Do we trust the doctors on the strikes?

It's three minutes after ten. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. That might have been a little bit bonkers. I never know whether it's exciting or dangerous.

when a thought occurs to me as I come through the studio door and Nick Ferrari is still talking. And I think, ah, yes, that's a very, that's a very insightful... observation james says you must share that immediately um but i do think and i've sort of checked my memory banks and with a couple of colleagues that when i were when i was younger um dentistry was

fit for purpose. The idea of a radio phone-in or a news story detailing the difficulties nigh on the impossibility of getting an NHS dentist and the... rarity of NHS dentists undertaking emergency surgery or emergency operations, which is in the news today as they plan changes to the system that would sort of make it more attractive for them to do so.

I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I know Americans like to laugh at us for having awful teeth. But I think, and we were definitely NHS when I was a kid. I definitely wasn't receiving private dental. health it was my friend's dad was our dentist actually and i'm pretty sure it was largely fit for purpose

I don't think I'm going wrong because I can't imagine that Kidderminster was going through a golden age of dentistry while the rest of the country was suffering from untold cavities and tooth decay. But yeah, I mean... It was pretty good, right? And then you fast forward. I don't know who is responsible, whether it was the Labour government that was in power till 2010 or the government that came after that or possibly even the government that came before that. But there were some...

fairly profound changes to dentistry, to how dentist surgeries are run, to how dentists do their thing. And from where I am sitting today, things have got much worse, not much better.

That's not the phone-in, by the way. That's just a sort of observation. Because what I was trying to think of was an example of people in a profession. ideally a public sector profession, but not necessarily. People in a profession who warned us that they were circling the plug hole or they were... in danger of major systemic and even existential decline.

So they come to us and they say, please support us as we resist this government, because if we do not... get some of what we're asking for, then our entire profession will be compromised, will be diminished, will decline. And you absolutely should care about that because, ideally, it is a public service and you are a member of the public. It's funny, isn't it? One thing we've all got in common, right, and I can say this with supreme confidence, we are all...

members of the public, every single one of us. And we are all humans. And yet the direction of political traffic in much of the Western world at the moment is attacking rights for humans. or human rights, as they're often called, and the public sector or areas of our economy that are ring-fenced because of their... intrinsic essentialness to the public good. But if you're a member of the public and or you're a human, spoiler alert, you are both, you're being softened up at the moment to resist.

legislation and movements that recognise and reward people for being human or for being members of the public. Anyway, I digress. Because the doctor's story is obviously where my brain is...

bouncing at the moment and the confusion i have really over whether or not i support this yeah probation officers prison officers i don't want to make any enemies but minors I think that that's a slightly different suggestion, albeit that...

Margaret Thatcher was perfectly happy to contemplate the complete destruction of the mining industry. It was a political decision. So while the miners might have warned about it, it wasn't that we would all suffer as a consequence of the mining industry declining.

I mean, it left parts of the country in a parlous state. But yeah, I guess in the sense of them saying, you don't understand... they want us to be destroyed, we should perhaps have paid a little bit more attention because we didn't actually think, or a lot of people didn't actually think, Arthur Scargill certainly didn't actually think.

that they would preside over the complete destruction of the coal mining industry. Prison officers and probation officers, they warned us in no uncertain terms when Chris Grayling was in charge of their profession that changes were being done to the profession that would...

render it much much less fit for purpose i don't know whether or not the increasing popularity of prisoners being released by accident is a consequence of changes that chris grayling brought in i don't know whether and this might just be my morning reading.

There seems to be an awful lot of young ladies having sexual relationships with prisoners at the moment. There's another one in the newspaper today. Well, I say posing provocatively. That's almost certainly not fair because I imagine someone's just pulled a picture down from her Facebook page or her social media. But I don't remember.

that being quite a commonplace occurrence when again when I was young but you know we were told repeatedly by prison officers and particularly by probation officers that changes being made to their profession would be to the public ill, to the public harm. Anyone want to argue with them now, retrospectively? Anyone want to tell prison officers and probation officers that they should give their heads a wobble and apologise for warning us?

about what might be on the horizon anything else and any other areas where the people in the profession warned us about what was happening could you put teaching on the list We may talk again about NEATS later in the programme because of Alan Milburn's latest intervention. Could you put teachers on the list when they warned us?

about children being reduced to sort of grade farms by Michael Gove's introductions, by Michael Gove's policies, and of course Dominic Cummings at his side, like a sort of diabolical Robin to the world's worst Batman. Were we wrong not to pay more heed to teachers when they warned us what was happening? Is the explosion in young people in neither education, employment nor training in some way linked to what happened?

during their conventional schooling, as opposed to the very unconventional impact of... COVID and the pandemic and the lockdowns. I don't know. I genuinely don't know, but it's a thought. I don't think anyone would argue with prison officers and probation officers. I don't think that anyone would argue with dentists, although I can't.

say for certain that dentists were screaming from the rooftops to warn us about what was happening to their profession if they were I may have forgotten or I may have missed it at the time but I am a I am a naive soul, as you know, and I used to think, I probably still do, but this argument isn't quite as watertight as I thought it was at the time. But when my children were at primary school, my children were at state primary school.

And some of their teachers went on strike. And I remember thinking, how can I not trust them? with their reasoning in this firefighters is a good example perhaps actually that they were warning us about what was happening to Their profession, again, a public sector profession. It's almost as if right-wing politicians see a public sector profession and think there is a fat cat that needs trimming rather than looking at actual fat cats and deciding to take some of the...

Some of the fat from them. Police have probably warned us. I remember when the... Oh, gosh, this is quite fertile ground, isn't it? Do you remember when Theresa May stood up in front of the Police Federation and literally accused them of scaremongering for explaining that having fewer police officers would mean that fewer crimes got...

solved could you Matt just pause for a minute because that's a moment of quite spectacular beauty from a woman who I think is treated rather too kindly by history Theresa May literally stood up in front of the police federation and told police officers to stop scaremongering. by explaining or arguing that reducing the number of police officers on our streets or indeed in our country would reduce their capacity to apprehend criminals or solve crimes. Extraordinary, really. That was another...

Bonus, another upshot of austerity. So the list is getting longer. And the argument that we probably should have listened to them a little bit more closely and ignored right-wing voices telling us that their complaints were ill-founded or their industrial action in some cases, the firefighters, not the police.

was unjustified. And then, you know, fast forward 5, 10, 15 years, and it turns out that they were right. And their professions have been, if not decimated, then certainly damaged. So I used to think when I dropped the girls off at primary school, I never dropped them off, did I? Because I was... too busy coming to entertain you every morning but when I picked them up from primary school and strikes were imminent or some teachers had gone on strikes so the whole day

had been changed. Armed Forces, sorry, I keep distracting myself, or you keep distracting me. We learned yesterday from the head of MI6 that we're already at war with Russia, and... Military top brass have been warning for years that we were diminishing our capacity to defend ourselves at a time when everybody was wrongly convinced we were absolutely safe and peaceful. Again, because I think you expect it from me, the Tories were turning up in the Russian ambassador's garden

the conservative Friends of Israel when the Kremlin was already embarked upon a plan to completely undermine Western democracy by putting absolute herberts and traitors at the very heart of our politics.

So yeah, we should have listened to the soldiers. So that's the list. We should have listened to the prisoners. We should have listened to the probation officers. We should have listened to the firefighters. We should have listened to the police officers. We should have listened to the soldiers. And we probably should have listened to the teachers.

So should we listen to the doctors? 0345 6060 973. I would quite like to hit 11 o'clock today persuaded that I'm on the doctor's side. I've tried not to be. I've argued against it. I thought perhaps last week West Streeting had played a blinder by addressing some of the concerns that resident doctors brought to me. But the numbers, the mandate, which we had a little look at yesterday, really...

didn't exactly stop me in my tracks, but it did make me think. And it made me think that I would trust these people with my life. Just hold that thought. I would trust these people with my life. I would trust these people with my children's lives, my wife's life, my mother's life, my sister's life. I would trust these people with my life.

I might not have a huge choice in the matter. It's not as if you can shop around or invite tenders and bids for life-saving operation. And, of course, no profession is perfect and no individual is perfect either. But I would trust these people with my life. So why should I not trust them when they tell me that they feel they have no choice but to go on strike? Turnout 65%.

Success rate, positive votes, 83%. Keir Starmer describes himself as being gutted by the result. Another reminder that he, unlike many politicians, is a genuine football fan. less impressively perhaps describes it as irresponsible giving the rising pressure from flu. Now, sometimes when I tell you that the...

people undertaking industrial action should be more deserving of our support. You tell me that they're all a bunch of communists. Oh, you don't really tell me that anymore. Those days, I think. sadly have have passed but there'll be somebody writing for the usual newspapers or posting online or recording a tick tock video insisting that all the doctors are communists they're all terrible lefties and they'll be happy when we're dead and various other

lies or conspiracy theories or exhalations of absolute bonkersness. You can't really do that with the doctors. I don't think. I think, for example, you would struggle to argue that doctors were either A, class warriors, B, communists, or C, dedicated to the destruction of the capitalist state.

You couldn't really do that with police officers, prison officers, probation officers or soldiers either, but it didn't stop people trying. Teachers seem to be on the hook for that accusation, don't they, more than almost anybody else these days. But you wouldn't, I don't think, argue. that doctors are any of those things. And the support for the strike is very high. An online poll with a turnout of 65% strikes me as really remarkable.

I don't think there's been a general election with turnout that high in our lifetime, has there? Certainly. for a second poll on an established mandate because they had a look at the deal that West Streeting had offered and they didn't change their mind. They didn't blink. 83% of its members who voted, voted to continue with the war.

They are adamant. That is an extraordinary level of support for a strike. And it's going ahead at a time when many people are warning the flu pandemic is causing the NHS major, major problems. I don't dispute that, by the way.

But this is the question I want you to answer. You would trust them with your life. So why wouldn't you trust them on this? And that question swerves the pay rise, doesn't it? You say, well, no one else in the public sector has got a 29% pay rise. Why are they going on strike? But listen, they know they've got a 28, 29% pay rise.

They know that. That's not news. That's not something you're bringing to the table like some sort of rhetorical zinger that will make the resident doctor suddenly go, oh, yeah, I forgot about the pay rise. Yeah, I don't want to go on strike, actually. So they accepted that pay rise. They argue persuasively with evidence that they're still not enjoying parity with the wages that you might, they would have expected to be on had their wages kept track with inflation since about 2008.

So that's not quite the deal breaker that I used to think it was. It's just evidence that they are still worried about the future of their profession, the future of themselves. So I think, and we may broaden it a little. But I'd like to start with that question. If we would trust them with our lives, shouldn't we trust them when they tell us they have no choice but to go on strike this week?

Tell me the logical, philosophical, moral or rhetorical flaws in that position. Or, of course, tell me why you agree. I trust these men and women with my life. I trust them with my children's lives. How can I not trust them? when they tell me that they feel they have to go on strike. Riddle me that on 0345 6060 973. It's 10.18.

20 minutes after 10 is the time. I should have mentioned at the outset that Donald Trump yesterday delivered what I think might be the single most disgusting contribution to public discourse he's made in his life, let alone in his term, his second time as president or either. of his two terms as president. And in the context of the apparent murder of the film director Rob Reiner and his wife, and their son is now in custody, Donald Trump took to social media. Can you still be shocked by him?

If you'd asked me yesterday morning, this time yesterday, could you still be shocked by Donald Trump, James? I'd have thought about it. Because I always take your questions seriously. I'd have thought about it and I'd have said, I don't know that I can. I might be shocked by events. You know, if details emerge in the Epstein thing, I'll be shocked but not surprised. But can you be... both shocked and surprised by anything that Donald Trump does. I think I might have said no.

And then he weighed in on the murder of Rob Reiner and Michelle Reiner. And I'll share the details of that with you later if you haven't seen it already. There may be a phoning in it. I haven't decided yet. I'll find out what you think. But at the moment, I want to know what you think about the doctor's strike. And I don't...

think this is a watertight zinger but i think it might focus your mind you trust them with your life and listen as tony points out we don't have an awful lot of choice in that process and as jamie points out you trust a plumber with your pipes but not necessarily your political insights but if a plumber told you

that my ability to look after your pipes is going to be severely compromised unless the government meets us halfway on our demands. You'd pay a little bit more attention than you would if he was just shouting it from the rooftops, right? And the doctors are saying our ability to look after your pipes, metaphorically speaking, is being compromised. And that long list of public sector workers who've told us similar previously and turned out to be right...

means, in my humble opinion, we should be paying a little bit more attention, perhaps, than most of the media wants us to. Andy's in Graze. Andy, what made you pick up the phone? Hi, James. Yeah, so I'm a nurse. I work in intensive care.

I work in a specialist intensive care. And so I'm extremely strike adjacent. I see it very closely. Also intensive care for those people who work in medical professions. We work extremely close with the doctors, perhaps closer than other departments except for maybe A&E. Okay. So can I just quickly tell you about my day last Thursday when there was no strike? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so...

