almost like as if um I suppose I've been brought up to just

you know put other people first don't say anything don't complain let everything go

and that's what I do and then after weeks and months it's just though it all just comes out

and I feel like I'm literally going to kill someone. It's really, really frightening

When did it? Can you remember not being like that or has it always been there in the background

I think it's just always been there, really, because it's just the way that I've been brought up

to just be quiet and don't make a fuss. So you're biting your tongue

Yeah. And it goes somewhere. it goes somewhere it doesn't just disappear when you bite your tongue it goes something it goes

into a reservoir of rage that will occasionally overflow and it's got nothing to do it's straw

and camelback territory isn't it it's got nothing to do with what the final straw is and everything

to do with how much rage is in the reservoir yeah well it can be that whatever has happened to

trigger it yeah you know i'd be right to be angry but not to that level where i'm literally going to

rip the person apart that's a bit a bit extreme but the thing is though this might sound awful but

as well as it being frightening it's also empowering yes it's this feeling inside of

inner strength like i'm not going to put up with it anymore and in a way that's kind of nice even

though it's frightening at the same time i know exactly what you're saying i think this is a very

female perspective actually i because i know a couple of people were a bit um they noted what

daryl said about men getting angrier more than women i'm not sure that's true i think we're just

conditioned very differently and women are taught from a very early age they're not supposed to get

angry it's not ladylike it's not suitable behavior and and if you're not by nature a very assertive

person then anger becomes an energy almost yeah that you don't feel in other areas so you're sort

of proving that you're not a kind of pushover, and that is quite an empowering feeling

Yeah. Do you, I mean, want to change then, given the two things that you've just told me

Yes, I think I would. I would like to just be more assertive in my day-to-day life

so that, you know, obviously that will help my day-to-day life, and hopefully it means I won't have those sudden..

You won't be storing it up. You won't be storing that. Yeah. I mean, one time I was really close to attacking someone

She'd been verbally abusive towards me on the bus. And I got off the bus and I was so close to going back on

and grabbing her and just attacking her. Luckily, the bus drove off, but I think I would have done it

How long does it take you to calm down? um maybe about i'd say maybe half an hour for the initial because i'll be sort of afterwards i'll be

physically shaking and that's the adrenaline yeah like crying and stuff and you know really really

just all over the place that's what adam said about how exhausting it is absolutely exhausting

Yeah. And how often, if you don't mind me asking, how often does it happen? It doesn happen very often to be honest I can really maybe not even every month it doesn happen very often

but it's just that when it does, it is to the point that I do think I'm going to kill someone

and I'm not saying that to be extreme. I literally feel like that

And that's frightening. That's frightening. Yeah, it's as though I'm going to destroy everything around me

It's this sort of inner power and fire, and this sense of I'm not putting up with this anymore

And you know yourself really well because you know that you wouldn't be storing all this up

if you were actually speaking up a bit more when you're calm and normal

when everything's going along normally instead of doing that thing that you were brought up to do

which was to not make a fuss and not push back really

just to sort of go with the flow. Yeah. And that's not good for you

No, I suppose I was always just taught anger's bad. you know anger is to be avoided and i should be submissive i should be sweet and placid yeah

that's it there's a whole world between the two positions though isn't there between being furious

and being placid but that's it i go from one there's no in between i don't get a bit annoyed

or a bit irritated i'm either yeah it's just from one extreme to the other yeah no i mean

it's one thing i'm taking a while taking away lots of things from this whole hour but but but

the exhaustion of it as well must must be absolutely draining um thank you samantha and

i'm glad we got a female voice on as well because it is by no means an exclusively male experience

um robin is in murfield robin what would you like to say hi there james the the old worried

waller again good to hear from you again seriously i didn't i wouldn't necessarily have had you on

this list oh thank you that's very kind of i hope you're well too it's very well it's good to check

with good folk um no i was uh i felt compelled to call in because this speaks to me a lot because

i have uh a couple of years ago i was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder which is also

known as uh emotionally unstable personality disorder and it means that you like for any

emotion at all happiness sadness anger terror whatever it is it can go from basically rather

those sort of upping increments you know little things build you up or bring you down yes it's

naught to a million that's what that's what we just heard isn't it yeah yeah it's and it's like

an adrenaline shot and that can be for both you know you can be you know something a tiny thing

will make you happy and you'll it'll be like it's brilliant it's like i've won the lottery but the same way in regards to things like sadness and depression with anger it's much the same way

and it feels like you're in a car that's accelerating and you're constantly trying to

put the brakes on, put it into a lower gear. Sorry, I know you hate motoring. That's not motoring

That's an ogy. Yeah. Great car mode. So you know it's happening

That's the thing that I'm keenest to understand, or at least to hear. You know it's happening

and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Yeah, I know it's happening. I'm trying to put everything on

and then it suddenly feels like it's accelerated, it's jolted, I'm thrown in the back

and I can't control it. And how quickly does it pass? uh it can sometimes be a couple of seconds a bit like one of your callers said earlier like 10

seconds sometimes two minutes it can and it can be anything that that does it i'm i'm thankfully a

lot better because of because of my work and i'm in a lot better place but in the times before

i can just remember feeling i can i can remember talking to my family and my friends saying

almost crying saying look i hate this i don't like being angry i i don't want this to happen

and it it it sounds it's um a cliche thing to say but it's a bit like jekyll and hyde or

bruce banner and the whole but there's a reason why they're tropes there's a reason why they're

such successful literary tropes because they speak to the human condition or they speak to

a human condition i yours yeah and it's a thing of trying of saying please please i don't want this

he'll take over uh and because i and it's and you feel completely different and

um i get it over things in the news as you were talking about you know there's a difference in

righteous anger and and unwrap but it doesn't matter i mean trump's stuff uh and pete hegseth

stuff resonated because my father was in the army and was in afghanistan and kuwait and all over so

so that i could i was i'm just on a walling job today i was just um i could feel sort of it

bubbling up and I you know I calmed it down and everything like that but it was still one those

things of I can feel him in the back of my head yeah well it's weird I don't know why but the

betrayal of Ukraine and the and the and the the attacks upon our troops oddly enrages me more than

almost anything else that Donald Trump has done I'm not making a hierarchy here but um but I don't

feel rage in the way that you do or in the way that any of the contributors this hour do but I

think the rest of us have got a slightly better understanding now of what it's like I'm just sorry

I couldn't talk to everyone. I couldn't talk to Dave or Adrian or Dan or Matt or Clara or another Dave

Honestly, you wait ages for one, Dave, and then two come along at once. But we will return to this subject

I'll find another way into it. And thank you to everybody for trusting me

with your stories on that one. 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 stay up to date with all the latest news, videos and opinions. You can also listen

to a range of podcasts, including James O'Brien Daily, the best bits from this show every day

So download the official LBC app for free from your app store now

Coming up at four on LBC, it's Barnett's celebrity supporter, Ben Kentish

in for Tom Swarbrick. Simon Marks in for Ben from 10 tonight

And now it's time for Sheila Fogarty. Thank you for mentioning my new law again. Fogarty's law

Is it going to work? I won't be satisfied until it's made in the parliament. Are you going to enforce it

That's what we need. I already do enforce it. An army of Sheilas. I already do enforce it

James O'Brien on LBC