Wes Streeting says the UK's future is in the EU - and he's right | James O’Brien - The Whole Show

when it's after 10 is the time did you know i i obviously have no way of knowing how long you've

listened to this program or indeed how closely you have listened to it during whatever period

of time it is that you've been listening to it but did you know that talking about brexit changed

my life in in in really quite extraordinary ways uh pootling along in the in the slow lane of of

speech radio until i don't know about 2013 2014 and and and then a slow acceleration to the point

where in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result this program sort of exploded um and

continued to explode to the point last week where we became the most listened to radio program

speech radio program in the history of commercial radio in the united kingdom i know i can sometimes

be a little bit boastful and i know that it can be a little bit irritating but um i i i just want

you to be part of that and and brexit oddly it just occurred to me literally the moment the light

came on as i looked at the front page of the daily mail with the word brexit and betrayal on it

it just struck me that that was an extraordinary uh interaction it was an extraordinary alignment of

of various planets so there were so few places it felt in the uk media that were telling you the

truth about what the country had just voted for that we assumed and and achieved a sort of status

and profile that was um previously unthinkable to be honest with you and we're still at it it's still

going um and that's that's an odd thing because i don't feel this morning a great sense of excitement

and celebration that brexit is set to dominate elements of political discourse in this country

for the coming weeks, and it may only be weeks, I don't necessarily, and I may change my mind by 11 o'clock

I may change my mind by 10 past 10, to be honest with you, but I don't currently feel, yes, finally, we're back

having the conversation that needs to be had. And I think the reason I feel that way is because I don't know

whether or not it's time to have this conversation. Can I highlight something to you that has probably already occurred to you

but just in case it hasn't, I'm going to ask you a really simple question

about the shenanigans now engulfing the Labour Party and the role that Brexit plays in those shenanigans

So Wes Streeting, you will be aware, gave a speech this week

Well, he did two things. He greeted very warmly the prospect of Andy Burnham

being able to fight for the leadership of the Labour Party party and hence potentially immediately become Prime Minister

And in the same breath, I think on the same day, if not in the same speech, he also correctly

described Brexit as a catastrophe and promised in the event of him becoming Prime Minister

that he would immediately set out to fix some of the mess and seek to rejoin the European Union

Andy Burnham, who's previously adopted that position, appears to be stepping back slightly

from it in the same breath. But the question I just think perfectly and quite beautifully

highlights what a mess that we are in, potentially, is this. Do you think Wes Streeting wants

Andy Burnham to win the Makerfield by-election? Do you? Are you sure? But why? Well, all right

Do you think Wes Streeting wants Andy Burnham to win the Makerfield by-election

If Burnham loses, then he in many ways ceases to be the king across the water

He might still be the self-styled king of the north, but he will have the unmistakable air of failure stapled to his shirt collar for the third time

if he wins Streeting's path to Downing Street looks at best much tougher and at worst completely blocked

so I can't answer that question can you honestly hand on heart

shout it from the rooftops bet your house on it do you think West Streeting wants

Andy Burnham to win the by-election the looming by-election in Makerfield because he is ruthless and

ambitious West Streeting whereas Andy Burnham I think is just ambitious. They're both very, very ambitious, but only Streeting seems to me to be very

very ruthless. I've not seen much evidence of ruthlessness in Andy Burnham's career

So this Brexit move is potentially a card being placed on the table. I am Wes Streeting

I am welcoming Andy, I'm publicly welcoming Andy Burnham back into the Labour fold. It's

very important that Andy fights the by-election. We made a mistake, as Angela Rayner has said

by not letting him fight a by-election last time he wanted to. So that's the public statement that Wes Streeting has made

And then he says, sitting at a poker table with Andy Burnham

then he says, and Brexit has been a disaster, we have to rejoin

And he puts that card on the table and he looks at Andy Burnham and he says, OK, mate, your move

And what does Andy Burnham do? He either sort of falls into line behind Wes Streeting

and agrees that it's all gone terribly wrong and we have to try to undo the nuttiness of it ASAP

or he offers some clearish blue water between the two positions by recognising the idiocy of the original referendum result

but not promising in quite such full-throated terms to reverse it. So it's potentially

and I don't know how long my appetite for finding this stuff fascinating will sustain

but it is potentially quite a good move. Andy Burnham has said, in my lifetime

West Streeting has kind of said ASAP and that introduces an element of jeopardy

to the entire conversation and, of course, the coming by-election in Makerfield

I love your attempts to answer that question. I'm glad that it set your brain whirring

just as much as it did mine. It only occurred to me five minutes before 10 this morning

I walked into the studio and had a chat with Martha and said, I tell you what the really interesting question is at the moment

Does West Streeting actually want Andy Burnham to win the election? And there's a little bit of quiet

And then everybody sort of goes, oh, I don't know what the answer to that question is

And that is not what I'm going to ask you. Because we don't know. That would be an unknown unknown, would it, in Donald Rumsfeld land

But I'm looking at the Daily Mail. And, I mean, it is insane, isn't it, how absolutely rooted in wrongness this paper is

They've commissioned a full-page article by Michael Gove to explain that going back into the European Union

wouldn't be a solution to our problems. He goes for this metaphor

It would be like believing that Dunkin' Donuts will help you lose weight

which gives you a slight indication of just how desperate they are, both intellectually and morally

to justify their own actions from ten years ago Ditto the Daily Mail They can step back In many ways the most honest thing you could do

as a Brexit supporter in the British media would be to say a couple of years ago

oh, I don't know why we're still talking about it. It's done and dusted now. Everyone should stop talking about..

The ignorance you would have needed to be in favour of it the first time round

is as nothing compared to the ignorance you would need not to understand why it was bound to come back round

It could never go away. There are two things needed. Listening to Sajid Javid today talking about uniting the country

and looking at some heartbreaking research about how pessimistic young people are

There are two things needed for this country to begin to get itself back together

back to where it was, say, 15 years ago, 20 years ago

or before the global financial crisis, if you prefer. The first is to be back in the single market

And the second is for people to recognise that racist policies designed to hurt other people, for now, won't hurt them

Your life is not going to be improved by racist policies or racist marches or racist politicians

But as long as people sort of cling to this idea that somehow their problems are the fault of foreigners

and therefore the solution to their problems must involve the persecution of foreigners

or people who look a bit different, the country can never begin to get back to where it was before

Those two things, economically social, single market, and socially, a return to the heady days of political correctness

when being racist was not described as a legitimate concern or endorsed by very, very senior politicians

So that's your twin move. Those are the two things that you need to happen

And obviously, in an ideal universe, they would happen yesterday. If you could wave a magic wand and be back in the single market

and back to the days when being publicly racist was career-ending, then you would do it, right

But these are very slow and incremental processes. And I just don't know what this is supposed to achieve

Except resurrect the worst bile ducts of the right-wing media, prey evermore upon the ignorance of people

who thought that their problems had been caused by European Union membership

and turn the country back into a snarling, gnashing battleground where, admittedly, the people on the wrong side of history

are now massively outnumbered by the people on the right side of history. But that is not a permanent state of affairs

Once the bile ducts start pumping, it will probably be the case

that many will be persuaded back to believing that the best thing they can do for themselves

is to use their political power to vote against their own interests

So I don't know. I actually don't know whether or not we should be welcoming

the breach of that kind of consensual murder, the idea, oh, don't talk about Brexit

until you have to talk about Brexit. We don't have to talk about Brexit

but West Streeting has decided to make Brexit this week the central point of the looming Labour leadership battle

And I just don't know whether now is the time. I am obviously 127% certain that we will make our way back into the single market

and probably the whole European Union at some point. I am also obviously well aware of the absolute breach of promise

So when people talk about a democratic deficit or a betrayal, as the Daily Mail is already doing, you have to ask what exactly is being betrayed

The promise to reduce immigration. That's why you voted for Brexit. So if immigration has gone up since Brexit

how can it be a betrayal to undo the thing that has made worse

the thing that you wanted to happen? We were going to get richer. We've got poorer

So how can it possibly be a betrayal? If all the reasons people gave and people were given to want this thing

have turned out to be, at worst, blatant, barefaced lies and, at best, misunderstandings

miscomprehensions and missteps, how on earth can it be a betrayal? If I buy a house off you

because the house you showed me had 14 bedrooms and a swimming pool

and then when you give me the keys and I turn up, it's a tin hut from B&Q

with a wheelie bin round the back full of water, and I say to you, I don't want this

can I give the keys back? And you say, no, that would be a betrayal. That would be a betrayal of the estate agent

or that would be a betrayal of the property. You'd quite rightly tell me that I'd taken leave of my senses

So this, I mean, this desperate narrative of betrayal is back. And I think probably it was going to be back

whenever the conversation got restarted, whenever the conversation got resurrected. It's going to reactivate the bile ducts of people like Michael Gove

and whoever edits the Daily Mail these days. Of course it is

they have no choice. Their alternative is to put their hands in the air and say, we got that horribly wrong, we betrayed our country

we betrayed our profession, and we betrayed ourselves. They've got two choices, really, haven't they

Well, they've got three choices. The first is to pathetically whine about

wanting it not to be talked about anymore. The second is to admit that you made a terrible mistake and resign

And the third is to pretend that it was the right thing to do and to resurrect all the lies, all the nastiness, and all the viciousness

So that's going to happen. That's where we are. Backlash over Brexit betrayal

Here's Michael Gove to wang on about something. What do people who know that we have to get back into the single market at some point

who know that we can't begin to restore economic health properly and growth properly in this country

that we will always be hobbled, nobbled, held back by not being in it

What do we think about this moment? Is this the moment? Does this serve any useful purpose

except from Wes Streeting's leadership ambitions perspective? Do you welcome the return of Brexit to the front pages

even though the front pages will be dripping with poison and misinformation

just as they were in the run-up to and the immediate aftermath of that infernal referendum

Do you welcome this? Is it good news for the country, or is it just a cynical tactic being deployed by Wes Streeting

Do you know what I thought? Well, of course you do, because I told you. I thought a Tory might move first

To be fair, the filleting of talent and integrity from the party in 2019

made this considerably less likely. But I thought that a Tory might move first

I thought it would be electorally fascinating. for a busted flush of a Tory party

to throw up a senior member saying, well, look, the world has turned, time has passed

we're a different generation, obviously we need to undo Brexit and get back into or as close to the European Union

as we possibly can. If a Tory did that, it would have been popcorn central

Labour seemed too frightened to do it for years. They were too frightened to do it during Keir Starmer rise to the top of the party They were too frightened to do it during Keir Starmer years in opposition They were too frightened to do it when Keir Starmer became Prime Minister But they no longer too frightened to do it

Partly because the evidence mounts of how silly it was, and partly, of course, because the political calculations are changing

So Keir Starmer will say, the Labour government, as he did on Monday, will be defined by rebuilding our relationship with Europe

by putting Britain at the heart of Europe, so that we are stronger on the economy, stronger on trade, stronger on defence

Just don't ask how. Andy Burnham last year at conference. I want to rejoin the EU

I hope it happens in my lifetime. It's not exactly a call to arms, is it

Well, I hope it happens in my lifetime. And we're streeting on Saturday. We need a new special relationship with the EU

because Britain's future lies back with Europe and one day back in the European Union

They're all right. All three positions are correct, intellectually correct, statistically evidentially correct

but they're very different flavours, aren't they? It's like mummy bear, baby bear and daddy bear

Is it time? Do you welcome the return of Brexit to the heart of political discourse in this country

and the bile-soaked front pages of your local right-wing rag, your favourite right-wing rag

Do you? And if so, why? And also, I think, would it be unreasonable to suggest

maybe you owe me a favour when it comes to Brexit coverage

Can you boost me up a bit? Can you make me a bit happier to see this

Back, front and centre. Because I recognise the inevitability of it. I recognise the desirability of it

I just don't currently recognise the necessity of it at this time

Can you boost me up? Can you say, James, you've got to get over it. This is great

Even if it is the very, very, very early beginnings of a return to sanity

you can't keep postponing the beginning of the return to sanity without keeping sanity further and further out of reach

I don't know whether or not I've been gaslit by all the idiots that caused it

whether or not I've got a sort of correctness fatigue. But I don't feel the excitement I thought I would feel

or even the sense of vindication that I thought I would feel, when, as has always been inevitable

some senior mainstream party politicians started publicly recognising what everybody knows privately

Brexit was a bloody disaster, and the sooner we start undoing it, the better. Do you welcome this moment

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

and it is a word, let alone an issue, that animates the country like no other

except possibly some elements of pandemic response. So do you breathe a sigh of relief

that Brexit is back on the front pages, back at the heart of political discourse

Or do you feel, as I currently do, a sense of unease

that this is probably being introduced for the wrong reasons and it's unlikely to achieve anything substantial anytime soon

A couple of phone lines still free. Grab them while you can. James is in Leeds

James, what made you pick up the phone? Good morning, James. Well, I'm phoning up to tell you that you're right

What about? What now? You are right about it probably being done for the wrong reasons

If I can just say that when I heard West Streeting coming out

very strongly in favour of moving back to Wads, I thought he's playing a very smart game here

Well, yeah, basically he's putting Andy Burnham on the spot. Andy Burnham agrees with him on Europe, I'm sure

But given Andy Burnham is now standing in a constituency which was very heavily leave at the referendum

he's now sort of forcing Andy Burnham to be mealy-mouthed and be half in and half out

Because that's how he will be campaigned against in that constituency. Precisely

So I know your answer to that other question I asked, don't I? Do you think Wes Streeting wants Andy Burnham to win in Maker Fiat

Well, exactly. You said that you didn't know. To me, this is quite clear

He absolutely doesn't. He absolutely doesn't want him to win because he's just handed some bazookas

to his potential rivals in that by-election who will be able to campaign on an Andy Burnham will betray Brexit narrative. Exactly

I think that makes perfect sense. But what I don't know, nobody knows

to cite my old geography teacher, is whether or not the Brexit betrayal narrative

actually still works. I mean, they're going all in on it. The Daily Mail front page I've already read to you

I imagine there's something very similar in... Here you go, yeah, Daily Telegraph

Burnham retreats on push to rejoin EU. So he's already moving to the back foot

as a consequence, as you've argued, of what West Streeting has done

But does the narrative of Brexit betrayal work? I'm going to probably need a slightly better metaphor

But for the time being, I'm going with the house the estate agent sold me after I looked at a brochure that showed me 14 bedrooms and a swimming pool

And when I got there, it was a manky old caravan with a wheelie bin full of water out the back

How can it be a betrayal to seek to undo a confidence trick

Well, I think that the problem is that it's about feelings. And even if you just look at what happened at the rally, albeit with much smaller numbers, on Saturday

The hate march. Those, exactly, yes. But all of those things are, they're still in there

You know, they still, so, you know, back at the time of the referendum

the Remain parties wanted to argue their way through it

by presenting solid arguments. But that didn't work because it was the..