I come on to shift. I'm looking after patient one, sickest patient on the unit, actively dying. We're doing our best for him. I'm trying to keep him alive until the family get there. Meanwhile, we get word that patient two is going to come from the ward extremely sick. So my colleague...

immediately tries to discharge the two healthiest patients on the ward. They weren't healthy enough to go, but they were the two healthiest. So my colleague goes off. My patient one's family get there. Patient two comes down to us, immediately has a cardiac arrest.

So I've got one patient here who I'm trying to keep alive so the family can say their goodbyes. I've got a second patient who's in cardiac arrest. There's one doctor trying to deal with that. Meanwhile, the other doctor is trying to frantically deal with the discharges and see all the other patients on the unit.

to ensure they're safe. We get that patient back, patient two. In the meantime, following patient two getting settled, rule sorted, patient one passes away. I have to deal with all the administration regarding that. I'm then getting an emergency admission. from theatre of a patient who's actively bleeding, very, very sick. Patient three comes out and I'm giving countless blood products and obviously you can see what's coming.

Patient two has a cardiac arrest while patient three is bleeding. There's no doctors at the time because they're trying to deal with elsewhere, putting lines in, dealing with all sorts of things. So we have to deal with the cardiac arrest for patient two whilst patient three is bleeding. There was no strikes that day.

This is a normal day in the NHS, and all of my medical colleagues will understand this. And in the meantime, my doctor colleagues are not only looking after the intensive care on my floor, they're looking after the whole...

um specialist center which is uh three other wards so they're dealing with sick patients on the wards they're trying to deal with admissions to us they're trying to deal with our sick patients over and over again and that was just a completely normal day so i i finished the day with two having died

and one who was ropey. And the third one was fine in the end, but extremely busy. And I get home and after 15 hours, and I can barely move. Now, obviously, that's a nurse's perspective, but my doctor colleagues will have the same... the same perspective. So your producer said to me on the phone, why should we trust them with our lives? I think for people sitting there writing comments in the Telegraph comment section, it's not acute enough for them.

Because it's not their mum or their dad right now in those positions. I promise you, every single person I see, when a doctor is standing over the head of their bed with a tube in their hand, ready to put it down their throat, put them to sleep because they are so sick.

They require intubation and doctors said to them, look, you may not survive this procedure, but this is your only chance of survival. Every single person puts their trust in that doctor in that moment. Just to be annoying, I did take a call last time round. or in a previous round of striking by resident doctors, or junior doctors as they were known then, from someone who had visited their mum in hospital who was not.

actually in the position that you described but she rang in almost not to poke fun at her mum but to point out just how completely the daily mail can boil someone's brain she was sitting in her hospital bed reading the daily mail and maligning the junior doctors who were

were looking after her or would be looking after her when they got to the end of their industrial action. So it's not 100% true that everybody who has direct frontline experience of medical care is going to be sympathetic to the resident doctors. But... Tell me.

Tell me why this is relevant to what I'm talking about today. I'm not being thick. Well, if I am, I'm sorry. But you're describing difficulties that the doctors have doing their job and you're describing a very overstretched NHS. As I understand it, what they're...

asking the government for currently would not alleviate much or any of what you're describing would it well what they're what they're asking for is a significant increase in training places they're asking for prioritization of uk graduates so we're not having our the medical market flooded by people who haven't trained here over people who have trained here. But your Thursday hasn't changed. I'm going to be a little bit, if you don't mind, I'm going to be a bit robust with you.

and I'm going to pick these points off one by one, and I'm going to get you to explain to me how that would have changed your Thursday. It would have changed my, if you look, if you speak to doctors who are in training, there are significant bottlenecks. everywhere in the system. My understanding is that getting a consultant posted, there's an enormous bottleneck. So if the government don't open the training places for these doctors who want the training places...

There aren't the people to come and work on my unit. But that's not happening yet. There's no shortage. Is there a shortage on your unit? Are there unfilled posts? There's shortages everywhere. This is what I'm saying. There isn't the funding. You can't just appoint a consultant.

to a position, there has to be funding for these positions. And if you look at the squeeze on funding in all sorts of roles, I know that there's a lot in nursing, especially there's a recruitment freeze literally happening at the moment. where newly qualified nurses can't get jobs. This is really important. So I am on the ward. I'm with you. And we need a doctor now. And we can't get one when we want one because there are unfilled posts in that hospital.

Obviously, they have consultant cover. I'm talking about the ratios of consultant to sick patient. You would like them to be lower, those ratios? Correct, yeah. And when were they last lower? I mean, not since I've been a nurse. So your Thursday, and again, I warned you I was going to be robust, and I think I'm on your side, but your Thursday hasn't changed. I don't quite agree that because it was bad three years ago, I don't quite agree that... Have you only been a nurse for three years? Yeah.

That changes my position slightly. I thought if it had been 20 years, it would be slightly more powerful. I don't know if people listening can feel the improvements that would be made to the... scenario you have described very powerfully by giving resident doctors a pay rise because west streeting as i understand it did

pledged to increase speciality training posts and did pledge to address things like exam fees and other expenses. So, arguably, I'm more confused than I was at the beginning of last week, at the beginning of this week.

saying is that these people deserve a pay rise because of the level of responsibility for what they're dealing with. The reason why they deserve a pay rise is you have to have it all at the same time. You have to have the training place. And to the people who say they just got 29%, Andy?

If you break that down and you go and look at the numbers, over the four years that doctors got 29%, which no one says in the media, inflation was at 22%. So for that whole time, they actually got a 7% pay increase over four years. when you break it down and look at what they actually received. Now, 10, 15, 20 years ago, people would say to doctors, suck it up, suck it up for 10, 15 years, you'll be a consultant soon. Now that's gone as well. So now their pay has been squeezed at the same time.

as their progression has been squeezed. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. No, it does. And obviously you're... You're closer to the action than I am. And that last bit of your contribution has cleared up some of the clouds for me. And it leads you to a position, which we should just clarify before you go, only because it's time for the news. that you're in full support of your resident doctor colleagues? 100%. Support them fully. So how can you not be?

How can you not be apart from texts about 29% pay rises that ignore some of the financial and economic detail that Andy has just described?

Phone lines are open. 0345 6060 973 is the number you need. I worry sometimes that if you are... Well, I don't know. Should I worry about this? And if you are just sending me texts saying, 29%, can I have that, please? I hope this doesn't sound rude, but you haven't made any effort whatsoever to understand anything. You've just been bamboozled by this figure.

You don't understand its relevance to what they were on in 2008. You don't understand its relevance to inflation. You don't understand why... Parity with what you would have expected to be earning now is something that should be fought for tooth and nail. But, you know, you've read your right-wing newspapers and you've concluded that now doctors don't deserve your support.

Ask yourself this and ring me. Tell me why I'm wrong. 0345 6060 973. Is there anybody that you couldn't be persuaded to oppose by right-wing media? Because... The teachers who look after your children's future. The doctors who look after your children's lives and your lives.

The police officers who are there to protect us from harm. And I appreciate if you've got an institutionally racist police service, then your relationship, if you are from an ethnic minority, is going to be different in many ways than mine. But the point stands. The firefighters who will...

run towards your burning home as you run out of it we have been successfully turned against every single one of those professions in the course of my radio career in the time that I've been doing this job teachers down with them Police officers, shut up, suck it up. Doctors, oh, get lost. Why should you get more prison officers, probation officers, police officers? They managed to turn you against absolutely...

every single professional who has dedicated their working life to looking after you. So is there anybody that you couldn't be persuaded to oppose when they tell you that they need more from their employer? In this case, the government? Genuine question. Thomas Watts has your headlines. It is 10.35. No offence to Ian, but he has just sent in the message that almost word for word typifies the position I just suggested might involve not a lot of thinking about things.

James, you justify being on the side of the people who are refusing to go to work when there's a massive flu problem and they just had a 20-something percent pay rise. Yeah, I know. I sounded like Little Britain then, didn't I? Yeah, I know. But it is, I mean, they've been on strike a lot since 2023. And they remain committed to industrial action, an extraordinary level of support for it.

And you have to stop and wonder whether we should be paying more attention to what they have to say. Dr. Jack Fletcher, who I think is head of the BMA Resident Doctors Committee, described what... Andy was just describing to us as a repurposing of existing locally employed doctors. So this so-called bottleneck.

training bottleneck where unemployed doctors of whom there are about 40,000 I need to speak to an unemployed doctor oh three four five six oh six oh nine seven three I need to understand this better okay How can we have unemployed doctors? Seriously, 03456060973 is the number that you need. 40,000 of you competing for 10,000 places to train in your chosen specialist area. So that might be psychiatry, A and E, or surgery. What happens if you don't get into your chosen specialist area?

Do you become a GP or do you become something else? You leave medicine? I genuinely don't know. So explain that bottleneck to me, please. I also wonder how... And again, I don't want to sound rude, but how well informed the resident doctors are. So you will know the reality of your own situation, but the relationship between the settlement you accepted and inflation.

when the head of the committee, Dr Jack Fletcher, describes this as a sort of form of rearranging the deck chairs that isn't going to make any meaningful improvement at all. The lack of training places being a result of political choices, not to fund or staff the NHS. NHS properly. That's the bit that chills me. A political choice not to fund the NHS properly. Trying to save money everywhere. Trying to make money or raise money everywhere. NHS training places.

being a spot where we can save money by bringing in a lot of foreign doctors, foreign trained doctors. I've got no problem with their ethnic or geographical origins, but I quite like the idea of British medical students joining the British. what's seeing that path ahead of them being clear and attractive and if it is less clear and attractive now than it should or could be i need you to explain it to me i need you to because it's almost like there's a bit of a disconnect

Public support for the strikers come down. It was quite high to start with, while doctor support for the strikers more or less unchanged. And that means there's a communication failure here, in that the average punter doesn't fully understand the average resident doctor. And I wonder if we can do something to fix that together today. James is in Hounslow. James, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Thanks for taking the call.

I think I could really explain the whole unemployed doctors thing if you'd like me to. I would love you to, yes. So I'm a resident doctor. I'm two years out of university and my third year is being a doctor. You're not at West Mid, are you, James, by any chance? No, no, no, don't worry. No, I wouldn't worry. I just live in constant gratitude to all the doctors and nurses at West Middlesex Hospital. But on we go. Yes, yes.

So essentially what happens is after there are multiple points that you can essentially increase the number of doctors. You increase the number of doctors at medical school. You can increase the number of doctors in training positions.

You can increase the number of doctors and higher training physicians, and then you can increase the number of consultant jobs. What's essentially happened is over the last few years, the government has essentially increased the number of jobs, the number of medical students. So they're building more universities, which likely the UK probably needs. But what they haven't done is they haven't increased any of the jobs that are happening at the higher level.

So you now currently have lots of UK graduates and also people from coming from other countries as well competing for the same amount of specialty training jobs as ever. And obviously the population is increasing, it's getting older. That means that we actually need more doctors. But although there are people with medical degrees who can work the jobs, the actual employment roles at the hospitals or in the training programs are just not there.

So this is the bit I'm finding hard to grasp. Do you understand why I'm finding it hard to grasp, or am I sounding stupid to you, Doctor? No, you're not sounding stupid at all. I think from speaking to my family, I think it's quite hard to explain because it sounds ridiculous because all of us have experiences with healthcare where we probably think...

another doctor probably could have made our experience either happen more quickly or awaited A&E, etc. But what essentially happens is I have a lot of friends now because I'm at a natural career break almost. I've done the first two years.

of my foundation training and then now i have a year where i can work on my portfolio and then apply to specialty training but i have friends who weren't lucky enough to get this full-time employment to work on the portfolio so they're trying to essentially make ends meet by doing locum work, essentially. And sometimes that locum work is by choice because people like the freedom of being able to... But sometimes it's the only paid work they can get. Exactly, exactly.

And this is this is where I so how when when people say things like over a period of several years, my heart sinks a little bit because it makes it sound even harder to get to the nub of it. And is it simply the case that there is a finite amount of money to spend on the NHS, which is governed by how much they raise in tax, and the NHS needs more staff?

because demographics are changing and there are more people who need looking after. And, of course, embed blocking kicks in and all the other phenomena that we know quite a lot about now. And there is political resistance to the idea of spending significantly more money on the NHS, even though everybody in the NHS recognizes the necessity of spending significantly more money. The problem there becomes, in the minds of the public, James,

There's a very big difference between going on strike to create more roles for doctors and going on strike to create more pay for the doctors who've already got roles. And they're both in play during this industrial action. The big grievance is pay.

not training roles. And I know that's a grievance and it's part of the deal. And I accept Jack Fletcher's explanation that West Streeting was being a little bit economical with the actuality in his so-called offer. But this strike is not exclusively about...

getting more doctors. It's about getting more money for the people who are already doctors and that is where you lose the public. Yeah, exactly. And I think part of the problem is there's been a sort of muddying of the waters because... If you're in the doctrine community, people have been speaking about this for, like, even when I was at medical school, this has kind of been brewing. Right. The full pay restoration element.

but also the jobs element is a sort of newer issue that's come on. And because we were striking at the same time, they kind of got lumped together. Yes. I mean, my personal view is, with the jobs element, to address that first. In my view, the government train me as a doctor. I pay tuition fees, obviously. I have a student loan. But they subsidize universities because it's quite expensive to train a doctor. But then they don't create any jobs later on.