And that's the question. That's what I'm asking. Because you can't lump every Leave voter in

with the knuckle-jaggers turning up for the serial criminals rally this weekend

but maybe that sense that clever clogs comment of mine how can it be a betrayal if you're simply undoing

the consequences of a confidence trick people have to accept that they were conned

for that to work and that's a feeling isn't it, that's not an evidence

or a fact based position true, we'll see we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, but there it is

that question does underpin an awful lot of what's going to be going on for the next few weeks doesn't it

do you think West Street wants Andy Burnham to win in Makerfield

and that's 1-0 to the nose for James. 27 after 10 is the time

from Leeds to Wigan to Orwell, in fact, which I think is in the Makerfield constituency

Keith, what would you like to say? Hello, James. Hello, Keith. First time on the radio, so please be kind

I have no choice, Keith. It's a moment, it's a historic moment for us all, this

Go on, what do you want to say? No, I agree entirely with what you've been saying

To be honest, I'm absolutely frank to death of reform in the by-election

Yes. I think we need to, just to say to West Street, not now, West

please, not now. We all agree with the sentiment we want to rejoin Well I saying all I certainly do I know a lot of other Labour supporters do But just not now Wes please

Let's just get the by-election done and dusted. So you think it was quite cynical then

Absolutely. Absolutely. The betrayal narrative has been resurrected by what Wes Streeting did on Saturday

not by what Andy Burnham did at conference last year. Yes. We all know Wes's agenda, don't we

We all know his agenda. We know Andy Burnham's agenda as well

They both want to be leader. They both want to have a crack at the big job. Yep, absolutely true

But is now the time to be introducing this? Yes, we need to discuss it

It needs to be discussed. But just not now, Wes, please. Just take a step back

And he's, I mean, the Telegraph reports that he's already planning not to campaign

on reversing Brexit, not to campaign on rejoining, but streeting has sort of put the cat among the pigeons

in a way that I can't believe has happened by accident. What about this idea of the betrayal nonsense still working

Farage will be out there filling it up to the max and most journalists won't remind him

that he promised to leave the country when Brexit failed and he said that it would reduce immigration

and it did the opposite and he said it would make us better off and it did the opposite. So will it still work

I mean, how does the average reform voter, do you think, square the fact that the Brexit they voted for

has been an absolute disaster? Well, I can't speak for reform voters, James

but I've already had a brief run-in with some reform supporters at the supermarket on Saturday morning

The buzz was parked on the car park at Sainsbury's on Saturday morning

blocking my car in. So I had a brief encounter, shall we say

Did you say, control our borders? I pointed the fact to two of my neighbours

who's got the flags flying in the gardens. They've changed them recently to St George's Cross Flags

It was the union flag up to a couple of weeks ago, and both of them were upside down

How patriotic can you be if you don't know which way up to fly the flag

How Christian can you be if you hate your neighbour? But these are questions perhaps for another day

Thank you for that, Keith. It's an interesting question. Not a lot of appetite for the return of Brexit to the forefront of public discourse

because it's perceived at the moment as being something of a tactic

deployed by Wes Streeting in the looming leadership battle. I don't know. If not now, then when

When would be the right time to start this conversation? I'll add that question to the list

0345 6060 973 is the number that you need. I mean it is of course baffling and dispiriting

to see people who were conned in 2016 continue to be conned by the people that conned them in 2016

whether it's Michael Gove or Nigel Farage or the editorial floor of the Daily Mail

and of course various broadcasters, pundits, commentators and politicians as well Cami Baden-Ock sums up the idiocy of that position

the country wants us to make the best of Brexit OK, it's been 10 years

how's that working out for you? but I don't know whether or not that boneheadedness persists to such a degree that Brexit will be toxic once again

And does that mean that you have to wait until it's not toxic before you start the process of reversing it

Or you have to wait until its toxicity is confined to 10-15% of the population

rather than still a more even split with, of course, the ability to change the minds of people

if you've got 80, 90% of the British media and a Musk-owned social media and algorithms on Facebook

that benefit a lot more from anger and hatred than they do from harmony and facts

Do you have to wait until the toxicity level has really gone down

A bit like Orban in Hungary. Do you have to wait until things are absolutely unarguably awful

before the fight back can begin? And the propaganda simply stops working

because ultimately people won't ignore the evidence of their own eyes and ears

I don't know. But I do know that Dominic Ellis has your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC

10.35 is the time. I'm just getting a little bit of deja vu. This curious emotional relationship that I have with Brexit

I get an intellectual kick sometimes out of making it make sense

out of explaining the stuff that needs to be explained. I've done enough self-congratulation for one day

but I wish more people had done it then and would still do it now. but then of course it can be destroyed that little intellectual kick or that emotional

philip can be destroyed by the knowledge or the recognition of the fact that it doesn't matter

the people who voted for it have been made poorer by it but they won't be able to count how much

poorer they have been made they don't really understand that the price of food or the absence

of some foods from our supermarkets that decline in trade all of those things are measurable

negative impacts. But if nobody's shouting them from the rooftops or polluting their Facebook feed with them or talking about them on Question Time

they won't know. They'll blame it on something else. Immigration rocketing in

the aftermath of Brexit because all of the people who left, having been told to

sling their hooks, had to be replaced. And in order to tempt people here to

replace them, you had to make the package more attractive than it was before Brexit. So you had to be able to bring family members that you wouldn't

necessarily have been able to bring before or of course you're going for people who are coming from

further away and who might be a little bit older to replace a very mobile local population of

foreign workers and therefore the numbers went up exponentially and farage has the audacity to use

boris wave as um an electoral tool because say what you like about the man he absolutely believes

that everybody who votes for him is as thick as mince and he completely and categorically believes

that all of his voters, all of his supporters are as thick as mince. It's why he revels in harvesting the stupidest conservatives

of the last 20 years from their old party and welcoming them into his new one

The immigration boom post-Brexit was his fault. It's mathematics. You had to replace the people who were leaving

and you couldn't replace them with people from nearby who didn't want to stay for very long

You had to replace them with people from much further away who were going to be uprooting their entire lives

livelihoods and families. So here we are, looking at it. And yet he's claiming..

Oh, man, they're all claiming it's nothing to do with them. So all of the things they voted for

the polar opposite has happened. But I'm still not convinced that this is the time

I'm still not convinced that this is the time. 10.38 is the time

0-3-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3 is the number. Did you notice we've had a caller called James

and a caller called Keith? The next caller is Eleanor. What an extraordinary coincidence

Dom on the Wirral, could you pretend that your name is Eleanor for a couple of minutes just to make this work

I've certainly been called Eleanor on a number of occasions, but normally on Thursday nights at specialist clubs

What makes you pick up the phone today, Dom? I'm an ardent remainer, always have been

and I'm just looking at the situation now with the leadership election

and the coming by election in Makerfield. And now that the Pandora's box of Brexit has been reopened by Mr. Streeting

I don't think you can put it back in. Trying to shy away from it or skirt around it is exactly the wrong thing to do

I think Andy Burnham should lean into it. I think Andy Burnham should lean into it

It's there. It's out in the open. So literally, they're doing the betrayal narrative

They should just come out with some of the lines we've come out with this morning. So what is it that you are most enjoying about your glorious victory

What is it that you're most going to regret losing in the event of us rejoining or reversing

What is the big... What are you celebrating? I thought you said you were going to leave the country if it failed

Well, it's failed and you're still here with your five million quid in your back. So that kind of approach might work better

Absolutely. I mean, I used to work on construction sites around the northwest, self-employed

including around Wigan Makerfield and all the old mill towns. And the pro-breakers sentiment was through the roof back at the referendum time

Yes. And it's because these guys and girls felt left behind and they felt hope

They wanted to believe, but now they're not stupid people. no matter what Farage and his cronies think

these people have seen the results. They've seen immigration spike. They've seen their wealth go down

They've seen the country lose control, not gain it. So if I would bear them, I'd go to the doors

be knocking on there and saying, look, I understand. I understand you voted for Brexit

I understand you want to change. However, what have you got? What have you got

I respect your vote. Let's go forward and do the best we can. And if in the future that involves moving closer to the EU

so be it. but on the other hand I'd say to the reform candidate

if I was Andy Burnham tell us what you've done show Makerfield what Brexit

has given them to which you know the response will be well we haven't done it properly yet absolutely

how would you do it properly, what would you do different get into specifics, the problem with journalism

these days, no offence to you and your fantastic trade, it's just no

follow up questions especially on TV news and certainly in the Dead Tree press

we'll ask somebody something, they'll deny it OK, let's move on to the next thing because we know

we're on the clock Let me finish I'm not going to let you finish

because you're not answering the question that I asked that's outrageous and Farage of course

he's not even that good at it but he is very fluent in that inability

that refusal to answer any difficult questions and you've seen what happens when he is asked questions

he doesn't want to answer. He simply refuses or shouts Bernard Manning at the top of his voice

Well, I'd love to see a Paxman Howard kind of situation with Farage or any of the..

Yeah, well, there might be something on YouTube that you'd enjoy, but it was 12 years ago

and the prospect of him ever coming back into this studio, I'd say, was absolutely zero

although the invitation remains permanently open. Where do you derive your optimism

your faith in your fellow man and woman from? because when you say they're not stupid

I agree with you in my bones and I want you to be 100% right

but they're still coming back for more. The man who sold it to them

is now selling them a whole different bunch of snake oil and at this point in the electoral cycle

and as we saw in the council elections a couple of weeks ago, they are still lapping up the snake oil

So how do you retain your optimism that they're not all stupid? I think there's a combination of pride and mathematics

People are too proud to admit they were wrong. And we're all proud. We don't want to admit we've made a mistake and made fools of ourselves

and sold our country down the river. However, if you look at the local elections last week

we got a historically unpopular Labour government in power at the moment. In local elections, Labour's still got the most council seats in the country

And we foremost nationally were polling at somewhere around 24%, 20%, 26%, I think

And there's a hardcore, as you said yourself, and I think we can all see demographically

of around 20% of people that will always vote for that kind of party

The furthest right party, the furthest right party, the belief that my life will improve

if we can just be more horrible to others. Absolutely. And I think the last role that I'd say for later could be

if it carries on in this vein, they're going to have to reform the voting system before the next general election

But, you know, I'd also like to have a six-pack and be married to Penelope Cruz

but that's not going to happen either. But you'll always have your Thursday nights, won't you

Absolutely. I'll see you there. Thank you, Tom. I mean, I can't fault much of that ysis. I can't remember what it's called, though. The thing that we just nudged there is that idea that I shared with you at the time, and I couldn't quite believe it, but it's held up by research

If you fall for a scam, you become measurably more likely to fall for the next chapter of the same scam

So if I give you my life savings because you just need a little bit of help getting your uncle's millions out of Abu Dhabi or West Africa or wherever it may be

and you've sent me that letter and you just need access to my bank account and my life savings

so I hand it over in expectation of this extraordinary payday, then when you come back and say oh we're nearly there james um i just need a few more could you

just sell your car and give me that money as well and then we'll definitely you become measurably

more likely to fall for the second scam if you'd already fallen for the first one i think that in

the future political scientists will call that the farage effect if you've been conned once you are

more likely to trust the con man or believe the con man um than you would have been previously

precisely because of the shame and embarrassment of having fallen for it

So if you're an average punter, that's forgivable. But if you do what I do for a living, or you edit the Daily Mail

or you're a senior politician who is paid to provide informed opinion to the public

and truth and honesty, you're an absolute disgrace. You've got no excuse whatsoever

But I wonder if the same psychological thing kicks in. Just because you do this for a living doesn't mean you necessarily understand anything

You might just sit here regurgitating Daily Mail and Sun headlines. What do they say about Brexit

Oh, yeah, Brexit, good. OK, Brexit's going to be brilliant. Down with Remainers. And then a couple of years later, you say

oh, I don't know why we're talking about that anymore. So levels of ignorance that are absolutely stratospheric

but still informed latterly by the shame and embarrassment of recognising the scale of the mistake that you made

So you would then say, OK, I'll sell my car. Here's the last pounds I have

can't wait for that big payday just round the corner and that's what Farage does

he looks a bit like a spiv doesn't he, he looks like the kind of person

who would have been selling silk stockings from inside his raincoat in a carry-on

film or something like that and that is what he does you know that he would praise the IRA

for 87 quid on Cameo, I can't help wondering what it is

he's going to do for 5 million while insisting that it's absolutely nothing

whatsoever to do with a quid pro quo James O'Brien on LBC

It's 10.48 and you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC Sunk Cost Fallacy

I need to get that tattooed on the inside of my eyelids You get mental blocks on something, don't you

You know that I always can't say the word amber without running in my head through whether or not

Amber Heard or Amber Rudd One of them was married to Johnny Depp for a while and one of them was Home Secretary under the Tories

I just got a full-on mental block on it Heard or Rudd, Rudd or Rudd I got it wrong once

at a book thing, you know, when I do shows in theatres

I got it wrong and I about halfway through the following sentence and I picking up on the whisper going around the room and I say did I say Rudd and and and no heard no flipping heck I just

can't do it it's it's it's terrible and sometimes I just get blockages on I know what I want to say

but I've forgotten what it's called so I've got double down theory in my head but that's that's

from cards that's something to do with blackjack it's called sunk cost fallacy all right it's when

we continue to hold on to an investment, whether it's time, money, effort, or even a vote, a belief

but we continue to hold on to it because we've put so much into it

that letting go of it feels almost impossible. It's a form of cognitive bias

You know it serves your best interests to move on, unless, I suppose, you do what I do for a living

in which case you can continue lying without any real consequences or boasting about the fact that you don't understand anything

but as an average voter, an average punter you know it was a really stupid thing to do

but you can't admit that so now you're going to vote for Farage to become Prime Minister

because it's preferable and that of course is probably why the whole debate was made so feverish and so febrile in the first place

because it had been conducted in a civilised, grown-up fashion with a lot of people going

well, I don't know, I'm 52, 48 I could go one way, I could go the other

then quite soon after realising that they'd made a mistake they'd be able to say, silly old me, can we have our ball back, please

Can we do that again? Because it was so febrile and so violent and so feverish

and there was so much unpleasantness, particularly from the leave side, but some, of course, from the remain side, that sunk cost becomes greater

You've fallen out with family members. Think how hard it is to tell a friend or a family member that you've made

I know I called you a traitor and that you were selling our country to the Fourth Reich

or the EU SSSR or whatever nonsense you were spewing, regurgitating. You're saying to your own son or daughter

I know I said all those things, darling. I'm really sorry. I was an absolute flump

I don't know how I managed to get conned by the likes of Farage and Gove and Rees-Mogg

But anyway, I'm sorry. And now we can start rebuilding our relationship

You can't do that on a personal level. How are you going to do it on a political level? So, are we glad to see this back in public discourse

back on the front pages? Or are we worried about the reasons why it's there

Alan is in Prestwich in Greater Manchester. Agreeably northern flavour to the programme today, Alan

Long may it continue. What would you like to say? All right, I can't. Everyone's a comedian today

Yeah, James, I mean, I welcome this debate, you know, because I think the Labour Party

has been running away from it. Yeah. But what no-one is mentioning

is the Labour Party is losing the progressive vote over this. Yes

Now, only the elections, the local elections, a particular polling booth where we vote

two years ago, the last time we had the locals, 453 people voted and Labour got a

stanky majority, mainly because I was standing. However, this year, 250 more people

voted and there was a big swing to the Greens. Gosh. We are losing the progressive vote over Brexit

because, you know, the Greens, they're agitators, but, you know, they are, I think with the Liberals

the only party that have said, we will go, we will join Europe. Why have the Lib Dems not benefited from that more, do you think

Just because that's always what happens to the Lib Dems, really? Possibly, yeah

And, you know, I think people are starting to see through Ed Davies' kamikaze stunts

But, you know, that's a danger, that we're losing a progressive vote as far as I'm concerned

And, you know, people keep... If people are going to vote, the reform vote, I don't think we're ever going to get them back

But I think, you know, your caller, was it the last one, said, you know, you will get some people back

because they will realise that they were conned. Yes. You know, they were conned

And you don't have to get, you know, all of them back to get back in

but you'd probably need to get more than you need to get back in on side

to get the conversation going than you do to actually end the conversation

Am I making sense? That's what I mean. When I talk about detoxifying it

the figures need to be something like 80-20 to start these balls rolling

because then the Daily Mail just packs up and goes home. And Farage, well, I don't think it would ever happen

but keeps a promise for the first time in his life and actually leaves the country, which I think he was planning to do

before he got that five million quid. I think he was planning to go on the big lecture tour

in the United States of America, but I'm sure he'll come clean any moment now

You need 80-20 to get this conversation going. You only need 51-49 to end it

And I don't think we're anywhere near 80-20, Alan. Yeah, but, you know, the thing is

well, let's have the debate. And you're never going to get there if you don't talk about it

You just sit there, wait for it to happen. As you keep saying, name me one Brexit benefit

Hang on, there's my career. Can we remember? There's my career in my book sales, Alan

Yeah, I did buy your book. There you go. And the other thing is the Dublin Agreement

Yeah. You know, people say, oh, but the immigration, I said, the Dublin Agreement, they'll say to me, what's that

I said, because under the Dublin Agreement, when you were in the EU, you could take the person back to the point of entry

If they were illegally or their application hadn't been accepted. I mean, you're absolutely right, technically and literally

but it wasn't actually used much before Brexit happened. It wasn't actually used much between 2010 and 2016, or 2019

So although it's technically true, it's not quite the hand grenade that some people who lob it into this conversation think that it is

Yeah, but the other thing, James, is, you know, as I've just said on your show all the time

immigration is down dramatically, but you'll never read that in the right-wing press or get it on the BBC

I know, I know, and even if you did, they'd claim that the figures have been manipulated

and you say, well, they're using the same methods to count them that they were before, why would they be manipulating them now

And why wouldn't they have manipulated them back when you were getting really angry about it

I mean, again, that's what I mean by sometimes pointing out the facts is not quite the liberating experience that it should be

I'll ask you this, and speaking as a local councillor as well

in the relevant neck of the woods, do you think West Streeting wants Andy Burnham to win in Makerfield

I can't believe anyone in the Labour Party would want a reform win

except the bloke who becomes leader in the event of a reform win or the bloke whose path

to the leadership gets a heck of a lot easier if Andy Burnham isn't there

well the thing is I can't either let's turn it on Andy Burnham's a brilliant communicator

he's fantastic, he's on a radio show round here once a week and he's a brilliant community

Mike Quinn, he's on when I'm on. What are you doing listening to that? Well, hang on

You've got me there. No, but he is. I mean, the thing is, just turn it on its head

Say, are you richer? Are you better off? Are you poorer? Are you poorer

You know... People know they're poorer. Because you know it like a boiled frog You go to the supermarket and you know that you spending more money than you used to But you always that inflation you always spent a bit more money than you used to And you think that the shelves seem to be a little bit less well stocked and the fruit goes off a bit quicker

and the supply chain has obviously suffered. But you're not necessarily, unless someone's hitting you over the head with it every 10 minutes

you're not necessarily putting two and two together to come up with four. You're not blaming Brexit for all the things that Brexit's done

It's about eight grand per household, but I bet most households couldn't count eight grand of impact

I think where they're seeing it, James, is local services. Because just, Polly Toynbee wrote an article

that said Brexit's cost this country 300 billion. So if we go with the 300 billion, James

and say 100 billion of that would be taxes, there's your funding of public services

there's your potholes repaired, there's your NHS queues coming down even quicker than they are now

So, you know, there's defence funding that we need, but the country's poorer because of Brexit

Yeah. And I think people have seen that. And to be honest, James, the biggest thing on the doorstep

when I was going round for the last six months is the state of the roads, honestly

It's amazing, isn't it? Of course it is. It's the thing that you can feel it, literally, in your backside when you go over a pothole

when you go over a bump. And, of course, even with everything that Alan has said

it forced me to remind you that this morning it's reported that one in five nurses working in hospitals or community settings

has just told the Royal College that the shortages are potentially leaving patients at risk

One in five actually told them that on their last shift, staffing levels were well below what was needed

But let's all celebrate that unreported fall in immigration. It's bonkers, but it is just sunk cost fallacy

There you go, I remembered it correctly. Why on earth are you voting for this clown

Well, because I voted for him last time, and I'm not yet ready to admit that I am absolutely regretting that

Thank you, Alan. I'm minded to continue this conversation. We haven't had Brexit on our conversational agenda for a very long time, and there's quite a lot to say

But the key question is, is it now? Is now the right time

Alan's swung my pendulum. if you recognise this simple mathematical theory, right

to get back into the single market or to achieve some form of reversal

and leave aside all the multiple elephants in the room about what we'd be able to achieve

whether we'd be allowed to achieve it, all of that. But just speaking entirely theoretically

to get back in, you don't even actually need a referendum, but let's say for the sake of argument that you do have one

You can win it on 51-49. That's pretty much what happened last time, except it was the other way around

But the context of Brexit Britain is such that you can't get to the point where you're even going to ask the public the question unless that figure is closer to 80-20

In my view, I don't, you know, the Daily Mail is going to park its tanks on your lawn

The Daily Telegraph is going to come for you. Elon Musk's Twitter is going to be absolutely shilling for whatever it is that is best in the best interest of

who knows what it's in the best interest of but it puts bums on seats

you're not going to get this ball rolling until the figures are bigger than they are now

so do we welcome the conversation because it will accelerate the process of realisation

and recognition or do we worry that it might do more harm than good

because it's possibly being introduced for opportunistic reasons James O'Brien on LBC

I mean I know I am a stuck record but we must be doing something right

The conversations that we simply don't have in this country about impacts, about whether or not the massive nursing crisis, the staffing crisis in nursing, which is reported in some places today, is in some way linked to the tougher immigration policies being brought in

whether or not the fact that the supermarket shelves seem to be empty sometimes in ways that I don't remember them being 10 years ago

or even 20, whether or not the fact that they took the sell-by dates or the use-by dates of some fresh produce

All of these things, whether or not it has become much, much harder for you to be in business since this decision was taken

All of these things, if it was the other way around, your media would have been absolutely full of them

But of course, any evidence that your media betrayed you is going to be completely ignored by your media

And when I use the word media, obviously I don't mean all media, because that includes me. I just mean the kind of clowns that put words like betrayal on their front pages today

when all of the things that they told their readers would happen as a consequence of voting to leave the European Union

didn't just not happen, but in many cases the actual opposite happened

But it's still a betrayal. This is an example from Chris. A quick answer to your question, James

Yes, it is the right time. It's been the right time for 10 years. I run a small removals business

and it's costing me days of my time overseas due to customs formalities

not to mention at least £700 per van load just for paperwork for my customers

That's before import tax. At times that by the number of trucks

carrying tens of thousands of pounds worth of goods. That's your cost of living crisis right there

Everything coming in and out, he is saying, is costing more than it would have done before

So you end up seeing the massive bulk of that being passed to the consumer

Never mind all the other layers of problems on top of that, such as kicking out all the truck drivers who used to have a right to live and work in the UK

the 90-day limits for both UK and EU trucks, that's UK trucks operating in the EU

and now the EU trucks operating in the UK. All of this is time and money, and that's why one bag of shopping from Lidl

is costing around 50 quid these days. Please excuse any typos. I've quickly voice dictated this

because I'm very busy, but I needed to get it across. And that's the conversation we don't have

You know, it's why Kieran the van driver became an almost totemic figure on this programme. Somebody from a smaller

position than Chris is simply explaining what was going to happen, and then it happened. And there were so few

people having that conversation, he ended up getting booked by Sky News and everybody

else, because you just weren't hearing from people. You'd have Jacob Rees-Mogg

going, oh, everything's going to be marvellous. cheap shoes for peasants. It's all going to be wonderful

And Boris Johnson goes, well, they are, blah, blah, blah. And anybody coming from the world of retail

the world of import, the world of export, was just shouted down. They'd just shout, Remainer

What was the thing they used to shout? What was the thing they used to shout? David Davis would be going, well, they need us more than we need them

And you'd be going, I don't think that's true. Traitor! Traitor! Shut up

And everybody who knew what they were talking about got shouted down

so Alan in Prestwich speaking as a Labour councillor as he told you

saying that Andy Burnham should not be bottled or derailed or whatever word we're using to describe

one of the potential consequences of West Streeting's intervention at some point

the people who are correct are going to have to start taking the fight to the people who are

either wrong or lying or both and if not now then when

so if it's not going to be in makerfield this year that they actually start saying to five million

pound farage mate you promised us the earth you've delivered precisely nothing and if you're going to

claim that it could have gone better if we done things differently i want it right now in black and white you got enough money to commission goodness knows who to actually provide an account of how brexit could and should have gone better And while we at it I thought you said you were going to leave the country if it failed

So has it failed? Yes, it has failed, because it should have gone... Well, if it's failed, why are you still here

So take the fight to them now. And if not now, then when

If not now, then when? Let's add that to the list. 0-3-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3

you can reject, build upon or expand my 80-20 theory. You sit here now being, is the word querulous, I think

Saying it needs to be 80-20 before you can even start this process

So how is it ever going to get to 80-20 if all of the people who've been proved right by everything

are too frightened to talk about it because they get called names and attacked by people like Nigel Farage in the Daily Mail

How are you ever going to get to the point where you need to get to to restore order

if all of the people who can see the disorder and predicted it

or have come to recognise it subsequently are frightened of having the conversation

because they don't like the tactics or the tone of the people who spread the lies

and caused the catastrophe? And I suppose electorally, if you're looking at reforms results in the council elections

less so in Scotland and Wales, but you're looking at the results in England and you're thinking

well, these are his people. These are the Brexiters who have now moved on to reform

We can't afford to alienate them. Well, when can you afford to alienate them

If they are alienated by the truth, do you abandon the truth? If someone is alienated by facts, do you abandon facts

and start aping the tactics of the liars that have conned them

And that is where the Labour decision or the Starmer-level decision to go after reform voters instead of green voters

looks ever more, ever more silly, ever more idiotic. I wrote an article for a newspaper at the weekend

first time in a very, very long time, in which I completely callously harvested

many of the killer insights that you shared with me last week

but I'm afraid the conclusion I arrived at was that that simple decision to go after reform voters

instead of recognising progressive or green or Labour voters and trying to look after them was catastrophic for Keir Starmer

And that's why he is now reaping what he sowed with the leadership challenges

It was in the Eye newspaper, if you're remotely interested. Anne's in Ashton Inn, Makerfield, which is appropriate enough