So it's almost as if their investment in me cannot be recuperated as effectively as possible. So it almost becomes a bit of a strange situation where I'm here and they've trained me effectively, but I have a lot of friends who... Genuinely, the situation I'll be in once my contract ends in August, let's say I've currently applied to specialty training. Yes. If I don't get into specialty training, which I've done everything I can, but there's a possibility just because of the high numbers. Yes.

I'll then apply to these locally employed doctor roles, right, that Jack Fletcher was referring to, that they're going to make more specialty training jobs. If let's say if they made... those into more specialty training jobs, then there would be fewer of those locally employed doctor roles, if that makes sense. Yes, it does. This is what he means by rearranging the deck chairs.

Exactly. So then I'm there now in, let's say, May time thinking about what job am I going to have in August. So genuinely, the thing that I would have to do in my position is I would have to apply to Australia. not even because I necessarily want to go, but because it is objectively enough, any doctor, easier to get a job in Australia than it is in the UK. So, yeah, and if you don't get the training role...

then what are your options long term? I mean, I sense you wouldn't want to be a locum at all, let alone forever. Do you then consider becoming a GP or forgive again, forgive my ignorance? No, that's absolutely fine. If you don't get into that, if you don't get onto that track towards the medicine you want to practice for the rest of your career, what are your options? So the way it was a specialty training includes GP as well.

Oh, OK. Sorry. Yeah, that's OK. That's OK. So when I say applying to specialty training, I am also one of the options is I can apply to be a GP. So if you don't, but then there's 10,000 people, there's 10,000 places with 40,000 applicants for these roles at the moment. Exactly, including GP roles. So what happens in the long term to the 30,000 who don't get one? Well, that's essentially where we are now. I know. Yeah, and I think the issue is...

For us in the long term, basically what happens is we reapply next year. So we try to get a job to make ends meet, either these locally employed doctor jobs or we locum. or we, if we're privileged enough, can travel or whatever, which is obviously apart from... And that's when you think about leaving the country. Exactly. And you'd still be a doctor, but you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be looking after the people whose taxes have funded your training.

Exactly. I have lots of friends in Australia, and I personally don't even want to go there. Personally, my family is here, and I just more prefer being in the UK. But I genuinely, if I don't get into specialty training, I'll have to make the decision of, is it easier for me to get a job in Australia?

which all my experience has essentially said yes. Yes, but it would be, wouldn't it? Do we know why, James, finally? Do we know why Australia has got a health service that is so much more efficient and attractive than our own? Yeah, so I think I wouldn't know the nuances of it, the ins and outs, but I believe essentially that Australians are almost purposefully attracting UK doctors for whatever reason, because our... But then that means that they're...

training places for Australian trained doctors will be reduced, or does it? Exactly. And it becomes this almost ridiculous situation. Where we take it in turns to be more attractive to doctors and then we'll overtake Australia. So I don't I mean, I genuinely don't know. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So then I essentially would go to Australia and the thing that happens just as.

like kind of to round it off, is when I'm in Australia, I am not able to compete for Australian specialty training jobs unless I'm there for a few years. However, people who come to the UK, and I have no problem with people who come to the UK, I'm an immigrant myself. When they come to the UK, they can compete on the same level as us.

So regardless of whether you where you graduated, you're seen as the same. Whereas if I went to Australia, I would have to work there for a number of years until I'm competing. We're talking really about about a clear path to.

positions and job security that's what you're really after i mean and you say muddied the water thank you james things are a lot clearer i bet you've got a wonderful bedside manner um but you you can't separate it unfortunately from the uh from the pay demands which have upset a lot of people it's it's a weird one isn't it i wonder how the bma feel about that i know they were on with tom yesterday but

whether or not the majority of the people, how you would break down the arithmetic of that mandate, the 80 odd percent who have voted to continue the strike. How much of that is about the pay rise and how much of that is about the other stuff? And if it was about everything that they're striking for, what would the ratio look like? I'm 52% on strike for more money for me, but I'm 48% on strike for more training players.

is for people who aren't me. Or, of course, in the case of some residential doctors, people who aren't me. Thank you. It's getting a little bit clearer, I think. And it's becoming harder to oppose, isn't it? Unless you're inhaling your position from... Right-wing media, I would normally say, but of course that would now include the Labour government and West Streeting.

So it's not fair to pin all this opposition on right-wing media when the actual Labour health secretary is on the other side of the fence from people like James. And I think people like me. It is 10.52. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. It's a funny one, isn't it? You kind of say to me, hand on heart.

Doctor's got a 29% pay rise, 18 months or so or go, and they're going on strike again. And I go, come on, lads. Come on, ladies. Come on, lads, lasses. Give your heads a wobble. Fingers to the, you know, shoulders to the wheel. Fingers to the grindstone. You can't have it yet. You can't have it now. And then you understand the mess that the profession is in, the mess that the NHS is in, and the simple arithmetic of there not being enough roles.

not being enough doctors in hospitals to improve morale and, crucially, patient care. And you think, well, maybe the only option you've got is to go on strike. I wonder how differently it would feel today. Not a massive fan of counterfactuals, but sometimes they do a job, they reach parts. How differently would it feel today if they were on strike exclusively over training contracts, training positions, security? and no mention whatsoever about pay rises? Would it be close to a 100%?

mandate of support for the strike among resident doctors and considerably higher among the public. I suspect it probably would, but they have elected not to do that. It's a conscious decision. So I have a few texts, if I may. is that over the years we've had a boy crying wolf effect every time successive governments cut or trim budgets the affected unions will come out against such cuts

with warnings of issues that will occur following the cuts. For a long time, these effects have been kept artificially at bay due to the hard work of the public servants. Now, however, the dam is bursting and the walls really are at the door. I buy that, Alan, and that's where that long list of things. That occurred to me literally after coming on air of other public sector professionals who've warned what was happening to their profession. And we didn't pay attention or we believed.

the people claiming that they were just crying wolf. Literally, I think, in Theresa's case. Have I imagined that? Did she literally say that you're crying wolf to police officers who said if you cut our numbers, then the ability to... attack crime the ability to address crime will be reduced I think she used that phrase I could be wrong and you will let me know no doubt if I am

But we didn't listen then. Should we listen now? That is from Alan. And this is from Steve, which I presume means that I misspoke earlier. Steve says, it's friends of Russia, James, not friends of Israel. So I presume when I was talking about the Tories all queuing up in the Russian ambassador's garden, I may have accidentally said friends of Israel instead of friends of Russia.

Although, given that they were in the Russian ambassador's garden, it was probably easy to work out what I meant. Wendy is in Norwich. Wendy, what made you pick up the phone? Hello, James. Thanks for taking the call. I'm a retiring GP.

So when I was last resident doctor, it was about 35 years ago. But I have got two members of family who, one is a final year medical student at the moment and the other one is an F. three doctors so she's third year into her foundation year she's applying for her specialty training in January she's incredibly pessimistic we used to say To my son, who's going to be 30 when he qualifies, he did another degree first. Yeah.

We used to say, oh, you've got in. Fantastic. You'll always have a job. Now, there are such hollow words. When did that change? When and why did that change? Because that is absolutely the heart of it for me, what you've just said. It's exactly the heart of it. And I feel that the BMA, maybe they didn't say quite enough at the beginning, but for a very long time they have been emphasising the job situation. They've got the placard saying patients need doctors, doctors need jobs.

And unfortunately, the media, including the BBC, I used to watch BBC News and then pick Channel 4 News. Channel 4 News actually... actually went into this quite many months ago. But the BBC was always about pay and all the media has just been about pay. So it's the jobs. Anyone can do anything if they know it's finite.

But at the same time, there was an interview with a surgeon the other day, mid-30s, he's one down from being a consultant, and they asked him how much he got paid, and he said $60,000. And I feel that a surgeon, a senior registrar level, life and death, nights, it's just, I know a lot of people think $6,000 is a good wage, but...

For that job, it's not. I don't argue with that. I'm conscious of people who can't dream of earning that kind of money having sort of goggle-eyed at the very thought of it and outraged at anybody saying it's not enough. But that's life, isn't it? That's always going to be true. getting paid what but i want to push you back if i may to the point where it changed

The point where that idea of, right, I'm in now. Journalism used to be like that, believe it or not. I just probably just missed that particular boat. But for my father's generation, if you got onto a national newspaper, you were probably there until your pension. So when did it change? Because it's much more recent for residents. When did it change and how or why did it change? It seems, it's difficult to know this, but it seems in the last...

It seems since he started at medical school, he started in the fine year now, five years ago. Right. Everything seemed, but... You know, it's like when you're training, you don't sort of get your head around it until you get closer towards it. No, you've got exams to worry about. And can we think of a policy shift? Because I know that patient satisfaction, I'm obsessed with this statistic, in 2010 when David Cameron became Prime Minister, was the highest on record.

And then austerity came in. So obviously taps were turned off or taps were turned down. But is there a specific pivot point that explains how that profession went from being one that offered lifetime job security to one that didn't? Or was it just incremental? Was it a frog boiling exercise?

Several things during the last government, over the years that they were in power. So if the BMA had been campaigning on an undo the damage that the last lot did platform, again, they'd probably be engendering more public sympathy than they are.

as a consequence partly of media framing of the pay rise as being the beginning, the middle and the end of this grievance. Exactly. And the other thing you mentioned earlier on, I know you've probably been explained about this since, but it's not unfilled posts. I wanted to really emphasize that. Even with my son during COVID, while he was about to do his medical training with an HCA at the local hospital, they just said...

There's not a full-time post available. Yeah, no, I didn't. I was trying to push James on that because there are not unfilled posts, but there are not enough posts. And the pay rise hasn't been funded. I think a lot of people don't realise that, that the pay rise was done.

but it wasn't funded. So it came from somewhere, so even fewer doctors, if you see what I mean. And the other thing to mention, it doesn't apply to doctors if nurses and midwives are coming out of training and can't get jobs either.

Well, that was one mistake I made, although that one is defensible. The other one I made was thinking that a GP was separate from a specialty. And so I've cleared that up as well. And, you know, I do this stuff for a living. And if I can display fairly epic ignorance in a couple of areas, maybe I should be.

a little more forgiving of people displaying ignorance in other areas. I mean, family connections aside, although that's obviously very hard to do, they genuinely feel they have no choice. That's why the numbers are so high.

No choice for... But to strike, because this is a perilous situation that we are in, and unless something serious is done to get us out of it, then the NHS itself is threatened. Exactly. They all... taught the NHS, the ones I know, they all want to be in the NHS, it's one organisation, but it just needs to...

something needs to be sorted out to actually make more doctors and nurses and midwives on the front line and dare I say fewer managers yeah well yeah no I always people reach for that position and I don't need to again a bit of a crash course on knowing how fair that is but the um I think internationally we don't have a proportionately very high number of managers compared to doctors and nurses. But this is the whole point that's missing. We need a lot more doctors, nurses and midwives.

And one of the ways in which you get more is by creating easier paths to those positions and by paying more as well, perhaps. And that way you don't have to go after... People trained abroad who are perhaps less or happier to take lower wages. You want to have a gold standard of medicine. So that's why Stephen is not an idiot necessarily, but...

Everybody arguing about how if there's loads of doctors and a shortage of jobs, why do we need to pay them more? Because the doctors want there to be more doctors. That's the heart of it all. The doctors on strike. think we need more doctors and if you're not going to believe them who are you going to believe if you're not going to trust them who are you going to trust unfortunately because of the nature of this industrial action it can be framed as demands for more money

But two things can be true at the same time. They want more money, but they really want more doctors too. That's why I think I support them. 11.04 is the time. I am not a lawyer, but I do know that most of Donald Trump's attempts to cow or extort money from. broadcast organizations have succeeded in the United States only because the broadcast organizations that he was taking action against were also embarked upon potential business deals over which he or his allies had. some say, some sway.

I don't think that's going to apply to the BBC, although he has, of course, or the United States has announced a pause to the deal that was signed when he came to England and was given that incredible stroke, ludicrous reception with golden carriage.

and the poor king wheeled out to greet him and all sorts of pomp and ceremony, more pomp and ceremony than anybody could shake a scepter at. And I said to you at the time, the calculation here by Starmer, the gamble here by Starmer is that you can trust him. And you can't. And lo and behold, the big result, the big win of that visit has now been reneged upon, hopefully temporarily. But who knows? Because the deals that Donald Trump negotiates are not worth the paper that they're printed on.

no matter how much pomp and ceremony you treat him to. He will. It's a bit like the, what was it again? The frog and the what? I can't even remember. The frog and the scorpion? The frog and the scorpion, isn't it? So in this and that, well, this works. So Keir Starmer is the frog.

And Donald Trump is the scorpion. It doesn't quite work because the United States will just try and get more and more and more out of the frog. But you say, I'll give you a lift over the river to the scorpion. And the frog says, please don't.

You won't bite me, will you? Because if you bite me, we'll both drown. And the scorpion goes, don't be ridiculous. If I bite you, we both drown. So he hops on the frog's back. They start swimming across the river. Halfway across, the scorpion bites the frog. And they both drown. And as they're drowning, the frog says, why did you do that? And the scorpion goes, well, look, I'm a scorpion.