I had no idea we were so big in Makerfield. Anne, what would you like to say? Well, I'm a long-time listener, so very big in my house

Oh, lovely, thank you. Only to you, though. All right. So, no, I'm listening to you

and I'm agreeing with you, but I'm feeling not now. Oh, yeah

Because, as you know, I live in a big reform area. Ashton itself is only part of Makerfield

which much of the media don't really seem to know. Sure. Because in the last few days

our little town has been totally inundated by everyone. We've got people all over the streets

they seem to be picking a type who they want to interview

That's interesting. Yes, they're judging. They're outside a certain pub, which you will guess which one I mean

Well, I won't be able to name it, but you mean the one that perhaps is known locally

for having quite a far-right-leaning element or a very right-wing-leaning element of patron

Yes. Fair enough. We've all got one of those in our neck of the woods. We have

And when they were in Wigan the other week, they were doing the same. Okay

It's very interesting. They let people walk by and then they choose

They seem to be interviewing a lot of older voters. That's interesting

Yeah, one or two young ones. And one I did see when he was asked

did he like Andy Burnham? He said no. And when he was asked why, he said, I just don't like him

which is what I get all the time about Kia. I just don't know why, but I know that I don't

No, I don't. Now, I felt thrown to the wolves last week

when Josh and Andy did what they did. I'm a long-time Labour supporter and voter

And I supported Keir Starmer for the leadership. I used to be supporting Andy

I had Canvass for him in the mayoral thing. And all that, being a waspy woman

which is difficult these days. Yes. But I just felt, wow, because I know that they've just elected

so many reform councillors. And I know amongst people, particularly of my age in this area

they lean towards Farage. They really do. And the biggest policy that they're concerned about

is not in privatising the NHS, which is what they should be

not means testing state pension, which is what they should be. There's only one

And you know what I mean. It's immigration. The boats. Well, immigration in general, which is plummeting

although I suspect a lot of the people you're talking about won't be aware. And then, of course, the small boats

which are a direct consequence of Brexit-friendly policies designed to stem the flow of legal applicants

How do you account for the fact, watching things as closely as you do, Anne

and anybody looking to do a vox pop in that neck of the woods could do a lot worse than talk to you

How do you account for the fact that the last time they voted for what Nigel Farage told them to vote for

none of the things that he promised would happen have happened, and yet they're coming back to lend him their vote

or to give him their vote again? I don't understand it. It's like they're blind to it

They are literally blinded by the flag, a lot of them. OK

You see, there's certain things that they talk about, and I do have friends

I've been in that situation you just described, not with my family, but with my friends

I've been in that situation where we argued over the dinner table

about Brexit years ago, And one of the things that they had a big issue with

was the colour of their flipping passport. God, I'd forgotten about that

Yeah, they didn't want the European passport. Now they're all suffering. They call European people all kinds of things

But they all go to Spain. They're all going to France in a couple of weeks to watch rugby

So I just found that really tough. It's psychology then, isn't it

It's psychology that I'd forgotten about the passports. We had a bit of a, you know, almost like a little business on this programme

of people ringing in with the reasons why they were going to do it. And they thought that they were going to be able to get their fish and chips

wrapped in old manky old newspapers again. And there was a bloke who thought that they were abolishing the three-pin plug

There was another one. I mean, the bendy banana thing ended up on question time

Some woman on question time saying she was voting to leave the European Union because of something, something, bendy banana something

That's right. I had that, I had all this about, I want to count things in pounds and stones

I don't want to be using kilograms. I want to measure in yards and feet

That's how I was brought up. The farms down the road used to sell big bags of spuds

And now we have to go to the supermarket. Honestly, I had it all, James

And it was like bang. in your head against the brick wall. So what I'm worried about now is that people have heard coming

round to the fact of Andy because he lives down the road, he's been very visible in Makerfield

all his life, all his career, because he was MP for Lee, he supported our MPs in Wigan

he supported Josh when Josh first came because we had bad flooding in the area

and Andy was very visible helping Josh with that. And he went there yesterday, actually, when he was canvassing

But I just think Brexit will really blind them. They'll blind them all and if it starts being talked about

then they'll turn it. I really do feel they'll turn. Wow. I'm very, very afraid

What about Alan's argument in Prestwich? What about Alan's argument that Burnham should rise to that bait

that rather than hoping it would go away, he should actually take it head on and say to these people

hang on a minute, what happened last time you trusted them? What happened last time you put your trust in these people

What happened to the promises that you were made in 2016? How is that all working out for you

I think that may be a route he has to do now that West Street has done this

To be honest, I got used to the fact that we were fed to the wolves by Andy and Josh

and over the weekend, I started to think, I've got to vote

I've got to vote Labour. That's it. I've got to stop reform. I had reform at my door yesterday

which they were given short shrift, but I've now got a notebook full of questions when I go to the town

Oh, good, yes. It's more than Laura Koonsberg's got, Anne, so well done

Oh, well, yeah. Well, we all know about that. The people who bother to listen to the way the media skew it

Yeah, I think West Streeting... I listened, actually, to Lewis Goodall yesterday

talking about West Streeting, and it was very shrewd what he said

that Streeting is actually not going to fight this leadership election. He's the one after

He's waiting for Andy to fail, and bringing Brexit up could do that to Andy

and that is what is worrying me. I think the feelings in this area are so strong

Do we know why? I mean, I know I've heard what you've said about immigration

And, of course, that's the calculation that Keir Starmer took, was that if he did address that directly, statistically and evidentially

that it would cut the mustard, it would butter parsnips. It probably won't because it's an emotional reaction

not an intellectual or even an evidence-based one. But do we know why the narrative of Brexit betrayal would be so toxic for Andy Burnham

when nationally the numbers have shifted quite profoundly? And, you know, in terms of the evidence of your own eyes and ears, nobody can really stand up in Ashton's town centre and explain or start listing all of the benefits, all the things that people have received that are positive

Yeah, I think maybe, yeah, those questions need to be asked of reform

Yes. Definitely. And they're in my list. But I don't really want to say the word of what I think it is

That is being appealed to with the narrative of Brexit betrayal. I think it's common in Wigan

I think it's common in St Helens, which is the next town along the elected reform

and historically I'll just say that historically in our area as I was growing up

I never saw anyone who wasn't who didn't look like me and didn't speak

the same language in the last I don't know how many years probably

15 years more and more people have come into our area that speak different

languages and look different trying to be diplomatic. You are doing a great job and you weaponise that

and people aren't going to be able to change that by voting one way or the other

any time soon, but if you simply say to them, oh, that's bad

Yeah. I'm your man. I've got friends and family who also recognise it and

they don't like it either. I mean, I detest it. Mainly because I lived in London for four years

when I was at uni, and I met people from all over the world

and I think it's such a cliche, a broad-nye horizon about life

I think you're right. I can sometimes tell, or not tell, but I think that having lived in a really big old city

it doesn't have to be London, it doesn't have to be in this country even, but it does do something, doesn't it

It just diffuses perhaps even quite visceral or primal fear of the stranger

when you live cheek by jowl with the stranger and they become the familiar

it just breaks that ancient impulse. And you see other areas close to us

Bolton, Rochdale, Preston, Blackburn, all those places, they did have new people coming in in the last 50 years

but we just never seemed to. And then all of a sudden it came

And I think the prejudice has grown. Comes with it, like an impulse reaction

which in its initial instance doesn't make you a bad person. It's the desperation with which you cling to it, I suppose

that determines that. And anybody seeking to capitalise on it by exaggerating or lying

or wanting to treat people very differently. Criminals, for example, very differently, according to their ethnicity

is obviously poisoning the well from which everybody drinks. And what an amazing call, thank you

You put me in mind of that lovely line from Paddington. Mrs. Brown says that in London everyone is different

and that means anyone can fit in. And I think she must be right

because although I don't look like anyone else, said Paddington Bear, I really do feel at home

I'll never be like other people, but that's all right because I'm a bear, a bear called Paddington

James O'Brien on LBC. Three minutes after 11, David Lammy this morning

I think seeming to side with our callers who fear that West Streeting might be being a little bit too clever for his own good

We have the opportunity of a lifetime to deliver on behalf of the British people

This is not a sixth form debate. It is delivery on behalf of the British people

And when asked what he meant by a sixth form debate, he replied, across the country in sixth forms, you can discuss what the position should be on Europe

I say to colleagues, 10 days of this, fine. I think the British people will forgive us for the introspection

Ten weeks of this and we're in desperate trouble. We will be out of office

And there it is. I'm beautifully expressed. The absolute crux of the conundrum for me is that everybody knows

or everybody honest and informed knows. And if you're not informed, that's not your fault. It's my fault

It's the fault of my profession if you're not properly informed. If you're not honest, then, I mean, you know, what can we do

But if everybody honest and informed recognises is that some sort of return to single market status and quite possibly more is an absolutely essential precursor for any meaningful economic recovery And yet at the same time you think that talking about it may do more harm than good

What do you do? Do you roll the dice and talk about it? And of course you open up electoral opportunities for the charlatans and liars who sold it in the first place

The Tories who've defected to reform and, of course, reform itself. Extraordinary chapter in British politics

where people who've spent the best part of 14 years bringing the country to its knees

largely as a consequence of Brexit, just waltz off over the sunset, stick a new badge on the door

and claim that they're the solution to the problem. But it's true that this is a toxic debate

And it's true, as I thought, and Ashton in Makerfield was one of the best callers

I'll take in a very long time, right on the money and right in the heart of the constituency that we're talking about

and she recognises that doing this might do more harm than good

It's like being right. It's a thing I used to say about marriage. I used to say that one of the secrets

to a happy marriage was being right and silent. And I mean it, actually

It's not a sort of quasi-misogynistic observation. I think it applies to men and women equally

But being right and silent, you don't have to prevail in every encounter

You don't have to prove you're right at every turn. The same probably holds true for radio phone-in hosts

Sometimes just wind your neck in and stop interrupting so much. But, hey, we're all works in progress

But be right and silent. So, yeah, obviously Brexit needs to be undone

And the sooner it happens, the better. But that doesn't mean the country is ready for it to happen now

And it doesn't mean it should be part of the maker field by-election that could determine the identity of the next Prime Minister

and that, if you're quiet for a second is the sound of my pendulum swinging back again

Sam's in Bradford, Sam what would you like to say? Yeah, so it's

all 42-58 so 48% of me is totally with Van but the 52% of me is with let's get after

them, let's bring up their you said this and have that happened, let's do that

and then the other point I wanted to make is West Street better be praying that

Burnham wins because if he doesn't he tap-danced Fad-Argent at Downing Street, and that is on him

So, you know, Burnham's got a play of the cards that he's been dealt, and he's a good communicator, like Alan said, let's do that

But on the other side, the cat's out of the bag, so it's time to get the flea and tick medicine out

to go after it. Sorry, I'm there. No, get it all off your chest

So, I mean, you raise an important point in that this has been a week ago

and was it Harold Wilson who said a week is a long time in politics? Yeah, it was the decade

quote one. A week ago it was only that Catherine West's sort of slightly weird and eccentric challenge

that Keir Starmer had to worry about. The reason why Andy Burnham is on a viable path back to Westminster

is Wes Streeting. Yeah. So if he loses, what's he done it for

Answer to make his own journey to Downing Street a little bit easier

If Burnham loses, I think Farad is handed the keys to number 10, and that's on Wes

I mean, we've got three years before a general election. Why would you think that

He's like the cat out of the bag. So now we've got to fight, you know, now the cat's out of the bag

Like I said, we've got to get the flea and tick medicine out. For a Brexit debate. Let's do that

Let's do that, right? 52-48. Let's do it. But when? Just not yet

No, I think let's do it. For three years, let's have the Europe debate. Let's get back there

Like Anne said, I'm from a place like her. I'm from Bradford in Yorkshire. Yeah. You know, really similar place

And my friends and blah, blah, blah, they're on that side. But let's do it. Do you feel richer

You know, we join the single market. There's an immediate bump on the pound. So when you go to Spain, you're buying more pints for your five quid

Yeah, straight up. That's absolutely true. You know what I mean? You've got that immediate bump

money in your pocket for your holiday tomorrow. Let's do this debate

you know? Yeah, but let me tell you, a caller I took a long time

ago now, in the immediate aftermath of the referendum, and I do

what you've described, of course I do, and I ask and I push and I ask and I push

and eventually you get, and I don't know how many people this is true of, but they all admire the same politician

eventually you get to there's too many brown faces on the tills

in Sainsbury's. That's where you get, so it doesn't matter if the pound is going to take

a big boost. It doesn't matter if GDP is going to go up. It doesn't matter

if the cost of living is going to come down. Eventually, when you push these people, this is what

Anne was alluding to, when you push these people, eventually, and I think

the call is still available on YouTube, literally saying there's too many brown faces

on the tills in Tesco or Sainsbury's and that's why I want to leave the European Union

It doesn't make any sense, but it motivates. We've got to have

faith. We've got to have faith in this fellow man because finance doesn't have a

policy pointing at them, the onimous them, and saying they're making your life, but it's not policy

Let's improve lives for everybody or let's all go home. Let's have faith in this fellow man

to like, we've brought the right way. We've been a progressive country for a long time

And then up until 2015, like you were saying earlier, let's get back to political correctness

because we're better together than we are apart. And Starmer has bet the other way, hasn't he

Starmer has gone the other way. He's pandered to the people that you and I are troubled by

But if you look at the voting records, if you look at the voting records and you add up Lib Dems, Greens and Labour

in any constituency, more people vote that way for them to be parties than the

right side of that divide. So, you know what I mean? Like I said, I listened to Anne and I was like

I agree. But they're fighting me. They're fighting me. Let's take it to them

Two great calls. Both from similar parts of the world as you described them

Both from the north of this country, which I think is pertinent to the political landscape