That's what trusting Donald Trump is like. Oh, no, he'll be different with us. He'll keep it to our deal. He'll abide by the sort of network of obligation. I love that phrase. Do you know where that phrase comes from? Don't Google it. The network of obligation that binds us all. It's a beautiful phrase. Where did I first stumble across the phrase, the network of obligation that binds us all? 20th century. It's not one of the ancients.

late 20th century. It's not Winston Churchill. The network of... I'll give you a clue. I first came across it in the case of a man almost as awful as Donald Trump being described by one of his former teachers. He was described as someone who didn't seem to believe that he should have to follow the, quote, network of obligation that binds us all. And when Trump does this stuff, of course, he destroys, he denigrates the network of obligation.

that binds us all, that keeps everything sweet or honest or above board. I may share that with you a little later in the program. But the legal action that Donald Trump has brought against the BBC that you just heard about in Thomas' news bulletin contains... The scorpion stings. It doesn't bite. Forgive me. Nobody's perfect. Contains a line of such...

beautiful simplicity that i felt compelled to share it with you imagine suing somebody for five billion dollars and containing this line writing this line in your lawsuit are you ready for this literally i'm not making this up no less an authority than the united kingdom's former prime minister Liz Truss, discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable and the BBC's pattern of actual malice.

Now, speaking of actual malice, we'll have a look in the next hour at what Donald Trump had to say after the passing, the murder of Rob Reiner, the film director and his wife. But... The BBC's pattern of actual malice. We need someone who's really hefty. We need someone to back us who's got real heft, who's taken very seriously by the world. Well, we've got Liz Truss.

Mr. President. That's great. Stick it in the lawsuit. Imagine describing Liz Truss as no less an authority than the United Kingdom. It's sarcasm in anybody else's mouth. In any other context, if you wrote no lessen authority than the United Kingdom's former Prime Minister Liz Truss, private I might write that line.

And it would be a Mickey take. The brilliant Henry Morris, whose work I just absolutely love, who's one of the very modern satirists who does most of his work on Substack and social media. Henry Morris could write that line in one of his regular spoofs. No lesson or... authority than the United Kingdom's former Prime Minister Liz Truss. But Donald Trump's lawyers apparently wrote that with a straight face. We've finally got the hang of this.

I don't mean radio presenting. Let's not get carried away. I mean this particular subject. We finally got the hang of the neats. I don't know if you remember. I don't know how much you share in my qualms when I feel that we're not getting to the heart of a subject. We're not getting to the heart of a...

topic in the way that I want to do. But we have in recent weeks finally got to the heart of it. I think in our defense about not getting it right immediately, we were certainly right to suggest that it was poised to become one of the biggest stories facing. the population won't we first started talking to you partly as a consequence of speaking to doctors and nurses actually partly as a consequence of having

One child in the relevant age range, although she is very much in education and employment, actually. But the middle class vista. that I see from my own personal perspective includes young people who are not in education, employment or training. And these are young people who have had many advantages in life. But of course, all the advantages in life can't insulate you from health problems, mental health problems or physical health problems contingent upon long COVID.

or the viral load that still goes largely unrecognized by most of the commentariat. But there's no way that accounts for 946,000 young people aged from 16 to 24. And the reason why we didn't get this quite right when we first started talking about it was because we presumed that there would be a Rosetta Stone, that there would be a skeleton key to unlock the conundrum, to unlock the mystery.

And there isn't. This is why I worry a little bit about the kind of rhetoric that we hear today from Alan Milburn, the former health secretary who's been charged with addressing this crisis. And I think you can call it a crisis. Personally, I wouldn't call it a benefits crisis. I'd call it a human crisis. I'd call it a crisis for young people. I wouldn't call it an outrage. I'd call it a tragedy.

but that's because of the way that I'm made. If you want to call it an outrage, you can, but it creates the idea that all of these people are choosing to be inactive because the alternative is somehow more attractive. and while that will apply to some people there's no earthly way it applies to 946 000 people in fact there's not a single thing that would be true of every one of those 946,000 people, apart from their species. They will have a species in common and nothing else.

Nothing else would apply to every single one of them apart from their age range. They all fit in this category and their species. They are all human beings. There won't quite be 946,000 answers to the question, why are you not in education, employment or training, but there will be a hell of a lot more than one, or two, or three, or ten, or even twenty.

But what we want and what we look for together when we turn our attention to this crisis, this tragedy, as we do on a very regular basis, what we want is the biggest answers of all. And I want to go after two today, two very specific answers. Or rather, I want answers to two very specific questions. OK? And in a way, they're linked, I think. In a way... one goes uh hand in hand with the other so the first is how hard is it right

This is really important. What I want to do is offer a corrective while fully recognising that there is no one answer to 946,000 problems. But I want to offer a corrective to this ludicrous idea that is halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on, that this is a crisis of indolence or a crisis of lethargy or a crisis of laziness. If people are somehow electing not to enter employment or training, then it is in large part because what is on offer is so unattractive.

And you could use that, of course, to call for a society in which people will starve unless they take whatever crumbs are falling from big businesses table or whatever the crumbs the government have ring fenced for them. But I think we're... both wealthier than that and morally better than that. So how hard is it? You can tell me yourself, 034560973. You are age 16 to 24 and you...

Don't want to be in this category, but it's incredibly difficult to get out of it. Or you can tell me about the young person in your life. And that, in many ways, is perhaps more helpful. Well, not more helpful. It's as helpful. It's at least as helpful because you can watch what's happening. And the crucial point here, okay, are you ready?

The crucial point here is things are really different from when we were that age. If we could somehow program people, if we could reprogram the population to recognize... that things are profoundly different from what they were like when we were that age. Because the answer to why is an 18-year-old not doing something can never be...

I don't know, because it's really easy. When I was 18, it was easy. Well, maybe it can sometimes be true, but it's hardly ever the case that you can answer a question about why 18-year-olds today are... in trouble by explaining that 18 year olds when you were 18 were not. I don't know why it took me so long to work this out. It was in the context of university education, actually, not in the context of employment. But I suddenly realised that I was lecturing young people today.

based entirely on presumptions and understandings built 30 years ago when I was at university. And that was absolutely pointless, worthless and ultimately insulting. But everybody still does it. Most obviously, they do it with property prices. A pal of mine has just calculated what his house would be worth if it had gone up at the same rate as his parents' house. I'll find it for you, actually. He stuck it on Blue Sky. Very, very, very funny man.

He's also the one, if you follow me on that social media platform, he's the one that took his cat to the vets this morning. But he's just done a sum. He's literally calculated this morning what his house would be worth now if property values had gone up on the same... gradient that they did from the moment when his parents bought their house.

many years previously. So to have a conversation about young people getting onto the property ladder based upon presumptions that are 40 years out of date is as pointless as having a conversation about young people not in education, employment or training based upon presumptions that are 40 years out of date.

So question one, how hard is it actually? And you can tell me that it's easy because that will account for some of the 946,000, but it won't account for all of them. How hard is it compared to when you were their age? How hard is it to get a job?

0345 6060 973 is the number that you need. Question number two. What's the point? Now this addresses a very different plight. This addresses people who I actually didn't have much sympathy for when we started having these conversations. But I have sympathy for them now. And... I'm thinking of young people who could do something. They could go into education, employment, or training. But they don't see the point.

because they don't see it leading anywhere. This is arguably the most important question we can ask about these young people, right? When I was their age, certainly by the time I was 24, i was very very much in the house buying lane four years later i bought my first flat didn't even need a deposit for it I was also earning, you know, a good whack. Not at 24, actually, but by 25, 26, I was earning a good whack. And I could see ahead of me property ownership.

I could see ahead of me a degree of job security. The world was always going to need, I thought, somewhat naively, journalists. I could see ahead of me... a very realistic, I'm 53 years old if you're new to the programme, I could see ahead of me a very realistic prospect.

of being economically a bit or even perhaps with luck a lot more comfortable than my family, than my parents who were well off. They sent me to public school. So in terms of what's the point, I never needed to ask myself that question. It was clear to my generation what the point was. The things that we were aiming for, the social capital, as well, of course, as the actual capital. It was clear what the point was. So what I want you to imagine now is that you are addressing a...

20 year old who has perhaps applied for a few jobs and and that's where question one comes in how hard is it to get anything or to get something oh three four five six oh six oh nine seven three and you're addressing a 20 year old who for various reasons, has kind of given up. It's not because the welfare state is too generous. It's more likely because they have segued relatively effortlessly. from living at home and being looked after by mum and dad, or mum or dad,

And getting up every day to go to school or college and then coming home to be looked after by mum or dad. And they've segued fairly effortlessly to living exactly the same life just without the bit in the middle where they get up to go to school or college. They haven't moved from that. There's another story in the news today about precisely that, families who are expected to be empty nesters by now, but whose children are probably there forever.

Again, something completely ignored by much analysis of this subject. My children, I love my children. And if for whatever reason, whether it was ill health or simply a collapse in confidence, I would never chuck them out. I would always look after them. As long as I've got money in my pocket, my children are going to be okay. There must be parents listening to this now whose heart breaks at the absence of prospects for their children.

But where 10 years ago you'd got angry with them, now you look at them and you think, I can't really blame you for having sort of given up. So when they say to you... what's the point? What do you say to them? This is a question for the age. It's a question for everybody. So if the thing that is on offer to you...

is not going to deliver to the 20 year old today, is not going to deliver any of the things that were on offer for the 20 year old in your day. And they say, what's the point? What do you say to them? This is one of the most important questions I've ever asked you. And the tragedy here is that I don't know the answer. I've got a fat, middle-class, privileged pie in my fridge. I think my kids will be okay. I don't know for sure.

But you get to that point, you get to that Rubicon in life when you leave college or school and then you decide what you're going to do next. And the answer is nothing. You've tried perhaps and it hasn't worked. That's question one. But question two is what's the point? How do you answer that question? You don't even need children to answer this question. You just need to speak to my...

My mythical, because you don't get self-respect. That would be one of the answers I'd have given once. You don't get self-respect if you're working for a pittance in a job that has no prospects. Where's the self-respect there? And also you can see on your screen a universe that makes a mockery of whatever it is that is open to. Do you see what I mean? What is the point? Is the question I really want you to answer.

Phone lines are completely open now, so don't hold back thinking that everybody else will be in front of the queue for you. It's one of the strangest questions I've ever asked you, but it's also, I think, one of the most important and potentially one of the most interesting. What's the point?

Here's a 20-year-old, not in education, employment or training. What few options are open to them are, compared to what was open to us when we were their age, spectacularly unattractive. And they turn to you and say, well, why should I? What's the point? What do you say to them? Hit the numbers now, you will get through. 0345 6060 973.

It's 24 minutes after 11. This is good from No Hostages, another one of my favourite social media accounts over on Blue Sky. When one young person is out of work or training, you can maybe blame the individual. When it's 1,000, possibly even 10... you can keep telling that story when it's 946,000 the problem isn't them it's the system I have an enormous amount of sympathy for that position

And it's where parts of today's questions come from. Question one, how hard is it to be a neat or more pertinently to stop being a neat? And then question number two, what do you say to a young person caught in this?

sort of Scylla and Charybdis, who doesn't see the point. What's the point? I'll get some text up on this one as well because it could lend itself to quite pithy answers. Let me just clear the box. um the last hour's questions let's go to guildford olivia is there olivia what would you like to say hi james i just wanted to mention i am a care leaver so i'm in a more of a unusual position than some um

But I think people in my generation have realised that this isn't the way we're supposed to live. Since COVID, we saw people were housed. We saw that there weren't people on the streets. that people could be supported. And I think there's no way for the government to pull the wool over our eyes anymore and tell us that it isn't doable.

but how does that impact on your day-to-day existence though because that's a sort of theoretical or philosophical overview isn't it because i think it um contributes to the mental health and the depression and the lack of motivation in people my age because they don't see the point of functioning in a society that they feel is detrimental to their mental health and isn't actually going to benefit them. And what are your options? I do, well...

Personally, I... Well, no, for an entire... I don't want to badger you, but for... And also, you can't speak for an entire generation, but... Let's say, and also, as I've stressed repeatedly, there's no way there's going to be one answer that applies to 946,000 people. But the cohort that you are speaking of or speaking for... who are disillusioned, if you like, with the system and therefore reluctant to become part of it, what are their options? What are the alternatives?

Well, that's the thing. I think people are getting themselves in a spiral and a hole. And I totally see why, to be honest. And then it feels so hard to get back out of that. And you're just thinking, why? If I try and get into this and try and get into this job, that's what's going to affect me mentally. That's being treated well at work, not having people make exceptions, but people help.

so that you can come back into work if you have problems like autism, depression, making these exceptions to help people be able to come back to work. But because it's so competitive, people aren't going to say... they're going to be flexible for this person because there's someone else there ready to do it and ready to work themselves to the bone because they know they have to just because they've been raised to know.

that this is what you have to do to survive, and if you don't, that's it. Well, I mean, less bleak, perhaps. But again, from a position of privilege, is that the things that were within reach made the grind worthwhile. Those things are no longer within reach. No, I do feel when you leave school, if you don't...

If you go to college, I found at college a lot of people were just there, again, like you say, to their parents and sending them there. Once you leave, it's so important that you reach out for the opportunities that there are in school and college because once you leave...

it's like there's nothing suddenly you are just like i wasn't at home but for people who are i understand you're just at home if you don't have to and your parents can afford to have you there and they love you and they want you to be happy why would they make you go out and beat yourself up every day for minimum they probably rather support you until they die

And you think that's a thing. That's a growing thing. It's just this idea of people opting out entirely with support of a family who would once have been very impatient, mums and dads.

And I know you're a care leaver yourself, but you'll know what I'm talking about among friends and peers. Yeah, I mean, I didn't have the opportunity to not work, so I had to support myself, but that put me into a severe mental... pit and now I'm not able to work because I was forced it was a you have to do it or that's it it was a survival and then that pushed me even further down so now it's even harder for me to get back to work because employers aren't able to make

these exceptions to help out. I don't really want the first caller to go here but perhaps that was a bit naive of me. When I'm asking people to tell you what the point is the really obvious answer is that there isn't one. Yep, basically. Do you dream? Do you dream, Olivia? I do. What do you dream of?

I dream, I know it might sound a bit hippy-dippy socialist, but I do dream of just living on a commune with my family, really, and growing a place for people I love and care about. So self-sufficiency, a form of self-sufficiency. generation or the people i socialize with i see that that's a growing want and trend and that is the dream because i feel that that is the natural way that we should be living really okay

And, you know, some people will be chomping at the bit listening to you. And I'm a ridiculous hippie, yeah. Well, no, some people will be nodding sagely. And there'll be plenty of people my age who had... very similar dreams when they were your age and whether or not those dreams were dashed or whether or not when they managed to realize them and

Whether or not they are naive or unrealistic is one of those questions that can't be answered in the same way today that it could be answered when I was your age, when I was 20, because the world has changed immeasurably. What's the point? Can I use you? Can I invite other callers to tell you what the point is of getting on the hamster wheel, of getting into the rat race, or would that be unfair?

I'm not going to keep you on the line. Don't worry. You can go about your daily business. I just do want to thank you because I listen to you every morning and so does my dad. And you make such a difference, honestly. That's a lovely thing to say. Thank you. And it is partly because I can't answer the question on your behalf. I need you to call me on days like today. What is the point? 0345 60 60 973.

It's 31 minutes after 11. Thomas Watts, how's your headline? It is 11.48, and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Just an interesting one here. I kind of keep track of this stuff, but it's almost impossible. You've got one of Farage's candidates who is in hot water for telling David Lammy to go home. which presumably means to Tottenham, doesn't it? I mean, what would somebody mean if they were telling...

David Lammy to go home. I think he was born in Archway, but North London, essentially. But of course, it being one of Nigel Farage's politicians, he actually means the Caribbean. This is someone running to be mayor of Hampshire and the Solent who suggested that that's where David Lammy's quotes, loyalties lie. He should, quotes, go home to the Caribbean. Now, Nigel Farage is still hiding because he doesn't want to be asked questions about.

either his protégé, close random party leader in Wales, taking bribes... from a Kremlin stooge in order to parrot Kremlin talking points in public spaces, all of which as far as I can tell have also been parroted by Nigel Farage, although there is no suggestion that he took any bribes whatsoever. for saying very similar things about poking the Russian bear or about NATO being on the borders of Russia and similar.

So he's still hiding, also because he doesn't want to answer questions about the toxic racism and anti-Semitism that he indulged in on an almost daily basis, as far as we can tell at school. But this is a really interesting moment because one of the things he stands accused of is telling a young black lad to go back to Africa. And we can find out whether he, because he hasn't apologized for anything yet, but we can find out whether or not he's changed, can't we?

by seeing how he responds to a candidate in his own party who is telling a black politician to go home to the Caribbean. It's exactly the same language of his own school days. A few people queuing up essentially to claim that we shouldn't pay too much attention to what Farage was like when he was 18. And if you subscribe to that school of thought, you'll be perfectly entitled to find out what he's like when he's 68 or however old he is.

58. So there it is. Here's his opportunity to put some clear blue water between his childhood self and his candidate in Hampshire and Solent and him today. So there you have a reform politician. telling a black British man to go home to the Caribbean, just as a reform leader, as a schoolboy told a black fellow pupil to go back to Africa, reportedly. Wait and see.

Don't hold your breath, though, eh? Back to Neats and the question of what is the point? What do you say to someone in their 20s who honestly can't work out what the point is? Joel's in Barnes. Joel, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Thanks for taking my call. You're welcome, mate.

Yes. You can probably hear it in my voice. I'm a little bit nervous to call in. This is my first time ever doing this. It's only me. Don't worry. You'll be fine. You're already doing brilliantly. Yes. All right. I have a few points. So... I'm 22. I graduated about 15 months ago with a marketing degree. And it wasn't from one of the best unis in the country, but it was still a respectable uni.

So I've been applying for jobs and I was talking to your researcher. And if I'm to put a round number on it, I think I've applied for close to 500 jobs since. since uh since graduating wow and the split is about 100 part-time jobs uh 300 office jobs which are like what you would uh you'd have a nine to five and then about another

100 to 150 graduate roles. Okay. And like, I've been in the position where I'm questioning myself. I'm thinking, what is the point? Like I'm putting myself out there constantly and I'm getting rejections. And the thing that even hurts more is when you're putting yourself out there and you're not getting the rejections and you're thinking, oh, I still have hope. I still have hope. And like how I've overcome that is I've been thinking like.

What's the worst thing that could happen? I get a rejection or they don't even get back to me. And then I'm thinking, what's the best thing? And it's feeling more fulfilled. It's feeling like... The job I'm doing is actually making a difference and that I'm moving forward. And as of now, I've got like a 12-hour contract, a part-time job. 12 hours a week.

Yeah, 12 hours a week. And I'm working close to 50 hours in overtime. And yes, the money is great. And it's the same money that I would have got if I had got a graduate role out of uni. Okay. But the thing that really pushes me to keep applying for these jobs is the fact that 50 hours a week doing a job that there's no progression, you're not going anywhere. You're basically...

I work with a lot of people that have been doing it for 15 years. A lot of them are saying, look, this can't be it for you. You're still young. Keep applying for these jobs. And yeah, so that's what pushes me. Another thing, right? How many, how close have you got to a graduate level job out of those 100, 150? That's a great question. Thank you. I've done this before, Jeff.

Right, so I'm currently, I've applied for a job as a marketing graduate for a mechanical engineering company just outside of London. And what it is, is I've... talked to the founders i've had two interviews and between my first and second interview i've sent follow-up emails saying hey look i really enjoyed the interview can i have some feedback how did you how did you like my interview and they were like oh

Yes, we loved it. You are in the final two. Wow. We'll be in contact to set up a meeting. And I said, yeah, that's great. Please let me know as soon as possible. A week goes by. and then I get an email saying, oh, sorry, we forgot about you. We didn't see your email. Oh, no. Can you come in tomorrow? Oh, okay. But you can't because you've got a job. You've got your job.

that's the thing i had i have a job yes and i've already picked up uh the overtime for that day and i was like i called my manager i'm like please please please uh can i get the more and he was like yes yes yes because because they the The job that I'm at now, they're quite supportive for people to move on. And yes, so I go in for this interview. I've already prepared a PowerPoint of examples of work because in the first one... Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

like charity events, trade show media and stuff. Yeah. And I've gone in. I think I did great in the interview and they were really happy and they were like, look, we'll be with you within a week. We are going to make the decision by Friday. It's Monday at that point. And that was a month ago. And you haven't heard anything since.

I've sent three emails. I'm sorry. Yes, but I'm still very motivated to keep going because if I got that close, it's only going to take a little bit of luck to get that close again and maybe... Then I'll take, I'll get it. Can I tell you something? Yes. You might not be feeling it at the moment, but you are exceptional. Yes, thank you. No, I mean it. I mean that word literally.

You are exceptional because I would have given up if I'd been through what you're describing. Maybe not forever, but for a while. I'd have thought, right, sack it. I'm just going to do the 50-hour-a-week job, keep my head down, get some money. That's what I've been doing.

maybe go traveling yeah but i wouldn't still be sticking my head above the parapet i wouldn't still be hoping i wouldn't still be following up 500 applications 500 knockbacks a sniff of success like that and then another slap in the face you joel are exceptional and you're going to be okay. That's the good news. The bad news is you're no use to me because I know you're going to be okay by talking to you. I worry about...

the 22-year-olds who have got 80% of your resolve or 50% of your resolve or 20% of your resolve, and they would have been okay too once. But they also would have been okay once. But that is the point that I'm making this hour.

is that you kind of know what the point is and you can keep hold of that and you can keep sight of it and you can endure more knockbacks than most of us could endure and still have that point ahead of you, that point of light at the end of the tunnel that you're currently in. sympathy for the people whose lights have gone out especially if they've been through what you've already been through and that's why you're going to be okay

But that's no consolation or use to you now in the context of this conversation. It's just encouragement and you don't really need that. I need it a lot more, yes. You get me through all my shifts when I'm working, yeah. And why did that employer not come back to you? Why did that employer not come back to you? That's just rude, isn't it, man? Yeah, I mean, it's hard running a business. It's quite a large business and they've got like a lot of revenue. And yeah, I do understand that.

But if I tell you what you've done, another thing you might not realise, listening to this, people who thought they knew the answers to the questions that I'm asking didn't realise we were talking about young people like you. Now, you're not a neat, because you are...

In employment, albeit you're not on a career path that you would want to be on or expect to be on. But, I mean, Harge just texted to say, if someone this articulate is going through what he is going through, what hope is there for everybody else? There's always hope, I think. There is always hope. You're a good man. There will be a few people who get in touch with me now, suggesting that you get in touch with them. I'll leave that with Eleanor.

And I don't know how much hope you should pin to that or anything like that. But I mean, it would be wonderful if somebody looked upon the conversation we've just had as an introductory interview for what you as a marketing graduate who clearly knows what he's up to.

might be able to do for their company but but again i mean it you're exceptional and you will be okay but goodness me illustrate for the rest of us how hard it is for everybody full stop not just everybody else It's coming, a final word from Roddy, bottle the guts and the enthusiasm of this lad and I couldn't agree more.

But 500 job applications have gotten precisely nowhere. In the next hour, we turn our attention to Donald Trump and a question I haven't asked you for a while. What's wrong? What's actually wrong? It is 11.48 and... You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Just an interesting one here. I kind of keep track of this stuff, but it's almost impossible. You've got one of Farage's candidates who is in hot water for telling David Lammy to go home.

which presumably means to Tottenham, doesn't it? I mean, what would somebody mean if they were telling... David Lammy to go home. I think he was born in Archway, but North London, essentially. But of course, it being one of Nigel Farage's politicians, he actually means the Caribbean.

This is someone running to be mayor of Hampshire and the Solent who suggested that that's where David Lammy's quotes, loyalties lie. He should, quotes, go home to the Caribbean. Now, Nigel Farage is still hiding because he doesn't want to be asked questions about.

either his protégé close friend and party leader in Wales taking bribes... from a Kremlin stooge in order to parrot Kremlin talking points in public spaces, all of which as far as I can tell have also been parroted by Nigel Farage, although there is no suggestion that he took any bribes whatsoever. for saying very similar things about poking the Russian bear or about NATO being on the borders of Russia and similar.

So he's still hiding, also because he doesn't want to answer questions about the toxic racism and anti-Semitism that he indulged in on an almost daily basis, as far as we can tell at school. But this is a really interesting moment because one of the things he stands accused of is telling a young black lad to go back to Africa. And we can find out whether he, because he hasn't apologized for anything yet, but we can find out whether or not he's changed, can't we?

by seeing how he responds to a candidate in his own party who is telling a black politician to go home to the Caribbean. It's exactly the same language of his own school days. A few people queuing up essentially to claim that we shouldn't pay too much attention to what Farage was like when he was 18. And if you subscribe to that school of thought, you're perfectly entitled to find out what he's like when he's 68 or however old he is.

58. So there it is. Here's his opportunity to put some clear blue water between his childhood self and his candidate in Hampshire and Solent and him today. So there you have a reform politician. telling a black British man to go home to the Caribbean, just as a reform leader, as a schoolboy, told a black fellow pupil to go back to Africa, reportedly. Wait and see.

Don't hold your breath, though, eh? Back to NEATS and the question of what is the point? What do you say to someone in their 20s who honestly can't work out what the point is? Joel's in Barnes. Joel, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Thanks for taking my call. You're welcome, mate.

Yes. You can probably hear it in my voice. I'm a little bit nervous to call in. This is my first time ever doing this. It's only me. Don't worry. You'll be fine. You're already doing brilliantly. Yes. All right. I have a few points. So... I'm 22. I graduated about 15 months ago with a marketing degree. And it wasn't from one of the best unis in the country, but it was still a respectable uni.

So I've been applying for jobs and I was talking to your researcher. And if I'm to put a round number on it, I think I've applied for close to 500 jobs since. since uh since graduating wow and the split is about 100 part-time jobs uh 300 office jobs which are like what you would uh you'd have a nine to five and then about another

100 to 150 graduate roles. Okay. And like, I've been in the position where I'm questioning myself. I'm thinking, what is the point? Like I'm putting myself out there constantly and I'm getting rejections. And the thing that even hurts more is when you're putting yourself out there and you're not getting the rejections and you're thinking, oh, I still have hope. I still have hope. And like how I've overcome that is I've been thinking like.