And both pursuing quite opposed decisions, positions. Leave Brexit in the fridge for now

Everyone agrees it's got to be undone, but leave it in the fridge for now. Get this by-election out of the way

But then when? When do you take it out again? And Sam saying, and I'm drawn back to that position

that we should just... We're going to have to have this fight again

The sooner it starts, the sooner it's over. The problem is, of course

the immediate consequences in Makerfield of having the fight now, because the Daily Mail's betting the house

on the bile ducts going back into overdrive. Farage betting their house on being able to con people

for the second, third, fourth time. Oh, it could have gone better. There is a great Brexit

It just goes to a different school. I know I said I'd emigrate if it went badly

but it has gone very badly, and I haven't emigrated. But please don't think that I've got anything to do with this

You know, when? The sooner you start the fight, the sooner it's over. And, of course, you might lose again

Eventually, you're going to win. because as Sam says, we are better than that

Eventually, facts matter. Eventually, the truth prevails. But when? Dominic Ellis has your headlines

James O'Brien on LBC. 26 minutes to 12. And, of course, the conversation

you could be forgiven for thinking you've woken up in a parallel universe. If you've ducked the news for a few days

you're unaware, for example, of the challenge to Keir Starmer's leadership, and quite possibly of Wes Streeting's attempts to resurrect the ghost of Brexit successful

so far, then when you hear James O Brexit on your radio wanging on about how silly people

who voted to leave the European Union are, or at least how deeply misled they were, content

for the con men compassion for the con was my mantra for many many years I think that mantra is close to expiring now if it hasn already You could be forgiven for thinking that you gone back in time but it had to come back

And the most disingenuous contribution to the entire conversation came from the people who pretended

that it should be put to bed. Like I said, it's the shortest lap of honour in history

People cheering and popping champagne cups. Farage never mentions it anymore. It's extraordinary

They're going to mention it now because they can use the word betrayal. But none of them ever talk about all of the benefits

If it was a big deal, if it was a big win, if it was worth the effort, if it was actually true, any of the things that they said

they'd be shoving them down our throats on a daily basis. You know, never mind the quality

Here it is, here's another Brexit win. Here it is, ha, ha, ha, take that, you pesky..

The minute I heard people say, oh, I don't know why we're talking about it anymore, that's done and dusted

that's when I knew the game was up. That's when I knew that the pretense that it was worthwhile

or that it was worth celebrating had expired. Can't believe how quickly it came around

Oh, shut up about it, will you? Why do you go on about this? You've got Brexit derangement syndrome

And then, of course, precisely the same sort of charlatan who used the phrase Brexit derangement syndrome

went on to use the phrase Trump derangement syndrome. Although both of those phrases seem to have been diminishing

in usage very much recently, as it's become clear that critics of Brexit

just like critics of Donald Trump, have been proven completely right about everything

Which, of course, leaves unanswered the question of why people would give Farage the proceeds of selling their car

after having already given him their life savings and seen him squander it all on a horse, metaphorically speaking

But that is what we know as sunk cost fallacy. So here is the question that is going to animate me for a long time now

The conversation has to be had. The fight has to be started

where Streeting has tried to start it now. But has he done it for entirely opportunistic or selfish reasons

Is he, if we were to be generous, simply eyeing the coming contest

and thinking, I will fight for the Labour members' votes by promising to rejoin as soon as possible

Or is he pushing Andy Burnham to the margins, pushing his back to the wall

by putting him on a footing where he's going to have to fight a by-election defined by right-wing lies about Brexit betrayal

That's why Anne's now got a list of questions for the next time someone comes knocking on her door

in Ashton in Makerfield because the first question you should be asking was how can it be a betrayal

if all the things you promised me would happen haven't happened? It's not a betrayal to go back to the shop for a refund

because it's broken. The thing I bought, I bought a box with a picture of a toaster on it

and when I got home, it had a breeze block inside. Take that back to the shop

and the shop's going to accuse you of breeze block betrayal. It doesn't make any sense

but nothing the Daily Mail has done in the context of Brexit or immigration has made any sense

unless you are that word that Anne didn't want to use. And there's a lot of it about

11.37 is the time. Is this our first call from south of Watford so far today

I think it might be. Tony's in Bromley. Tony, what would you like to say? Hi, good morning, James

Hello, Tom. I'm afraid I think we do have to have a really strong debate about Europe as a whole

because I think the second goal that Brexiteers want to score is the European Convention on Human Rights

And I feel we need to have a more rounded debate about our relationship with Europe as a whole

And the European Convention on Human Rights, I know it's not the European Union, but we rely on it enormously to act as a protector of human rights for everybody now if we if we if

if farage wins in three years time the next thing he's going to do is want to take us out of the

european convention on human rights and then all our rights you know your right to your right to

life your right not to be tortured and so on is going to be down to whatever however farage

interprets that. And bearing in mind that the politicians he admires most in the world are Vladimir Putin

and Donald Trump, so I don't think any exaggeration would go too far at this point

Exactly, and he admires those people, so he's going to take a leaf out of their book, sure

And also, of course, he's pretty buddy with Trump. So I think this is a more fuller debate

we need to have about our relationship with Europe when we've never had it

And actually, for those people, and by the way, I've never voted Labour

In fact, I've always, traditionally, I was a Conservative voter, but they now, Conservatives now

want to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. And where is that going to leave us

Where is that going to leave us? It's just another, I mean, not just

because as you rightly remind us, it's a big deal. And look, the Convention is imperfect

as anything that was drafted in 1950 is going to be. And definitely there's room for improvement

and recalibration and reinterpretation. But the thing that works in British politics at the moment

it always works in populist politics, whether it's coming from the left or the right, is just a promise to break things

Whether you're going to break the billionaire's hold upon the economy or whether you're going to break the rights of people

to a fair trial or security or safety, liberty, security of person

You saw at the hate march this weekend, they don't want many Muslims to have the protections

that other people have in this country, and leaving the European Convention

on Human Rights could accelerate that process. It won't improve anybody's life

But what works in politics at the moment, the Farragist style of politics, is a promise to make somebody else's

life worse. Actually, now I come to say it out loud, that's what they

got from Brexit, is that people had to leave. I remember taking calls the morning after

What are you celebrating? People are telling me I have to leave now. We took a call from a psychiatrist

and she was very upset. We took a call from, I think, a teacher

a psychiatrist being told by some of her own clients that she'd have to leave now, a French psychiatrist

So that's what people voted for, to make life worse for them over there

But not better for ourselves. No, not better for me, just worse for you

And the thing is, the European Union, to be honest, wasn't perfect

No, of course not. It had its problems, and of course it did

But really, like everything else, and you've mentioned about marriage as well

you know, when you're in a marriage and there's things not going right, well, you enter into a debate and you discuss it

and you try and find a better solution and you move forward

which is what we should have done with the European Union. And it's definitely what we should be doing

with the European Convention on Human Rights. But nobody wants to... It's boring, isn't it

You know, you've got to spend years going into some debate... Well, it's boring and technical. It's boring and technical

whereas the people on the other side can just shout, we're going to deport rapists and everyone goes well I mean who wouldn't be in favor of that you

know who doesn't like that but just don't ask what we're going to lose in the and also it's not true

you know there's going to there's going to still be protections under the law um unless we move

into a dystopia five times quicker than any other society has moved into a dystopia in recent years so so I mean leave that aside for a moment Do you want the fight to start now or do we wait until Makerfield has a new MP

or until a year out from the next... Because I thought they might go into the next general election on a Brexit promise

I thought one party would. But do you want the fight to start now

Well, unfortunately... Sorry, Anne, who called you a few minutes ago. She made a very good point

She really did. And she's in the middle of it. Fantastic. And actually, to be fair, she's in the middle of it

And I'm not. I'm down in Bromley, you know. I suppose I do think we need to start this because we've got three years

And I think that's time to round the really good argument about all of our relationships outside

And I think we can do it. And Andy Burnham has, whether he's done it tactically or not

he's said that this is about running for prime minister, and to be honest, and therefore he has to start opening up

and being honest about some of those opinions that he's got. I'm afraid, sorry, but that's what he's saying

Yeah, no, I hear you, because otherwise, I mean, Ant just wants to get over the finish line in Ashland

and in Makerfield, and I get that position. I think I'm going to end up agreeing with both of you, aren't I

like a typical centrist? Yeah. But that's the point if you're Andy Burnham, isn't it

When are you going to stand up for what you know to be right instead of ducking the conversation

because you know it will be difficult. And there's no easy answer to that question

You've got to have it. You've got to have it at some point. But does it have to be now

Well, it does because it's up against reform. Yes, and until you start pointing out the scale of the last con

you're not going to be able to do anything to stop the next one. That's probably the closest thing to a mantra

I'm going to take away from this conversation. Until you have really nailed the extent of the last con

you haven't got a hope in hell of stopping the next one. And why does the entire Labour Party seem to have missed that rather obvious point

Thank you, Tony. Phil's in Edinburgh. Phil, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Thanks for taking the call

You're very welcome. Third time caller. Welcome aboard. There's a lot of you about today. What do you want to say

Yeah, so I just agreed with so much of your last caller. What are you saying

and you can try and have a debate, but it's hard to engage the electorate

when they don't want to get into the detail of it. I was speaking to a researcher

I have an ogy. We love an ogy. Go on. Yeah, these are so good at communicating a simple story

And after I heard Michael Gove earlier in the show, I just thought, we've got to get a different one out there

It's just so intellectually terrible. So for people who weren't listening at the top of the show

Michael Gove thinks that rejoining the European Union would be like relying on Dunkin' Donuts

to lose weight or something. And the Daily Mail have presumably paid him

actual money to write that bilge. Yeah, you've got to make money somehow

Yeah, kids need shoes. Go on, what's your ogy? So I'm going to draw mine back to the future too

I know you brought that up a little while back, but do you remember this scene with Dr. Brown

where he gets the whiteboard down and he's explaining to Marty, saying

we can't go into the future from here because it's the skewed, twisted future

that is based on the Almanac event. You've got to go back into the past

back to the Almanac event, which is, of course, Brexit. We've not had normal politics

You can't even have discussion, normal debate on anything because whatever has been unleashed there

now holds that control of just enough. At the electorate vote, what is it

Is it 11% of the electorate? 24% of the vote count, but 11% of the electorate

It feels so small, but that can topple whoever's in power. And until we go back and we change that course

I can't see anything other than reform eventually getting into power. Yeah, it scares me

I don't think I've actually answered your question, though, James. No, you have answered my question

Well, I mean, in the sense of whether or not the fight needs to start now in Makerfield, Burnham needs to take this fight

to whoever they put up against him in Makerfield. is a little bit harder to answer

But what you reminded me of, and sometimes I think that I've clocked these things before

and then, you know, life gets in the way and they drift out of your consciousness. But do you remember being confused, if indeed you were

by why Donald Trump took such an interest in Brexit? Why he was so excited by it

And you've just answered that question. Is that he saw that an electorate can be persuaded

that facts are not facts, that news is not news. News is fake and facts are alternative

No wonder he got so excited by it all, because he watched an entire population fall for

lie after lie after lie, observable, provable lie, with xenophobia and side orders of misogyny

and climate change denial driving a population off a cliff of its own making

So that's it, back to 2016. The same thing's been happening here, and until someone fights back and says

no, we're not going to stand for this, might I be allowed time to run through a potential strategy

between here and the election? Or do you want to move on

I think we need to hit the break. I'll save that for another day. Like roast potatoes at Sunday lunch, Phil

I will save the best for last. But that takes us back to the top of the show. Two things need to happen before the country can even begin to heal properly

You need to be back in the single market for economic reasons and you need to put back to bed

because it was successfully consigned to the cesspit of public discourse by roughly 2010

you have to put absolutely back in the cesspit the idea that your life will be improved

by making their life worse. And, of course, it doesn't matter who you're pointing at

when you say their life. Because it was Polish builders for a while, wasn't it

And Romanian lorry drivers. Their life will be worse. And now it's... I don't know what it is now

It's everybody now, but it's moving quickly into people on disability benefit or kids with ADHD

or your life is not going to get better if you make the life of a family dealing with ADHD worse

But that's the promise that Farage is making you next. So just ask yourself whether or not

the last time he promised you your life was going to get better, if, for example, all the Polish people left

or all the Romanians went back to Romania. Did that work out well for you

Are you better off now than you were then? Things going well for you? Yeah, okay, so why on earth would you trust him again

And if I can make that case at 11.48 on Monday, May the 18th

then maybe Andy Burnham could make it a little bit better up in Makerfield

James O'Brien on LBC. 1.52 is the time you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

What is it? I mean, the greatest hits or deja vu, positive or negative

I'd forgotten about the passports. You look back now, and I've resisted the urge to look back

Today we've got no choice. How did we end up being such a bunch of bozos

What are you going to do? I'm going to vote for a blue passport. Is it blue or black

You know what Farish turned up with at the council elections last week? As his ID to... yeah, an EU passport

Or at least a passport that was the colour of EU passports. Ha! Ha

I used to sit here in a curious combination of... befuddlement and wonder

Caller after caller after caller. I miss you, in a way, if you're still listening

You don't feel that you can't ring in anymore. You don't even have to do a sort of mayor culpa or an exercise in self-flagellation

but why did you vote for it? Why has too many brown faces in Sainsbury's? How's that worked out for you

Why did you vote for it? I wanted a blue passport and a pint of champagne. Really

Do you realise what you're sacrificing upon the altar of champagne being sold in pint bottles again

Which, of course, never happened. And they talked about it. People who, I used to think, although I disagreed with them politically

I didn't think that they were completely bankrupt intellectually and morally. They talk about pint bottles of champagne as if it mattered

As if it mattered. Or the colour of your passport, or whether your potatoes get weighed in kilograms or pounds