What's the worst thing that could happen? I get a rejection or they don't even get back to me. And then I'm thinking, what's the best thing? And it's feeling more fulfilled. It's feeling like... The job I'm doing is actually making a difference and that I'm moving forward. And as of now, I've got like a 12-hour contract, a part-time job. 12 hours a week.

Yeah, 12 hours a week. And I'm working close to 50 hours in overtime. And yes, the money is great. And it's the same money that I would have got if I had got a graduate role out of uni. Okay. But the thing that really pushes me to keep applying for these jobs is the fact that 50 hours a week doing a job that there's no progression, you're not going anywhere. You're basically... Wow. Wow. Wow.

And yeah, so that's what pushes me. Another thing, right? How many, how close have you got to a graduate level job out of those 100, 150? That's a great question. Thank you. I've done this before, John.

Right, so I'm currently, I've applied for a job as a marketing graduate for a mechanical engineering company just outside of London. And what it is, is I've... talked to the founders i've had two interviews and between my first and second interview i've sent follow-up emails saying hey look i really enjoyed the interview can i have some feedback how did you how did you like my interview and they were like oh

Yes, we loved it. You are in the final two. Wow. We'll be in contact to set up a meeting. And I said, yeah, that's great. Please let me know as soon as possible. A week goes by. and then I get an email saying, oh, sorry, we forgot about you. We didn't see your email. Oh, no. Can you come in tomorrow? Oh, okay. But you can't because you've got a job. You've got your job.

that's the thing i had i have a job yes and i've already picked up uh the overtime for that day and i was like i called my manager i'm like please please please uh and i get the morning and he was like yes yes yes because because they the

The job that I'm at now, they're quite supportive for people to move on. And yes, so I go in for this interview. I've already prepared a PowerPoint of examples of work because in the first one... i did the same thing and then i talked to one of the founders and he was like this is the way we want to go so i took that on made like a whole portfolio of things like linkedin posts uh local sponsorships like charity events, trade show media and stuff. Yeah. And I've gone in.

I think I did great in the interview and they were really happy and they were like, look, we'll be with you within a week. We are going to make the decision by Friday. It's Monday at that point. And that was a month ago. And you haven't heard anything since. I've sent three emails. Oh, man. I'm sorry. That sucks. Yes, but I'm still very motivated to keep going because if I got that close, it's only going to take a little bit of luck to get that close again and maybe...

Then I'll take, I'll get it. Can I tell you something? Yes. You might not be feeling it at the moment, but you are exceptional. Yes, thank you. No, I mean it. And I mean that word literally. you you are exceptional because i would have i'd have given up if i've been through what you're describing i i maybe not forever but for a while i'd have thought right sack it i'm just going to do the 50 hour a week job keep my head down get some money

maybe go traveling yeah but i wouldn't still be sticking my head above the parapet i wouldn't still be hoping i wouldn't still be following up 500 applications 500 knockbacks a sniff of success like that and then another slap in the face you joel are exceptional and you're going to be okay. That's the good news. The bad news is you're no use to me because I know you're going to be okay by talking to you. I worry about...

the 22-year-olds who have got 80% of your resolve or 50% of your resolve or 20% of your resolve, and they would have been okay too once. But they also would have been okay once. But that is the point that I'm making this hour.

is that you kind of know what the point is and you can keep hold of that and you can keep sight of it and you can endure more knockbacks than most of us could endure and still have that point ahead of you, that point of light at the end of the tunnel that you're currently in. a sympathy for the people whose lights have gone out especially if they've been through what you've already been through and that's why you're going to be okay

But that's no consolation or use to you now in the context of this conversation. It's just encouragement and you don't really need that. I need it a lot more, yes. You get me through all my shifts when I'm working, yeah. And why did that employer not come back to you? Why did that employer not come back to you? That's just rude, isn't it, man? Yeah, I mean, it's hard running a business. It's quite a large business and they've got like a lot of revenue. And yeah, I do understand that.

But if I tell you what you've done, another thing you might not realise, listening to this, people who thought they knew the answers to the questions that I'm asking didn't realise we were talking about young people like you. Now, you're not a neat, because you are...

In employment, albeit you're not on a career path that you would want to be on or expect to be on. But, I mean, Harge just texted to say, if someone this articulate is going through what he is going through, what hope is there for everybody else? There's always hope, I think. There is always hope. You're a good man. There will be a few people who get in touch with me now, suggesting that you get in touch with them. I'll leave that with Eleanor.

and i i don't know how much hope you should pin to that or anything like that but but i mean it would be wonderful if somebody looked upon the conversation we've just had as an introductory interview for what you as a marketing graduate who clearly knows what he's up to might be able to do for their company. But again, I mean it, you're exceptional and you will be okay. But goodness me, illustrate for the rest of us how hard it is for everybody, full stop, not just everybody else.

I've got a final word from Roddy, bottle the guts and the enthusiasm of this lad and I couldn't agree more. But 500 job applications have gotten precisely nowhere. In the next hour, we turn our attention to Donald Trump and a question I haven't asked you for a while. What's wrong? What's actually wrong?

Actually, I probably misspoke earlier. Nigel Farage has issued a statement about the candidate to be a mayor who told David Lammy to go back to the Caribbean because that's where his loyalties lie. I have the full statement here. There we go. Three minutes after 12 is the time. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I want to turn your attention next to Donald Trump, if I may. When is the last time? Because we stopped doing it, didn't we?

trying to work out what motivates him, what explains him, and his supporters, the people who he understood so implicitly when he described them as people who would not. abandon him even if he shot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue. We used to, if you're new to the program or newish to the program,

You probably don't know. I mean, we still talk about it quite a lot because he is obviously the most important figure on the world stage by dint of being president of the United States. But we used to be a lot more hopeful about... our ability to unpick him or our ability to understand him because if you want to know what somebody's going to do next

your best bet is to understand why they did the last thing that they did. And I realised some time ago that that is a waste of time with Donald Trump. In fact, there was proof positive of it this morning. Not so much with the story about him suing the BBC. claiming that Liz Truss is the very paragon of witnesses for the support of his case, but more with the announcement that the tech deal...

that was, I think it was even signed. I certainly remember them standing in front of lecterns holding up documents. But the tech deal that was signed with the US as a sort of culmination of... That ludicrous visit, that ludicrous state visit that saw every golden carriage in the country being pressed into service in order to drive Donald Trump and his wife around King Charles' garden.

culmination has now been paused. It was announced yesterday. Whether it's linked to the BBC story or not, I don't know. I suspect it is. He probably thinks Keir Starmer will be in a position to exert pressure on the BBC to pay. Keith's done a calculation. £209 each per licence fee payer. That's what it would cost to give Donald Trump $5 billion. And that is, of course, the only real income stream that the BBC has. So that would be £200. It's really us that he's suing.

And remember, when I asked you earlier, is there anybody you can't be turned against? And I listed all the public sector people. But if you were to dip your toe into some of the sewers online now... Lots and lots of British people have been turned against their own capital city, despite the fact that it routinely tops international polls as the best place to live, work, visit and all the rest of it. But Billy Bunch of Numbers on Twitter is absolutely adamant, despite the fact that it's a...

probably comes out of the Philippines or St. Petersburg. London is lost. London has fallen. So you can be turned against your own capital city. What else could you be turned against by these people? Things that you would never imagine you could possibly be turned against with lies. Firefighters, teachers, police officers. junior doctors, resident doctors, forgive me, nurses, and now your own capital city, the list goes on. But the...

The idea, and of course the BBC, that's why I'm wanging on about this stuff. You can be turned against the BBC, the state broadcaster. Incredible value. Imperfect institution. You know I've got enormous problems with some of their so-called journalism, but they can turn you against that as well.

And in the words of Joni Mitchell, you won't know what you've got till it's gone. So Trump probably thinks that the prime minister will be able to exert pressure on the BBC to settle with him over this ludicrous lawsuit. But...

I don't know that that's the case. I don't know that the prime minister would have any ability to do that, despite politicians today calling upon him to stand firm. It was called the technology prosperity deal, wasn't it? It was billed as historic when it was unveiled during that state visit. it has now been paused reportedly because the United States want more concessions and more capitulations from the United Kingdom. Said it at the time.

And I'll say it again, no deal that Donald Trump signs or agrees to or whatever else, what other words you want is worth the paper that it's printed on or the breath that is expended in explaining it.

So that's the news from the Trumpiverse. Except it's not. We gave up trying to work out what motivated him some time ago because the task was beyond us. It proved impossible. We heard words like sociopath quite a lot, narcissist quite a lot, malignant quite a lot. I'm slightly wary of getting too personal. I know that sounds naive, but, you know...

there's not much point being disgusted by someone's conduct if you don't try to be better. But he did something yesterday morning that I honestly thought must be a hoax. I honestly thought that this must be a spoof, a parody, or mischief, disinformation, fake news, to coin a phrase. And I'm going to read it to you in its entirety because I think it's the single most disgusting thing I can remember a senior politician doing in power.

And senior politicians in opposition can be slightly different figures, can be slightly different creatures. Even all of the allegations of racist bullying being made against Nigel Farage at the moment didn't happen when he was in... power when he was in a political position, power over a country or just power over your own party. But Donald Trump took to his own social media platform yesterday to respond to the reported murder of Rob Reiner.

objectively one of the finest film directors ever. We ran through some of his hits yesterday. I'll run through them again, lest you... And these are just the ones he directed. He was also, you know, connected to and associated with various productions that he didn't actually.

direct but you've got the princess bride you've got when harry met sally you've got a few good men you've got spinal tap um you've got a couple of others as well that will come to me well you'll text them to me in about five seconds And it is the most extraordinary CV, the most extraordinary roster of successes. And him and his wife Michelle were found dead in their home on Sunday night.

Their own son Nick is subsequently being arrested for the murder. But Donald Trump took to social media to say the following. A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michelle, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction.

with a mind-crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump. with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the golden age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michelle rest in peace! I... I can't unwrap that. I can shout words at it.

I can shout words at you, but I can't unwrap that. You know that even with people who you don't admire, Misery and Stand By Me were the other two films. He was also involved with the Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile. I can't unpack it at all. And I hate that feeling. You know I do. I hate just being completely baffled by something. Baffled, discombobulated.

Just looking at something and thinking the more I look at it, the more likely I am to understand it. The more we work together, the more we worry at something together. You know, you worry at a problem. That's the figure of speech. The more time we spend unpicking something, the more likely we are to unpick it. But this is hideous. Two people have just been murdered. And...

I couldn't even put into words at the moment what he thinks he's achieving by doing. I couldn't even put into words what he thinks he's doing. Is he dancing on Rob Reiner's grave? He is, right? He's dancing on... And do you remember the reactions from Donald Trump supporters when Charlie Kirk was murdered? And people who, I mean, in my case, people who simply...

Played out footage of Charlie Kirk saying things, speaking. Came in for some criticism, for not being suitably respectful, I think. I forget precisely what. Some people went too far for polite society. But for the President of the United States to dance upon the grave of a recently murdered man and a recently murdered woman?

with a succession of lies, not just about the circumstances of the murder, but also about the state of his own administration. It is... What's the word? What word would you use? There's a press conference in the Oval Office later where he effectively doubled down on this. We should probably have a little listen to that as well at some point.

What word would you use? Can you do it in a single word? You don't have to ring in with a single word. You can text it to 84850 or you can WhatsApp it to 03456060973. Grotesque. Grotesque, but grotesque could describe a picture. It goes deeper than grotesque. It is genuinely, and I'm always wary of posting anything or tweeting anything.

saying anything that involves the phrase, I'm not often lost for words but, because then you run the risk of somebody else pointing out that you've claimed that you're not often lost for words on at least 30 occasions. But I am obviously not often lost for words.

It's what I do. I have this extraordinary job where I can come on air in the morning and tell you that I'm lost for words. And then, lo and behold, it turns out that I'm not, because once I start talking, words come out. But I haven't said anything yet.

I've said words, but I'm lost for words to properly describe what I just read to you. I'm genuinely lost for words. And I don't know anymore whether it matters that this won't... affect the people that think they like him or the people that think that he's on their side I don't know whether it matters that he could shoot someone yada yada yada Fifth Avenue not lose a single vote I think I find the

absolute absence of humanity, really chilling. But again, I'm lost for words. Chilling? What does chilling mean? What's chilling? Films are chilling, you know? This is the president, this is the crucial point you need to take on board before you tell me what you think is going on. The president of the United States of America, you know the old phrases, the man with the nuclear codes.

The lying is now absolutely normal, right? The administration reaching new heights, surpassing all goals and expectations of greatness. The golden age of America upon us. Maybe people still suck this up. Maybe people still swallow this nonsense, but anybody capable of counting knows that none of that is true. But that's baked in now. That's part of our calculations. That's part of our shared reality. The President of the United States of America tells lies.

like it's going out of fashion. He calls the truth fake news and he calls lies alternative facts. He's been doing that since he got into the White House. And unfortunately, that song has been sung. Didn't matter. Nobody cared. On he goes. But this, a man, I mean, still in the mortuary, his son under arrest for his murder, a son who's had well-documented problems with drugs and...

his own mental health. And the President of the United States of America gets his phone out and types this. A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife Michelle. Reportedly due to the anger he caused others is the first lie. through his massive, unyielding and incurable affection with a mind-crippling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome.

We've said a few times that is a phrase only used by people who are defending the indefensible and trying to pretend that the real problem lies with the people describing and condemning the indefensible. He was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.

And with the golden age of America upon us, perhaps like never before, may Rob and Michelle rest in peace. I mean, listen, none of us, well, you might, I don't have the qualifications to undertake any form of diagnosis here. I know that Rob Reiner was, many years ago, he talked about, well, about four years ago, he talked about a TV project he was doing called The Spy and the Asset, which would look at the relationship between Donald Trump.

and Vladimir Putin. I don't know what became of that, but there might be a personal animus in place here. How on earth did the director... of when Harry Met Sally gets so far under the president's skin that even by his standards, he's taken complete leave of his senses in a public forum. So that might be part of the answer to the question. But...

What on earth is happening here? It's the only question I've got for you. Let's see if you're any better than me at putting it into words. He was given an opportunity to, I don't know. withdraw, reverse, rethink, apologize, and he instead did this.

A number of Republicans have denounced your statement on True Social after the murder of Rob Reiner. Do you stand by that post? Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned. He said... uh he liked he knew it was false in fact it's the exact opposite that i was uh a friend of russia controlled by russia you know it was the russia hooks he was one of the people behind it

I think he hurt himself in career wise. He became like a deranged person. Trump derangement syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country. Yeah. And you'll remember the reaction when Charlie Kirk died and people criticized him and Donald Trump fans were at the forefront of people were threatened with deportation for not being sufficiently respectful.

Absolutely shocking. And oddly, when Charlie Kirk died, Rob Reiner expressed his shock and sadness at it, saying it should never happen to anybody. It's beyond belief what happened to him. He described his... absolute horror at seeing the events that unfolded, adding, I don't care what your political beliefs are, that's not acceptable, that's not a solution to solving comments, to solving problems.

And then he gets murdered and Donald Trump, he just dances on his grave. But that's a figure of speech. It's not an explanation. What happened there? What's happening here? What exactly do you think is going on? That such hideousness can be disseminated from such a high position. 03456060973. Why did Donald Trump do this? And...

I'll take any answer you've got because I'm dashed if I know. Hit the numbers now. You will get through. 03456060973. And Simon Marks is with us at half past 12 as well. So no doubt he'll have something to add to this. as well. In 21 minutes after 12, we didn't really hesitate to wonder whether Joe Biden was ill, did we? Or whether his cognitive function was in decline. It was pretty hard to avoid evidence that things weren't.

very rosy when he did that presidential debate or that election debate with Donald Trump. But I mean, one answer I'd come up with in answer to what... What on earth is going on in this message Donald Trump posted about the murder of Rob Reiner? I would say to you, I'd ask you, do you think he might be very ill? But, I don't know. Russ is in Bangor in Northern Ireland. Russ, what would you like to say?

Morning, sir. How are you? I'm good. What's going on here? It's the weirdest thing, right? I'm not exaggerating, even by his standards. This is gross. Isn't it one of these moments where you look at the word in the dictionary and then it says Trump, which is the word sociopathic? There's no other word for what's happened here. What does that mean?

Well, it means he's got no empathy. He doesn't know how other people feel. So he shows no kindness. He doesn't understand what's appropriate, what's inappropriate. He has no remorse. All the words that you would find... to define a sociopath, summed up in that message that he wrote about Rob Reiner. And to be honest, this is deja vu, isn't it, James? How many times have we been around this block with Donald Trump?

Quite a few. Why does this one seem to slap harder? I mean, we go back to the quote's greatest hits, don't we, of when he mocked the disabled journalist, when he assaulted the family of the gold star. military veteran um there'll be other ones that we can't really remember the way he's spoken about women the way he's spoken about

Political rivals, former allies, the way he's spoken about the BBC. Well, that's less exercise. Does it not feel worse to you, this, in some way? Can it be worse than... like literally physically mocking a disabled journalist? I don't think it is. I think it's just another touch point. Rob Ryan is dead. He's dead. He's been murdered, mate. It is worse. It's the worst he's ever done this, I think. It's...

Well, it's just a terrible example of his behaviour, but it all comes back to this same thing, that he has no understanding of how other people feel at all. None of his... See, I disagree with that. He must have a sort of... Yeah, he must have a diabolical... grasp of how people feel because he feeds he gets elected after essentially inciting an insurrection against his own seat of government he understands some people implicitly better than any other politician of our age

as long as it suits his purpose this is the point that everything comes back to him the world revolves around donald trump everything revolves around him whether that's the death of an actor who he didn't agree with whether it's for him to get into power or for him to better himself and better his money like he's...

He's suing of the BBC. I know you've moved on from that this morning. No, no, I haven't. It's still front and centre. But that's just another moment, isn't it, where he's just trying to get more for him. Yeah, but I can get my head around that. I can explain that. I could give a TED Talk on why he's suing the BBC. I can't. I mean...

And respectfully, your brushstrokes are very broad and they would apply to all manner of behaviours. This goes further than anything I can remember him doing. And perhaps that is the explanation, is this... um the the russia stuff and that seems to be where he is at his most thin-skinned and his most frightened doesn't it and when he's frightened he lashes out so it would be the dying yeah of course which is also the two buttons we can push aren't they we could

Keep pushing the Epstein button. In fact, let's have that. Let's say that again today. Can we get that list published? They're supposed to release everything by Friday. That's a shame. I would have drip fed it because it annoys him. I would have built one out a week for every week of his presidency just to annoy him because it really gets under his skin.

It seems to. And if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. But we're not going to come up. I mean, I'll take sociopath, obviously. That's a word that seems to fit the available parameters. I can't remember. Thank you, Russ. Take care. I can't remember that... questions we used to ask when we thought that that this was unravelable or and this is the really sad thing when we thought that eventually everybody would see the light

for me that day was january the 6th that's so mad looking back i thought that would be the moment where people who had people in this country who had cheered him or facilitated him or had said, don't worry about what he says, just focus on what he does.

I honestly thought that when January the 6th come round, I wasn't expecting written letters of apology or to get my job on Newsnight back or anything like that. But I honestly thought that people who had used the phrase Trump derangement syndrome would just not apologise.

but just shut up for a while i honestly thought that i thought january the 6th would be the moment where everybody went yeah he was actually quite he was as bad as everybody said he was and and well you know what happened next he got back into the white house so I don't do those phone-ins anymore. I don't ask those questions anymore. The questions that are predicated by a presumption that eventually everybody would agree with what is obvious, as in the innate awfulness of this human being.

of this politician, crucially. So I don't expect to unravel that. But what was he doing here? What was he doing when he decided not just to write this, which is mad enough, but to press send? That's the bit that I think is... Hardest to grasp. A man has been murdered and the President of the United States is celebrating. He is dead. He is making it about himself.

He is lying about the circumstances of the murder, the motive for the murder as far as we know, because their son, Michelle and Rob Reiner's son, Nick, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Rob Reiner is dead. Donald Trump is lying about him, lying about his murder, lying about his life, lying about his own administration. And the body hasn't been, I mean, to coin a phrase, the body isn't yet cold.

Why is he doing this? What is he doing? Is that the question? What is he doing? 0345 6060 973. Tony's in Greenock. Tony, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Thanks for taking the call. I think he's legitimising the reaction of his base. He's echoing what his base have been saying online about Rob Reiner. And by him saying it, it kind of legitimises what they're saying.

rather than there being outraged from people about it. Were they saying that after he died? Yes, very much so. Some of the comments, I mean, I'm unfortunate. Well, not unfortunate. I remain on X. Sure. Some of the comments on X about Rob Reiner were just awful. Absolutely awful. They're celebrating the demise of this man.

And as I was saying to your producer there, I think he himself celebrates the demise of his critics. And the higher profile, the more he celebrates it because these people clearly have, you know... They should be allowed to criticize him, but in Trump world...

You're not allowed to criticize. So these people celebrating it would be the sort of self-appointed champions of free speech who wanted people deported for not being suitably respectful of Charlie Kirk after he was murdered. Rob Reiner, whose crime in their eyes is to...

to offer very kind of thoughtful and evidence-based analyses of Trump's conduct. You're not allowed to criticize him. And if you criticize him, this perhaps is a message he's sending to people. If you criticize Donald Trump, you deserve to die. Well, he would celebrate your death. He wouldn't bemoan the fact you're dead. He would make your death about him rather than about the fact that you're actually dead, you know?

So as someone who's obviously paid a little bit, well, quite a lot more attention to elements of this than I have by dint of the platforms that I'm on and not on, Reiner really got to him. And he hadn't actually done much. He'd engaged in some fairly obvious, not obvious, some fairly thoughtful criticism. And there were rumors of a television project. But as far as I'm aware...

That's not imminent or in the can or anything like that, but he really, really got to Trump. Because of his profile, his high-profile Hollywood. It's successful critics he hates the most, isn't it? People who are literally the best in the world at what they do because he knows that he's not. So you take one of the finest film directors in the history of cinema. Yep. who can see Trump for exactly what he is, he's holed up a mirror.

The bigger you are, the better you are, the more powerful your mirror becomes for somebody as craven as Trump. You hold up the mirror, Trump sees himself in it, and he tries to smash the mirror and dance on your grave when you die. Yeah, that's pretty much it. the way I'm looking at it.

Half past 12 is the time. That works. That fits. I'm not quite as lost for words as I was at the beginning of this conversation, but there is room for a heck of a lot more. 03456060973 is the number you need, although Simon Marks is... due after the very latest headlines with Amelia Cox. It is 12.34. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. The man responsible for that hideous incident in Liverpool.

who drove his car into a crowd of people, is currently being sentenced. Updates on that story as and when they occur. But we turn next to Washington, D.C., where Simon Marks awaits and and once again it feels like a doctor's waiting room sometimes this we're here to diagnose donald trump's latest behavior where would you like to start simon with the bbc writ I was actually going to start with Rob Reiner, if you don't mind. Absolutely. Why is Trump doing what he's done, do you think?

Well, just to answer the question that you were asking before the break, what is Donald Trump doing here? I think Donald Trump yesterday here dramatically overplayed his hand. If you go to Truth Social, where he published... that message yesterday, shamefully and disgracefully sullying his own office by expressing the very hostile sentiments that he expressed to both Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle.

singer, Rainer. Look at the responses and you will discover that a substantial number of Donald Trump's followers from his Make America Great Again movement urged him to delete that message, said to him that It was inappropriate. We saw yesterday here not a single Republican lawmaker up on Capitol Hill willing to back what he was saying. The only person I could find yesterday who was going to bat for that disgraceful.

message was the far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who herself is no stranger to inflammatory, irresponsible messaging. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, walked away. from reporters when they questioned him about it he didn't even do what he normally does which is to say oh I didn't read it the president's got a sense of humor we didn't hear any of that I think this was of a much bigger magnitude

than, for instance, the shameful comments that he made several years ago about Serge Kowalewski, the New York Times reporter who is disabled. Because... Rob Reiner and his wife had a huge constituency of followers among the Democratic Party faithful, but they also had enormous fans outside the Democratic Party's base.

You know, who doesn't love When Harry Met Sally or This Is Spinal Tap or all the other great films that Rob Reiner directed? It's also important to talk about his wife, Michelle Singer. Reiner for a couple of different reasons first of all before she married Rob Reiner she was a photographer and she happens to have been the photographer who took the famous cover

picture of Donald Trump that appears on the art of the deal. Now, whether Donald Trump remembered that yesterday before he put that shocking message out or not is unclear. But not only did they have that personal history. But after she married Rob Reiner just last year, she was one of the co-producers of a documentary called God and Country.

and it really stuck in the craw of the Christian nationalists that that documentary exposed and investigated that absolutely lie at the heart of Trump's second term that documentary if you go and watch it and if you haven't seen it it is well worth a view god and country you can find it streaming on one of the streaming services somewhere

That lifted the lid on the Christian national movement and said to Americans, these people are going to take the country down exactly the path that Donald Trump...

J.D. Vance and all of the sycophants within the administration have taken America down since Inauguration Day back in January. So there was definitely personal animus towards her and Rob Reiner who also worked on that project and of course raised millions of dollars for political candidates including Kamala Harris before her former president Barack Obama and was an acolyte you know a hero of

the Democratic Party and progressive causes. But I think he overplayed his hand yesterday, even with his own support base. And I swore off this question probably six or seven months ago, and now you've made me ask you again. Is it likely to change anything, the support base notwithstanding, or will we back to business as usual in a week?

I mean, we may be back to business as usual in a week. There were many Trump supporters. I mean, they claimed to be Trump's voters who were saying on social media yesterday, Mr. President, I voted for you three times, but I am deeply, deeply disappointed by. this message you know the thing about that message is it is so profoundly un-american i mean it flies in the face

We're about to celebrate next year America's 250th birthday. It flies in the face of every tradition here of not dancing on the graves of your political opponents. People, I mean, in time... gone by presidents who disagreed politically with Rob Reiner and his wife, would nonetheless have put out a presidential statement paying tribute to the extraordinary contributions that they made to American society and American life. And they would have meant it. And they would have meant it, yeah.