All of this evidence is grist to an Irene Bevan's mill. It comes to the whole purpose of right-wing politics

to persuade poverty to use its political power to keep wealth in power

And that's what wealth does. That's what almost all of the British media is

But when it really gets down to brass tacks, when you push and push and push

until you get to something somebody will actually offer up as a reason for doing something

Muslimic ray guns was one of those classic clips on the YouTube

But on this programme, three pin plugs, brown faces in Sainsbury's, fish and chips being wrapped in old newspapers

genuine people ringing in with genuine reasons. I know I opened the show today by pointing out that it had changed my life

All of this. It changed my career. But you know what the trick was that I discovered

It was so simple. You just said, what law were you most looking forward to not having to obey anymore

That was the narrative that bit, wasn't it? Oh, they're imposing all these laws on us

From Brussels. What law? And I'd say that, to caller after caller after. By the time, by the hundredth time it

happened, you began to wonder whether they'd heard any of the previous 99. Everyone would ring in

convinced they had the answer to the question. So I'd say, what law? And they'd say, well, all of them. And I'd say, well, then it's going to be very, very easy to name

one. Name one law. And of course, what Anne in Makerfield realised, and I probably didn't

was that they didn't really care about the laws. They didn't really care about the legislation or the facts or the evidence

that they were offered by Farage prominently because people like Michael Gove and Boris Johnson

were pretending to believe that there was an economic argument for leaving the European Union

But Farage just allowed them to vote against diversity. gave them permission to simply vote

to damage their own country in the hope of hurting some people who might even have been born here

but didn't look like them. But in the case of sending back all the Polish builders and the Romanian lorige

I've just punished the foreigners. And that's why, and I didn't realise it at the time

no one could ever answer the question of what it was they were actually voting for. The only person who answered it honestly

was the bloke who said he voted to leave the European Union because there were too many brown faces on the tills in Tesco

I mean, a misapprehension built upon the idea that European Union countries are predominantly brown populations, brown-skinned populations

But it doesn't matter, does it? It's too frightened to say out loud what they're not frightened to say out loud now

They can have a massive march through London to say out loud what they were too frightened to say then

So how do you turn back this tide if not by having the conversation and pointing it out

it's true you know a politician saying there's too many brown faces on the television would have

been career ending 10 years ago now it's probably going to get you promoted in nigel farage's party

a hate march through london calling for people with brown skin to be deported or to chuck them

all out of the country absolutely normal reported with a straight face even perhaps encouraged

people claiming some sort of conflation or comparison between a march in solidarity with

the Palestinian people, and a march that was full of race hate

anti-Semitism, not getting any coverage at all. They called the other march the hate march

and a march that is built on hate and organised by convicted criminals, that's patriotic

It's bonkers. But it's all part of the same process. It's all part of the pollution of public discourse

And it begins with a promise to people that if you vote this way

we'll hurt the foreigners. And that's how Brexit happened. So how do you undo Brexit without acknowledging and admitting

how it happened in the first place? A quick correction here from JB

He says, I remember that call, says Clive. It was Sainsbury's in Harrow

Thank you, Clive. And we did put them all together once on a big compilation

But it's not funny when you stop to work out why people fell apart live on the radio

talking about three-pin plugs and fish and chips, talking about bendy bananas and tills in Sainsbury's

It's because they knew what Farage was promising them. We're going to hurt the foreigners

We're going to hurt the foreigners. Vote Brexit and hurt the foreigners

And if we run out of foreigners to hurt, here's some unemployed people

Here's some poorly people. Here's some disabled people. Here's some kids with ADHD

If we run out of foreigners to hurt, then I'm going to campaign on a promise to hurt them

And them. And them. And quite possibly you. But no-one ever thinks that. No-one ever realises that

Until it's too late. And there's me going all Martin Niemala. Look, my phone lines are full, which is not a guaranteed occurrence

on any radio phone-in programme, including this one. So the appetite to continue this conversation is clearly real

There are other stories around that I like the look of. Most notably, David Lammy's suggestion, or A's suggestion today

that parents of criminal children should face more consequences and punishments for failing to either report or control their children

I find that an absolutely fascinating question. I really do. And there's a landlord story around that is, I think, a benefit of the Renters' Rights Bill

Amateur property investors being squeezed out of the market. But I will make a decision in the next couple of minutes about what we do now

James O'Brien on LBC. It's three minutes after 12, and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

We will change direction now, because I've got a feeling that we'll be returning

to some of this territory in the coming weeks, days, months, and, of course, years

I think I'm going to probably say to you quite a few times in the coming period that there are two things

that need to happen before any attempt to repair the damage done to this country over

the last 16 years can be achieved. And they are pretty simple. Economically, single market

socially retoxify racism Because until those two things happen we haven got a prayer You going to have people voting to damage other people because they think it will somehow improve their own lives when it won It will make everything worse And you going to have our economy our business community

essentially having one hand tied behind its back as a consequence of not being in the largest single market in the history of humanity

There it is. I mean, it's incredible. So, a complete change of pace now

A headline that really caught my eye. And you're going to have to pay attention, all right

This is a little bit grown up. Amateur property investors are being squeezed out

So I told you six months ago that the Renters' Rights Act

was going to cause a lot of short-term trouble because my friends who still rent their properties

started telling me that a lot of landlords, and of course you find out more when you're back in the pool

looking for a new place to rent, a lot of landlords were going to be divesting themselves of their investments as a consequence of the Renters' Rights Act

In other words, the more exposed you were financially, the more spooked you would be by laws that were designed to make life better for renters

Do you see what I mean? I think we can all agree that the buy-to-let boom, when did the buy-to-let boom start

Was it a Labour thing? Was it a Blair era thing? Or was it pre? Was it Thatcher stroke major

The buy-to-let boom. When I started on this show, it was one of my bet noirs, the buy-to-let boom

I don't fully remember why. You'll have to forgive me or indeed remind me

I used to get right up on my high horse about it because I bought a place when we first got married with a 110% mortgage

and that meant that I got in just in the nick of time

One of the great things about being married, getting married in the year 2000, is you can always remember how many years you've been married for

without having to do any sums at all. It's 2026, so I've been married for 26 years

You see? It's great that, yeah? And almost immediately, you started seeing people from similar backgrounds

being priced out of property purchase. And, I mean, whether it's empathy or something less flattering than that

I do not know. But I always do the there but for the great. So what would happen if I were in your shoes

It parlied down to you, actually, down to all the flipping years we've spent together

And when I got on my high horse about universities and you pointed out to me I hadn't been to one for over two decades

I suddenly thought, maybe my views on university are completely irrelevant. It's not a healthy thought for a radio phoning host to have

unless you listen to it and change course accordingly. So when it came to property, I remember very early on in this job

getting very impatient with people who would ring in and claim that the youth of today was the reason

why they weren't able to buy property. It was only quite recently that people started blaming avocado on toast

and Netflix subscriptions. But prior to that, you didn't work hard enough

or you certainly didn't work as hard as my generation did or you were spending all your money on holidays and lattes and flat whites

And I remember the first time someone explained to me why that was a really, really stupid position

was like the clouds parted. And it's just numbers. It's simple multiples

So I'd take calls off lovely people. I don't know why in my memory they're older ladies

but I'd take calls from a lovely old lady who would say, oh, well, my husband works two jobs

we bought our first and I just say well how much did you pay for it and they'd say three and a half thousand pounds and I say well what was his annual salary at

the time and she'd tell about a thousand pounds and I go all right what's three

and a half divided by by one so it's three and a half James and I said well

now you would need to ten times that to get a property of the same sort of

values so the wage has stuck and the property has gone up enormously in value

So that was like the early dawning of this iniquity. Because I'm not from a wealthy background

so in my brain I'm thinking, how long would it have taken me to get on the property ladder

if I'd had to get a 10% deposit together while paying rent in London

Which is where I live. Still do. So I start thinking, crikey, you know

I'm supposed to be one of the winners. I'm middle class. I'm well-educated

I should be able to get on. I played by the rules. I've done everything right. and you start realising

and then they got rid of those mortgages and you needed the deposit

and that's when everything changed because if I had a few quid

I could go and buy another place and I could put you in it

and you would pay my mortgage while being unable to secure a mortgage of your own

because you didn't have the savings so it's kind of hand to mouth and even if you're on quite a high wage

you're not putting enough aside every month to be accruing the sort of sum you would need

to put down a deposit on a property. 110% my first mortgage

Tell that to someone under 30 and they look at you as if you're speaking Mandarin

My first mortgage, Martha, was 110%. So I got a flat and then I got a chunk of change

which I spent largely in Thailand, actually, as it happens, but I could have spent it all on furniture and televisions and things like that

And I started paying it back at a perfectly reasonable rate. And here I am today with a house that I still have a mortgage on

but goodness me, I've got quite a lot of equity now. But what would have happened

And then we got on to the buy-to-let. And you'd start speaking to people who thought they were either doing a service

or not making things worse. I think it was John Major, Sandy suggests

about 94, 95 so Labour would have been the big beneficiaries of it

if it came in that late in a Tory administration or the big overseers of it

and you'd speak to people who say I can't afford to buy a flat

and you'd realise that they could make a list one day of my breakthrough moments

where I've finally understood something after years of chewing the cud you can afford to buy a property

because you're buying it for your landlord Literally. Your rent covers their mortgage

Maybe with a bit of change left over, or maybe not quite. But basically, your rent is paying their mortgage

The whole purpose of right-wing politics in the 20th century is for wealth to persuade poverty to use its political power

to keep wealth in power. So you end up as a phone-in host taking calls from people

who are on the side of the landlords, even if they're not. Are you a landlord? No. but I'm on the side of the landlord

They work very hard for their money. Why shouldn't they be able to invest it in property? Well, because the people paying them rent to live in the property

also work very hard for their money, but the system has been literally engineered to keep them off the property ladder

So I told you you had to pay attention because in Box 1, you've got the Renters' Right Act

causing a bunch of amateur landlords to move out of the market. They don't like it as much anymore

not least because they not going to be able to chuck their tenants out willy according to their own situation and if you only got one or two properties that is a frightening prospect because it your pension or it your children inheritance

or it's this or it's that or the other. And the idea that the renters have rights kind of flies in the face of your investment

That's my money. It's my investment. I should be able to do whatever the heck I want with it. So in Box 1, you've got the Renters' Rights Act prompting landlords to quit the market

In box two, you've got the very simple fact that generations of people have been perfectly capable of affording property

but they haven't been able to buy it because they can't get the deposit together that they need to service the mortgage that their landlord has got

by dint of having some capital in the house they bought, possibly with a 110% mortgage

And then you've got the bit that I didn't see coming, but now that I've seen it, it makes perfect sense

professional landlords are snapping up a record number of homes sold by amateur investors

This is reported in the Times today. So the buy-to-let landlord is being squeezed out of the market by higher taxes

and crucially, in my view, more stringent renters' rights. Whereas the professional landlords, the empires, if you like

are engineered and set up to do a much better job of landlording

and therefore are much better insulated from the impact of renters' rights legislation

It's gone up to 13.3% of all buyers across Britain are landlords

Big landlords, not little landlords. And the little landlords selling up have seen a massive increase

in the properties they're selling being bought by the big landlords. And here's the thing

My head welcomes this, but my heart is confused. George Orwell wrote, would you believe, in 1937

about the dangers of amateur landlords because they can't afford to do the job properly

I found, one might expect it perhaps that the small landlords are usually the worst

this is from the road to Wigan Pier in 1937 it goes against the grain to say this

and there's George Orwell, not for the first time just describing me

it goes against the grain, this is head versus heart it goes against the grain to say this

but one can see why it should be so ideally, the worst type of slum landlord

is a fat wicked man preferably a bishop who is drawing an immense income from extortionate rents

actually it is a poor old woman who has invested her life savings in three slum houses

inhabits one of them and tries to live on the rent of the other two

never in consequence having any money for repairs so the preferable landlord is the cigar-chomping plutocrat

not the one, two, three property person who can't actually afford to spend any money

on the properties that they're renting out to other people. So there's two or three ways into this

The first is for the tenants, just to tell me the tyranny of the tin pot landlord

How much worse it is to have a landlord who has a small number of properties

because they don't have the wherewithal or the funding to actually look after them and therefore you properly

0345 6060 973. But the Orwell question is the one I really want your help with

and you don't need any experience of landlord. I was a landlord for a while, full disclosure, accidentally

We found a house we wanted to move into, and we were going to lose it if we didn't move out of the flat

that we were living in at the time. And we hadn't sold the flat that we were living in at the time

So we stuck it, the house that we were living in at the time, so we stuck it up for rent and left it there with a housing association for quite a long time

Because the money we got from the housing association was less than we would have got with it privately

But it covered the mortgage while we were able to move the equity into the new place or much of the equity into the new place

And that sort of assuaged my vaguely socialist conscience that it was through a housing association that I did that

and the tenants were paying less than they would have been if we'd done it privately, and they were obviously well looked after

But make this make sense. It's not the fat slum landlord. It's because no one should live in slums

and Orwell's writing in 1937, and we're living in 2026. Make it make sense

Because it feels right, yeah? Of course it's better to have big landlords

You can invest in a big company that has lots of properties, but it looks after them and the tenants really well

Of course that's better than having small landlords who are terrified of renters' rights

because it means they can't access or realise their money with 24 hours or two weeks' notice

Just make it make sense. 0345 60 60 973 is the number that you need

because there it is. The Renters' Rights Act in Box 1 is causing quite a lot of mayhem

But in Box 2, it's actually going to stabilise and shut out, if you like

the small-scale opportunistic buy-to-let landlord. And that, I think, is something we should all welcome

So we're going to have short-term pain. This is my theory. And it might need a little bit of work

or it might need actually blowing up in the water, in which case you know what to do

there's going to be some short term instability it's going to be tough for renters

as the market recalibrates but in the long term it's going to be removing from the equation

the people who are treating your home as a pension as opposed to a business

and that, I put it to you that's got to be a good thing

the small time investors are bailing but the big investors are buying

is that good or is that bad, because right now I think it's good 03456060973

and listen alongside the theory and the politics and the echoes of George Orwell

what's your experience as a tenant Is there a measurable difference between having a big institutional landlord

or having a little old lady who owns the flat downstairs in the hope of subsidising her pension

What's better? I'm almost saying what's better having a landlord who can afford repairs or a landlord who can't

But that would be skewing the question and misrepresenting the facts. But that's how the times have gone for it

And one of my favourite commentators has pointed out this morning on Blue Sky

that this is actually a good thing. Short-term pain, if you like, short-term instability

Easy for me to say because I'm not currently renting. But in the long term you are actually getting rid of a system that misrepresents young people as not being able to afford properties when they can actually afford properties They just can afford currently to buy them for themselves A welcome consequence of the Renters Rights Act though one that is creating some short pain for renters

It's good news, right? Right? Right? James O'Brien on LBC. A lovely mixture of anecdote and data here, or at least anecdote and theory

because I think it's good news that Amity... Do you know the phone-in it reminds us of

Eleanor pointed this out in the break. Sometimes we do phone-ins, and five minutes into them

we're sort of thinking, where on earth did that come from? When we were talking about VAT on private school fees

I was... I found myself fascinated by the question of whether it is nobler in the mind

to suffer the slings and arrows of... Sorry. Whether it is better for a whole society

to have fewer people in private education or more. It might be obvious to you now

but at the time, when the legislation was still quite fresh, the idea of reducing the number of people in private education

felt to me as a beneficiary of it. My parents bought for me a privilege

that previous generations of my family could not have dreamt of, and that felt like a good thing for society, right

More people can access it. But if you're talking about the overall measure of equality

then obviously that figure goes up according to how many people taking advantage of this un-earned privilege goes down

And I'm wondering if this might be a bit similar. So, if you accept the iniquity of rentier society

Some landlords, of course, are forces for good. But this isn't going to change the dynamics of mortgages and earnings

People renting are still going to be prevented from saving up for a deposit

by the amount of rent that they're paying. But if you are confining increasingly the landlord sector

to big professional operations, isn't that going to improve the general good while never being perfect

Do you see the parallels? I think they're there. Anyway, I'll shut up now and take some calls

Marcus is in Lambeth. Marcus, what would you like to say? Hi, James

I just wanted to share my experience. I don't necessarily have an opinion, but we really..

You will by the end of this call, Marcus. I guarantee it. Well, about three weeks ago

we moved from a large property housing, lots of different properties, and we had a fantastic experience there

And now we've moved to a new landlord who clearly only has one property or maybe two properties

Obviously, we don't know. But it doesn't seem like a big operation. And we've had some real challenges

You know, she can't... I know this is really trivial, but I hope it adds to the conversation

She'll know. She can't fix the toilet roll holder. You know, the bathroom's not the same

It's a very cold flat. There's no double insulation. And we're having not as good experience

because she can't deal with the challenges of upkeeping a house. Well, it's the poor old woman, I'm not casting aspersions on her personally, I'm just quoting George Orwell, who has invested her life savings in three houses, inhabits one of them and tries to live on the rent of the other two and never, in consequence, has any money for repairs

And not just the money, but the wherewithal. So, you know, if you've got enough properties, you've got maintenance staff, you've got, even if it's only one person, but their job is to go round and fix toilet roll holders or do bigger jobs than that

And of course, the return that you're going to get is affected as well, isn't it

Because the big landlord is going to have a different margin. They're going to be able to operate at a lower margin

so they're going to be less resistant to the idea of spending a few quid on looking after you

I don't know if I sound naive or idealistic, but this is your lived experience

And it makes, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It's a business versus a hobby

And you have people that are there to help with your queries. You know, the big landlord has someone who's dealing with this part of the house

and this part of the house and this problem and that problem, and they could do it, and it seemed to work like cock work

You know, we needed a new table. It was there within 24 hours. We needed a different sofa

It came within 48 hours, and it was a much better experience. And we didn't have to pay for any of those things

They were given to us. And that is what they were. I think it had to be your... They were lent to you for as long as you lived in the flat

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, this is actually, in perfect terms

the sort of theory that I was trying to extrapolate. Although, before you go, why can't you fix..

What's wrong with your toilet roll holder? I might be able to give you some advice. I don't know. It fell off

Do you own a drill? Do you own a drill? Mate, I'm not drilling it. I'll get billed for it

It's 25 minutes after 12. He's got a point, actually, hasn't he

Don't use power tools in a rented property. He'll only end up paying for it twice

But there it is. That's the theory, at least. It may not, and it's obviously not going to be true right across the board

Don't ring me to tell me you've only got one property and you'd fix that toilet roll holder before the phone call was even over

But of course it makes sense because one is a business and one is a hobby. Isn't it

Thank you, Marcus. Marcus in Hythe. Mark, what would you like to say? Hi there

Well, I'm a landlord with around 15 properties. I've been doing it for about 15, 20 years now

Is that your job? Is that your only... Well, it's my part-time job

I run a small business as well, but I'm a professional, if you like, landlord

I actually maintain the properties myself through my own maintenance company. Yes, so you're kind of probably on the cusp of small and big

for the purposes of this conversation. I suppose so, yeah. I mean, there are a lot of landlords around the size that we are, I guess

And, yeah, I'm a man of very few secrets, so do interrogate by all means

and I'll give you the most honest answer I can about anything to do with it. But a couple of things, really

In terms of the renters' reform bill, I mean, I was, like everyone else, terrified of this coming in

But most of us, small landlords and large landlords, we do try to do a good job

None of us are perfect and we can't pretend to be. No, I do believe that. That's right

So the perspective I would give you is I've tried very hard to be a landlord. There's nothing really this hack brings in that I haven't been doing already or that I would want to do

But imagine you've been working at the insurance company for the last 20 years

You've been a model employee. You come in early, you leave late. You've got employee of the month a few times

And then one day a new manager starts. And he's looking over your shoulder. He's pointing at things in your desk

Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? And what happens? I've had enough of this

I'm out of here. But, but, but, but, but, he is also the manager

of all the people on the second floor who've been absolutely rinsing the place

for the last ten years and taking the mickey, which is your no-fault evictions, just for one example

so his job is to get rid of the no-fault evictions and in order to do that he has to prevent you

from being able to do no-fault evictions as well even though you wouldn't want to do one

and you resent the idea that he's allowed to tell you that you can't Yeah, pretty much

I mean, it's a ridiculous position to be in Self-knowledge, man You never get self-knowledge like that in life normally

It is, you recognise your own ridiculousness Well, that's right but the worry I have, I suppose, is the unintended consequences of this

I mean, I'm a small landlord because I do let them have my phone number. I do have direct contact with them

So when they tell me they can't afford a rent rise, which I've been neglectful in doing

I haven't raised rents very much. I like to do as I would be done by

But, you know, they come to the point where you have to. Someone couldn't afford it. So we met somewhere halfway

Try that with a major property, you know, a large scale company

If something goes wrong, I try and get out and fix it or get somebody else if I can't do it myself

So I don't really see a change there. The one worry I do have is that because of people like Matt

we're pulling out because it's our plan. But people pulling out the market

selling one or two properties here and there, it means a lot of people losing their home

And I sincerely believe, I may be wrong, but I think an awful lot of people got their Section 21s prior to the Act

Well, that's when we started talking about it because my friend Scott actually showed me that on the horizon

before much of the media had noticed it. Yeah, well, that's right. So I better get these people out before this comes in

so that I can sell the place or whatever. I mean, it's pretty smug for me to say, well, there's going to be some short-term disruption for renters

but in the long term, it's a good thing because if that short-term disruption for renters

in my theoretical universe is having the rug pulled from literally beneath your children's feet

that feels like a lot more than short-term disruption in your life for your tenants at that moment

I guess so. I guess so, but the worry I have is who this feeds are the people the Act is aimed at

who will continue to ignore the law, not look after their properties, and not provide dry, clean, safe places, which are the rogue landlords

Who aren't going to be subject to any legislation anyway, as the most desperate tenants by definition

Absolutely. So their demand will go up, their rents will go up, and their ethics will not change

So that's the worry. It may not come true. I hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't as well

And the story that we're reporting on today suggests that bigger operators than you are moving into some of the space created by you getting rid of a couple of your properties or people with much smaller outlays getting rid of the one or two that they own

The share of for sale properties bought by landlords between January and April hit its highest level since 2016 with a growing proportion being bought from other landlords, from small to big

And it's odd, but it does feel like that conversation about private education

If you accept that advantage is inevitable, does a society become fairer

when you reduce the number of people enjoying an advantage? In this case, people buying properties effectively

because the rent service is a loan, for buying it, even though they can't afford to buy it for themselves

they're buying it for someone else. Great stuff, Mark. I love that level of self-awareness

because it is a little bit ridiculous, but none of us can change the way we feel. You know, I don't want to be..

I've done a really good job. Why should I be treated the same as all the ones that have done a really bad job

I think it's quite a human impulse. Albeit, as you say, potentially a ridiculous one

It's 12.31. Amelia Cox has your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC. It is 12.34

and you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I played you this last week

You may have missed it, but I don't know why. it kind of... I found my thoughts turning to it on one or two occasions over the course of the weekend

I can't be bought by anybody. Yeah? Look down that camera and say, I cannot be bought by anyone

No, not anyone. Because it was almost as if we'd all forgotten about this

This message is for Brian Kelleher, Brexiteer, and I hope you have a great birthday

this comes from your good friend Aidan. Now, it's a bit early in the day

so all I've got actually is coffee, but I hope you enjoy a few pints with the lads tonight

Up the rail. Hang on a minute. What was it you said a minute ago

about the fact that he couldn't be bought? I can't be bought by anybody. Yeah

Look down that camera and say, I cannot be bought by anyone. No, not anyone

But literally, 85 quid to promote the IRA. Either you can't be bought or you'll promote the IRA for 85

quid. What about, I don't know, anti-semitic conspiracy theories? They have to go back. Now, hello, Andrea Hallworth. It's Nigel Farage here. And we're told you

don't like comedy, but your friends are trying to get you to attend Road Rage Terror Tour

a comedy show, but you're hesitant. Now, look, it's hosted by Jeremy McKenzie

Derek Harrison, and Alex Rend, and it's currently the most talked-about show in Canada. So, do you know what

Andrea? Just sometimes in life we're a bit reluctant, a bit hesitant to go

and do things we don't really fancy doing, but for the sake of a couple of hours

of an evening, why not give it a go? You never know. You might walk out

saying road rage terror tour is the best thing that ever happened

Um, actually, that wasn't the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. That was the promoting of an event run by a neo-Nazi group

that was identified as a far-right extremist group by the US State Department in 2022

But, I mean, he wouldn't have been... He wouldn't have been paid for that, would he

Because... I can't be bought by anybody. Yeah? Look down that camera and say, I cannot be bought by anyone

So that would be £141 for promoting a neo-Nazi group. And I wasn't imagining it

that there is, I think, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in there as well

Well, Hayley, hello, it's Nigel Farage here, and John has been on to me now

You were a Brexit voter, which is a very, very good thing, but you're worried about the way the world is going

Is it a whole series of secret societies? Is it the Bilderbergers that are running the world

You know, there are many, many other theories. It could be the Masons. Some think it's the Rothschilds

Maybe it's George Soros. I don't know. What I do know is actually

I don't think any of it's a conspiracy theory. I think it's just Marxism that is coming back

to haunt the world Gosh Well it a good job that he I can be bought by anybody That it Thanks to The Sun for that although quite why the interviewer didn bring any of those

to the attention of the bloke saying he can't be bought. So, if you're going to promote a far-right or a neo-Nazi group

for £141, indulge in an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory for £76 and promote the IRA for £85

God knows what you'd do for £5 million. Eh? 85 quid to promote the IRA

What are you going to get in return for £5 million? I'm just asking questions. Back to landlords

Chris is in Gatwick. Chris, what would you like to say? Hi, yeah, yeah. Hi, James

Hello, Chris. I'm a landlord. I'm 29 years old. And what I do is I specialise in properties for people who are, like, on benefits or have some sort of disability

And people like me who have a little portfolio of them who doesn't do it full time

it's sort of, it's all over for people like me. People like me aren't going to buy anymore

because with all these rules changing, it's just that there's nothing in it for us guys anymore

What's hitting you hardest, do you think? It's just, I think there's a lot of risk associated now

with everything going around. But also from a tenant perspective mainly, say I rented one of my properties recently

and in 24 hours I had 31 applicants for this one property

and speaking to the guys, the demand is the same, but the supply is getting less and less

and more little people are just selling up. But the story today is about little people selling up

and the big operations buying up what the little people are selling. Well, exactly

But that's a good thing. Well... I mean, listen, I'm sure you are a brilliant landlord

and I'm not being facetious, and I'm sure you look after your tenants, but if you had 50 properties, you could do an even better job

debatable because... Well, no, I mean, objectively, your loan to... your margin would be lower

your loan to equity margin would be different, you could hire a maintenance person instead of

having to pay somebody else because you'd have them full-time on your staff, so, albeit that

you're doing a cracking job yourself, you'd do an even more cracking job if you had 50 properties

and that would be better for 50 tenants instead of two. I'm being a little bit glib, but I kind of

like the argument chris yeah it's an interesting uh the points you make there because for example

uh one of my girl the girls who's in one of my flats she struggles massively with anxiety

and for her it's very important to have that one-to-one relationship with a small-time landlord

and she hunted high and low to find someone like me so with her needs and what she needs out of a

landlord she simply said she can't get that from a big company yeah and yeah and that might be what

what is meant by the short-term disruption for some tenants. Would it be rude of me to inquire as to, at the age of 29

how did you come by the equity that you managed to put into these properties

Worked like an insane person seven days a week since I was 18. Seriously? And then put it all into property