Because they would have been acting in their role not as head of government, but as head of state. Remember, the American presidency combines the two roles. Now, all of that went out of the window during Trump's first term. tributes to Americans of note who passed away disappeared and to be fair about this

Joe Biden never really brought it back. So if you look at the people that Joe Biden paid tribute to, they were invariably people with whom he had an affinity, particularly ideologically and philosophically. So that era has gone.

but this is such an egregious disgraceful shameful moment for the presidency in terms of that role as head of state that i think there are hard-working americans out there doesn't matter what political party they back who look at that and they say you know what that is profound Un-american. Yeah, I mean to say the very least it is hideous almost incomprehensibly hideous, but thank you clearly the The position that

Rainer adopted and singer Rainer and Michelle adopted was was part of the reason why they had collectively borrowed so far under his skin Which I suppose brings us to the BBC. I don't sense that the BBC have borrowed under his skin anywhere near as much as

rob reiner did this feels this writ this lawsuit feels um a little more opportunistic perhaps than that hideous sort of bilious outburst yesterday Yeah, and there's a curiosity about the timing of this lawsuit. It has been over a month since Donald Trump first threatened to sue the BBC. And we're very used to Donald Trump making all sorts of threats to sue all sorts of people, and most of them he doesn't follow through on.

thinking last week you know maybe this thing has gone away maybe the lawyers spent more than a month trying to figure out if they had any legal justification for bringing this lawsuit whatsoever even you know especially in the sunshine state of florida and then suddenly yesterday and it was

Out of the blue, at the White House, after some event in which he pinned medals on people from his border force for doing all sorts of brave things, apparently, in keeping immigrants out of the country. After that, suddenly he went off... on a riff and told us that the lawsuit was imminent. Let's take a listen to what he said yesterday in the Oval Office. In a little while, you'll be seeing I'm suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth, literally to put words in my mouth.

They had me saying things that I never said coming out. I guess they used AI or something. So we'll be bringing that lawsuit. A lot of people are asking, when are you bringing that lawsuit? Even the media can't believe that one. They actually put... Terrible words in my mouth having to do with January 6th that I didn't say. And the beautiful words that I said. Right? The beautiful words.

Talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said they didn't say that but they put Terrible words. They actually have me speaking with words that I never said And then, of course, late last night, that lawsuit drops and it's been filed in the Southern Division of the US District Court in Miami. And if you read all 33 pages of it, I mean, I think that there will be many legal analysts who think.

that it is very thin legal gruel i mean he's suing the bbc demanding five billion for defamation and five billion for breaching the florida deceptive trading practices act the lawsuit is unable to identify a single viewer in Florida who watched the documentary, complained about it. and then change their vote as a result of viewing it. Instead, if you read the lawsuit, the BBC is presented, who knew, as this broadcasting powerhouse in Florida with its...

available to millions of Floridians whom apparently it influenced. I mean, buried in this lawsuit is evidence of the president's star witness. This changes everything. I mean, right, changes everything, right? She discussed the bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable and the BBC's pattern of actual malice. It complains about...

The words used by many analysts that were interviewed by the BBC, including the former Labour Secretary Robert Reich, Heather Cox Richardson, the politics professor at Boston College. It even complains about the fact that it. took a clip. of the BBC News coverage of Kamala Harris's convention speech in Chicago last year. And it complains about the fact that the sound is brought up of a BBC reporter or presenter saying that the mood is...

the room as she took to the stage was electric. Now all of that is going to be completely covered by America's First Amendment which guarantees freedom of speech. And notably, this lawsuit doesn't quote any of the myriad Trump supporters who were given free reign during the course of that hour-long documentary to explain why they were backing him for a second term.

And as we've noted before, the day after that documentary was transmitted, television critics in the newspapers back there in the UK... all hailed it for having avoided the trap of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and having actually given Trump supporters an opportunity to explain why they wanted him back in the White House. So, look, I mean, I think it may... I think it's eminently defensible. I know there are calls for him on the BBC to settle this in short order and get rid of it.

But I think they've got a real chance. I mean, it may be that the judge simply looks at the complaint, and as a previous judge did with the complaint against the New York Times for $15 billion, just throws the complaint out and says there's no merit.

to the complaint but let's see where it goes is it i mean listening to him there i just read the first line because people may not have seen it this action concerns i don't know if you have you ever been on a pound a word simon when you've been writing for newspapers

Or you've been writing an essay. Not a pound, mate. Not a pound a word. We've been watching the word count in the top right-hand corner of the screen and just waiting to get over the line so you could go to the pub. That's what this reads like. This action concerns a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious...

depiction of president trump i think they've run out of adjectives but again you've done it again you've tempted me back into trying to sort of doing the cryptology of trump In that clip you played, it sounds like he's not actually quite clear about what he's accusing the BBC of. He sounds as if he thinks it was an AI. depiction of him saying words that he never said, where it is, and actually in the writ, they don't...

put the correct edit in. They remove quite a large chunk that appears between the two clips that were spliced together by the BBC. So again that would undermine a case you'd imagine in a normal law. But he doesn't seem to understand what he's accusing the BBC of in that clip. Yeah, we should be absolutely clear. There is no connectivity between what Donald Trump said in the Oval Office yesterday and what the lawsuit alleges. I mean...

We know that we know whether he knows it or not. We know the BBC did not. put words into his mouth. They took two parts of the speech, jammed them together inappropriately and didn't disclose to the audience that that's what they'd done. They certainly didn't use, as he keeps inferring, and he's done this on numerous occasions. They certainly didn't use AI literally to put words into his mouth. And the lawsuit doesn't assert that.

at all. So those claims are not being advanced legally. And the lawsuit, I mean, you know, this thing runs 33 pages when the judge down in Florida, a Republican appointee, dismissed the complaint against the New York Times. He made the point that when you bring these defamation lawsuits, the complaints themselves are required to be short, to the point.

and very very clearly identify why the alleged uh crime uh aggrieved someone in the jurisdiction in which uh the alleged behavior took place this is another one of these lengthy Billious legal documents that chucks everything, including the kitchen sink into the into the language, refers to Donald Trump's brand as one of the world's great business leaders. You know, the courts have previously.

shown in florida they don't have any truck with that kind of stuff and it may well be that on this occasion they don't have much truck with this if they choose to go forward to a trial as i say so much of the bbc's alleged conduct alleged misconduct looks at first glance as though it's entirely covered by the first amendment that they've got the opportunity i think to put up a very vigorous defense and

By the way, so does the British government, if the British government chooses to say to Donald Trump, get your mitts off my public broadcaster. I mean, they could even countersue, but that would be too much to wish for. Yes, they could. As indeed would... Well, they could definitely...

Yeah, an appearance from Liz Truss in the witness box I would actually put on pay-per-view, I think, Simon. Thank you. I mean, it's all there, isn't it? It's all unfolding. And as ever, you managed to steer a... fairly clear course through the madness for us so thank you very much indeed for that Simon Marks live from Washington DC I'm yet to present a program that would not be adorned by the presence of Simon Marks but some days it's even more valuable of course than others.

Make some sense of that if you can. The sentencing of the so-called Liverpool parade attacker is underway as we speak. If there are any conclusions to that process before Sheila gets here, I'll bring them to you immediately or at least after. this. It is 12.53. I've got a new game. Whisper Watch. And in fact, it comes from the same brain, a rather splendid, speaking about all my favorite people on social media today, a chap called Roland Smith, who is a sort of refugee.

From Tufton Street, provides very good critiques of Brexit as well. And I think it was him that drew my attention to unhinged headlines first on his account. And he's identified a new craze. on the outer reaches, the lunatic fringe of the Daily Telegraph. And were I to turn it into a radio feature, I would call it Whisper Watch, because he's collated a succession, a veritable series of headlines that all begin with the words Whisper Watch.

it whisper it so it essentially is a way of writing something bonkers and pretending that it's an insight so today you have Teresa Villiers do you remember her Theresa Villiers has written under the headline, whisper it, but Badenoch is dragging the Conservatives back from the brink. To which the only correct response is, whisper it, but the opinion polls say that she isn't. And then you go back a little further and you've got...

This is from someone called Camilla Tomini. Whisper it, but Rishi Sunak is making an extraordinary comeback. So it's a bit like what Donald Trump does, isn't it? It's like if we can get it into a headline, maybe it will become true, even though it obviously isn't true at the time.

that we're writing the article this is from someone called david blair whisper it but it's just possible that sanity is returning to u.s diplomacy imagine putting your name to that another one from Jeremy Warner, whisper it, but Labour is about to inherit a rallying economy.

And then shortly afterwards, whisper it. But here comes a 1920s-style post-pandemic boom. I mean, who wouldn't keep him on the payroll? Here's one from someone called Fraser Nelson. Whisper it. But I'm beginning to see how Boris just might survive this. Tom Harris, whisper it, but Labour is now saying that Thatcher and Truss were right. Whisper it, says someone called Lucy Denier, but millions of people are enjoying lockdown.

It could go on, but I can't face any more. So there's another one. Should we start Whisper Watch? Should we start Whisper Watch? Would we get a thing for that? No, why not? Why can't I do it myself? Whisper Watch. There you go, Rick. It'll take six months. and of course they'll stop doing it again like they stopped printing the unhinged headlines just as unhinged headlines got up and running so well spotted roland um

whisper it, but the Daily Telegraph is still as mad as a box of frogs, even though they've stopped running the unhinged headlines that we had so much fun with together. Speaking of unhinged, Greg's in Brighton. Not you, Greg, Donald Trump. What's going on? Hi, James. Well, I think effectively we've got something which is just partly about strategy. Trump and his team from day one have had a very clear strategy to upset liberals at any cost.

And I think here he's absolutely overstepped the mark by what Simon was saying. Because Reiner had got so far under his skin, perhaps, that he's normally fairly... impressive judgment of exactly where the lines of what he can and can't get away with are, he's lost sight of it for once. Yeah, I think so. I think this is where his sociopathy and...

strategies sort of have met in a mutated form and really blown him out of the water. It's such a, you know, hideous, hideous thing to say, but it has upset liberals. So perhaps even in his own terms,

He's sitting there in the office with his colleagues saying, what's the problem? Well, he's also upset quite a lot of non-liberals, as Simon rather splendidly pointing out, wading through the replies on Truth Social so that you don't have to, Greg, and even more importantly, so that I... don't have to i wonder whether the bbc writ is a consequence of him realizing that he's overstepped the mark so you have a kind of um

It's a bit like whenever Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss used to mention Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. You knew that they were a little bit desperate because Corbyn had been gone for ages, but they'd still bring him up. PMQs. And it was as if it was an in case of emergency break glass. And yesterday, Trump had a bit of an emergency after seeing the reaction to his hideous comments about Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner.

And he broke the glass and all he had in there was a writ against the BBC. Oh, crikey. I thought, well, right, let's sue them. Disparaging, deceitful, dishonest, disgusting. And here's my star witness, Liz Truss. It's not something you'd reach for except in an emergency, is it? I don't know. Last word on this to James, who's in Brockworth. James, what do you reckon? Hello, James. Hello, James. Pleasure to talk to you. I agree, James. Yeah.

I was ringing you up basically to try and make sense of Trump, which many people have tried to do. But basically, I speak from a position of being the son of someone who's... got narcissistic personality disorder oh crikey i'm sorry and yeah it's i've not had any communication with my father for for a decade now um and having researched uh into what might have gone wrong generally

narcissistic personality disorder was what came to the front. And I see all the same traits in Donald Trump as I do in my own father. That inability to empathise everything's about him. And also just listening to Simon's clip where he was saying, oh, I didn't do all this. There's that whole acronym that's used to describe people with NPD, which is DAVO. Have you ever heard of it? Yeah, go on, run me through it again.

So you've got denial, so denying something ever happened, attack, which is how dare you say this about me, and then reversal of victim and offender. So all of a sudden they become the victim. And basically this... latest heinous thing he's put down is just another example of him unable to see empathy, make it all about himself. And now, of course, with the BBC, it goes back to Darbo, which is all to do with NPD.

Yeah, I like it. Well, I don't like it, but I like the analysis. I'll tell you something else someone has said, which is quite clever, is that in many ways, Rob Reiner had done to Donald Trump what... tom cruise's character did to jack nicholson's character in a few good men in that they got so far under his skin that his head exploded which could explain um what what we witnessed on true social yesterday horrible horrible horrible

Sometimes you just have to stop and point that out, even if it is all part of an almost overwhelming tidal wave of filth emerging from a politician or an office. You just stop and say, that's just gross. We're all better than that. Regardless of everything else we might disagree with, we're all better than that. You don't dance on the grave of dead film directors. If you missed any of today's show, you can listen back on our...

free global player, or indeed on the new LBC app where you can stay up to date on the top stories and opinions. Put your news categories in the order you want. Pause and rewind live radio and listen to a range of podcasts, including James O'Brien Daily. It's Gary Southgate this week on Full Disclosure. it's an absolute doozy download the official LBC app for free from your app store now coming up at four on LBC it's Tom Swarbrick but now it's time for Sheila Fogarty