Yeah, I'm from a working-class background. It's always been a dream of mine. I wanted to supply housing for people who wouldn't really get it anywhere else

That's an extraordinary story. Well, that's a lovely thing to hear. But yeah, no, I think housing is important for everyone

And so many of my tenants, I think every single one of my tenants doesn't work

for one reason or another. Right. And a lot of them have, say, various things going on

and they like that one-to-one relationship where they know they can WhatsApp me

and I will respond at any sort of time, really. And that's a nice thing

That's a nice thing. I mean, you make a profit. You're not doing it for halos and sainthoods

Oh, yeah, no. I mean, I'm not load. I drive around in an old transit van

But, yeah, that's part of it. And if people like you are getting squeezed out

then that is the perfect example of how smug I sound when I sit here talking about temporary disruption for a few renters

but it's a long-term good. So you are going to knock it on the head, are you, Chris, just to clarify

What I will do is I will maintain what I've got, but I wouldn't look to expand

Oh, OK. No, all right. Well, I mean, unless you could expand exponentially

then we don't chalk you up as a casualty. We don't chalk your tenants up as people suffering the short-term disruption

But it might be a shame that somebody like you can't do more, given that you have such a peculiar, in a good way

such a peculiar approach to the whole business of landlording. 12.42 is the time. Chris, thank you

Susie is in Bristol. Susie, what would you like to say? Hi, good afternoon, James

Hello, Susie. I'm not sure if we've spoken to before, but I'm a long-term fan

What do you mean? Surely I'm more memorable than that, Susie. Well, I definitely had a chat with Carol Warderman

when she was standing in point. Well, we're often mistaken for each other. You're so, so similar

This is exactly right. Go on, what do you want to tell me today? So, my husband and I are both freelancers

We've been freelancers our whole lives. Neither of us have ever really had a proper job

So, there's no private pensions or anything. So, we made a decision in 2006

when the property market was in our favour to buy out the rest of our flat, which we only earned half of

Yes. Buy a house in the same year, amazingly. I mean, the house was virtually a ruin

Move into the house, fix it up and rent out the flat. And that's the way we've always operated

And it works fine and it provides us with a supplementary income, which is what we really badly need

Yes. And neither does it earn enough money to support ourselves completely on our own

So you transferred some capital into an income, effectively. Exactly right. Exactly right

So these new laws come in and people keep, you know, telling me I need to worry about it

Oh dear, you need to check. And I just thought, I don't know what the worry is about

So I looked into it and I thought, basically, I can't throw anyone out without any good reason

Well, why would I do that anyway? Yes. Why would I do that

Well, because you needed to get your hands on the capital ASAP, which is going to be much more likely in a small landlord scenario than it is in a massive landlord scenario

Well, but that's not for no reason. That's because I need my capital

No, but you still wouldn't be able to do it. So it's not quite for no reason, is it

Well I thought the rules were for you know you can do it if you want to sell If you sticking it straight on the market Well that what we do Oh fair enough There isn any other reason we kick anybody out The other thing is it an unfurnished

wooden-floored apartment with, you know, cheap carpets in the bedrooms. You're not exactly selling it, Susie

Oh, no. I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful class. That's more like it. The point is, it's unfurnished and it has wooden floors. Yes

So, when I first started renting it out, there was all these rules about no

dogs, no benefits, no children, no this, no that. Guys, if you can afford it

and we like each other, it's yours. Why would I object to a dog or a cat

Well, I know that, well, because that's why you mentioned it was unfurnished and had wooden floors

Because, I mean, historically, the objection is based upon damage done by pets that

is then passed on to the... Why have you wrong me? I mean, I'm

delighted that you did, and I'll give your love to Carol, but what, I mean, because

You sound like you're a sort of anomaly in almost all of the points that we're raising

Oh, well, maybe that's it. I mean, I don't think that private landlords should be thrown out of the..

I mean, you know, amateur landlords, as we're described, should be thrown out of the... Yeah, but you're not feeling squeezed

You've got no plans to divest yourself of your rental opportunity at the moment

But why would you put yourself in that position? What position? Well, you need to be more grown up than that

when you decide to be a landlord. So what are they all whining about? Yeah, I don't..

So you're asking questions, you're not answering them, Susie. No, listen, that is a really good point

Thank you. Because I met a fellow the other day who has an amateur landlord with a six-bedroom HMO

Okay. Now, I would no more try and run a six-bedroom HMO

That doesn't sound very amateurish. No, exactly. And he's having massive problems because he's got one tenant who's causing everyone else problems that he can't get rid of. Yeah

And I'm like, well, yeah, I might have foreseen that some 20 years ago. It's like, I wouldn't dream it. It's too scary

Going into that kind of... Yeah. Well, there seems to be some method in what initially appeared to be madness

but you're going to be fine. You're going to be unaffected by it. And the other thing is, I don't have much concern about my tenants

What do you mean? Well, because I don't use any external, you know..

So we don't have... My husband's a painter and decorator. Oh, well, that helps. Exactly

So he's got a book full of trades. What happens if they phone you up and say

because I'm going back to Marcus in Lambeth now, my toilet roll holder is broken

What would you do? Paddy would pop round. Paddy would pop round

Yeah. And sort it out. Yeah. And that's what you want? Yeah. As a tenant

Yeah. But poor old Marcus is, I don't know what he's doing. He's probably got it standing up on the cistern of his lavatory or something

I don't know, but I don't, you know, I mean, I don't, I don't use any property

See, I mean, I was a tenant for a long, long time. In my experience, you know, I never lived in a property

where the maintenance company actually did what they were supposed to do, ever

Well, that's not good either. I suppose partly, everybody needs a patty, Susie

Well, quite. If everybody had a patty, the world would be a much finer place for everybody

So you look very carefully before you decide to make the decision

You also make sure you've got enough, you know, you've got a few grand in the pot in case the boiler blows

And that takes us back to George Orwell and the landlady who can't afford to fix anything

which is disastrous from a tenant's point of view. Not much fun for them either. So it is just about... I mean, amateur is the wrong word to use here, isn't it

It's about conscientious. You might only have one property, but you're financially..

You're not financially exposed, and you are conscientious, and therefore you probably don't have much to worry about under the Renters' Rights Act

Thank you, Susie. Before you go... Yeah? Do you think you'll remember this conversation

Yes, of course I will. very, very, very well, James. Well, thank you very much

I'm a huge, huge fan. This is fantastic to discover. And now that we're nearing the end of it

are you any clearer on whether you've actually ever spoken to me before or not

I think I haven't. I think I was on hold for a long time and didn't get through

There you go. Am I right or am I wrong? I don't know. What do you think we do, keep records

But I don't remember speaking to you. And obviously it would be a slightly less notable moment

than it would be from your end of the phone line, but I'm glad we achieved some clarity

and I certainly won't forget now. 12.48 is the time. That was Doris in Ongar

James O'Brien on LBC. It's 12.51. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

I thought we had a woke watch today, but it's not quite up to sniff

The word woke appears in a headline. I may share it with you shortly. On with the landlord's question

Let me read a few texts, because it just provides an extra dimension to it

I like this one from Adrian. Is this the number for messaging the James O'Brien show

Right, Adrian. No, mate. I don't know what number you need, but this is Carol Vorderman's programme

Not answering the question, James, but is this not a case, asks David, of wealth moving to the rich inexorably

It makes sense that this is right, but what is the long-term consequence

if we squeeze the middle like this? See, that's why, from one angle

I used to quite like buy-to-let landlords as a principal because it was a democratisation of inequality

So, you know, the Duke of Westminster owns Arthur London. Prince William is getting praise today

for selling 20% of his property portfolio. Like, why are they getting praise for selling it

He goes, oh, because he'll probably lose money over the course of the next 200 years. Landlords never... Do you see what I mean

If you own it, you keep your income, you can buy it several times over with the money that you've been given by a tenant

so the inequality is absolutely baked in it's vimes's boots isn't it for pratchett fans but

when they allowed people from my class to get into the landlording business or when it became

much easier for people from my class to get into the landlording business there was a strong argument to make that it was democratizing landlording and taking it away from the

aristocracy but then we're back to the private school and the fact that if you've only got 10

landlords in the country, is that country fairer or less fair than when you've got 200 landlords

And the answer is it's less fair when you've got 200 landlords somehow, isn't it

I don't know. But anyway, good question, David. Peter writes big landlords and companies have little or low borrowing on property so they can operate at a lower margin If individual landlords were okay with say a 75 loan to value borrowing on a property that they rented out

the rents might cost less to leave a profit or at least break even

The new tax means that the mortgage interest can now not be set against rent

So almost all the rental income for a private landlord is taxable, which will put a lot of them underwater

in terms of rent or less expenses, to which I respond by saying, good

Because if you're not paying tax on that income, but the person who's paying your rent for you

paying your mortgage for you, is paying tax on the money that they're giving you, something's gone a bit wrong, unless I'm being naive

which is, by the way, perfectly possible. The size of the landlord doesn't matter, writes Nick

What matters is the extraction of wealth from tenants and the scale of that

A large landlord could just as easily ramp up rents to maximise profit, which is also true

But weirdly and somewhat counterintuitively, a society where there are only 10 landlords

is a fairer society than a society where there are 10,000 landlords

because there are more non-landlords in the first society than there are in the second

Phil's in Sandbatch. Phil, what made you pick up the phone? Hi, James

I've been in the building trade for like 40 years. Like Paddy, I'm also a painter and decorator

You sound very young, Phil, for someone who's got so many years on the clock. My voice is just deceiving, James

Just deceiving. But basically, over the last 40 years, I've seen the demographic of who've become landlords change

and the buy-to-let mortgage is basically let people into being landlords who can't afford to be landlords

Yes, yes, yes, there it is. And that's what it is. Now, Paddy and Doris, they can afford to be a landlord

Stop calling her Doris. It was lovely Susie. It was a joke

It may not have landed very well. I know you got it, but Susie might not have got it

She might have put the phone down a bit quick, And she might not have heard me say that was Doris in Ongar

after I'd said I'd definitely remember. Anyway, so Paddy and Susie. Paddy and Susie can afford to be landlords

Yes. So I've really stopped working for small landlords. Some are very good and I've had relations who've become landlords

but those relations, they've had me. So something breaks, I just go and fix it for them

But I do work for one woman who's in Leafy Cheshire and she's got a title, she's Lady Whatever

and she's snapping up houses in Warrington because landlords are getting out

But she's not buying them with mortgage payments. She can afford to buy them

but she can afford to maintain them. The slightest thing needs doing, she does it

Her landlords, her tenants like her, and I've been to others who were like

we can't get the landlord to do anything because the landlord can't afford to be a landlord

and the buy-to-let mortgage basically let them in. I'm not a tenant or a landlord

It's just an observation of the change. And this is where it gets counterintuitive, Phil

because it feels less... Because, I mean, I think that the Duke of Westminster's family seats

in Cheshire, isn't it? Anyway, don't answer that question. I don't want you to go into any trouble with your clientele

But it feels counterintuitive to a sort of undergraduate lefty like me

to be saying, oh, yes, but the people with the most should get more. but actually when you say

people who can't afford to be landlords are becoming landlords and the people who are the best landlords

are the people who can buy it outright and cover it, that's true as well

it doesn't matter how many properties they've got it is whether they can afford

to maintain and look after that property yeah, of course it is

oh man, that's a tricky one, but you're there you're on the coalface and you're seeing

the absolute wisdom of the position that we adopt at the beginning of this show. I like it

OK. Thank you, Phil. I mean, that's Phil in Sandbatch. But given that in the first two hours of the programme today

we were recalling some of the greatest hits of Brexit, I wonder how many people wondered

when I introduced Phil in Sandbatch whether or not Philip in Sandbatch was on the line

who was, even by the standards of Brexit supporters, was a particular treat

Well, does anyone remember Philip in Sandbatch? Anyway, it's probably online somewhere. I'm sure it's gone clipped and viral in the rest of it

Thank you, Phil. Not Philip on this occasion, but in Sanderbatch nonetheless

Grace, good Lord. Do you ever have shows like that? As a listener, I mean, not a presenter

where you just look at the clock and think, that can't be right. Where's that guy? That's three hours

We could just... Where's he gone? I feel like I only sat down two minutes ago. I haven't even had a penguin

Grace is in Leatherhead with the last word of the day. Grace, what's it going to be? Hi, James

Hello, Grace. I work in housing, and part of my role is to enforce the Renters' Rights Act

Oh, yes. How's it going? Well, it only came in 18 days ago

Answer the question. Get back to me on that. What I can tell you is it's vast

This isn't just a new piece of legislation, which we get quite regularly

This is an entire transformation of a department because there is so much to it

It is such a vast piece of legislation for us to get our heads around

Before this, the renter's market, it's like the Wild West. It really, really is

Renters had so few rights. So you cautiously welcome the legislation then

as someone who works out the coalface, like Phil and Sam Bach, although different bits of the coalface

Exactly, yes. It's not perfect, but, you know, it's a great step in the right direction

and it's going to give us so much more ability to regulate that market than we've got now

And look after tenants, ultimately. Yeah. Well, there it is. What a fascinating phone-in

I mean, once again, testament to the absolute quality of callers that we get

who know loads more about most things than I ever will. Oh, well, that's not true

because I know more than I did at 12 o'clock, thanks to Grace and Phil and Susie and others

If you missed any of it, I really would urge you to listen back on our free Global Player app

but not until Sheila's finished. Or indeed, the LBC app, where you can also stay up to date

with all the latest news videos and opinions. You can listen to a range of podcasts, including James O'Brien Daily

full disclosure. download the official LBC app it's free from your app store now

coming up at 4 on LBC it's Tom Swarbrick we just spoil them rotten Sheila

don't we? we do we spoil them rotten but now it's time for Sheila Fogarty

thank you very much indeed James James O'Brien on LBC