Has Wes played a blinder?

This is LBC from Global. Leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien. Three minutes after ten is the time of very good morning to you. I hope you're well today. I do fine as I get older. I lean towards saying things to you at the top of the show like, oh, it's mild out, isn't it? I think I might be turning into my mum.

But it is mild out, isn't it, for this time of year? I'm turning the heating off when I get home, not just in full dad mode, but because it doesn't need to be on. Shall we begin? With a little bit of Socrates. Should we begin every show until Christmas with a little bit of Socrates? I speak, of course, of the ancient Greek philosopher, not the legendary Brazilian football player. Or Socrates.

Shall I tell you what the cultural reference is or shall I just let you have that little nugget, that little Easter egg for those who have similar enthusiasms to me? Socrates. We'll start with a little bit of Socrates. The unexamined life is not worth living. said the great man himself, probably. And I wonder some mornings where the line is between self-examination and self-obsession. How much do you examine your life before you turn into a crashing bore?

Who can only ever talk about themselves. Yeah, all right. Don't all shout at once. I appreciate I'm vulnerable to that accusation sometimes. And the reason I mention it is because I noticed something today about... What's his chops? Where's Streeting?

I have a weird reaction to... People who seem too good to be true or people who are pulling away from the pack. I've got it a bit with Zach Polanski, the leader of the Greens, but that is very much a holding pattern until I get the opportunity to... find out more about him and ideally sit down with him for an hour or so on full disclosure. I have done that with Wes Streeting and I came out of that. He doesn't, there's two interviews Nick did this morning.

I don't know if you heard either of them or both of them or neither of them, but I'll give you a quick pricey. The head of the Mets, Sir Mark Rowley, is... quite remarkably and understandably guarded. Much harder interview, I imagine. I'm sure Nick would agree. A much harder interview than Wes Streeting because some people professionally either can't or won't give you much.

For example, he refused to specifically take on the ludicrous insults, the hideous insults. that the President of the United States, in a profoundly racist fashion, has directed at our triple times elected mess, Sadiq Khan. And he won't get involved in that. He calls it a sparring between politicians.

I don't know. I was tempted to do that as a phone-in. I suppose I still might, whether or not that is the correct thing to do, whether or not he should stick up for them. I kind of think probably not. Focus on the words that Trump has said about London rather than necessarily getting involved in the to-ing and fro-ing of what you could call political point scoring. I personally would make an exception when it gets racist.

But I suppose you could mount a case for saying that Trump hasn't actually been explicitly racist. It's just that everybody knows he is. So Rowley doesn't give you much. as an interviewer. And when you're listening to interviewee, you can hear the guardrails. You can hear the portcullises. Is that the plural of portcullis? It must be, mustn't it? Is it a Latin word? It might be portculli.

portcullis, Socrates, Greek to Latin and it's only seven minutes after ten. You can hear the portcullises that are in place. You don't even need to hear them coming down because they've never been lifted up. And that's fine. You wouldn't want the head of the Met to overshare. necessarily, would you? You wouldn't want the head of the Metropolitan Police to come out of the studio and go, ooh, I wonder if I went a little bit too far that time.

Streeting's a much more interesting character in many ways, just solely from an interviewing point of view, because he seems to be quite unguarded on occasion. I'm calling the BMA... or the sort of leadership of the BMA, moaning minis not long ago and expressing to Nick his complete lack of respect, respect, regret for...

that turn of phrase. There's a very interesting interview in the New Statesman magazine this weekend in which he's pretty outspoken about his dissatisfaction with elements of his own government. But it could be that that's incredibly cynical and carefully contrived. It may not be unguarded at all. It just looks unguarded. And this is what I mean about my own slightly reflex reactions to people who...

Everybody else is beginning to paint as the answer to our problems. So whether it is Zach Polanski or Wes Streeting, even if I really, really like someone previously, as soon as they move into that position, I don't know whether it's personal or professional, actually.

If I didn't do this for a living, I think it's my job to work harder to look for the flaws, to look for the problems, to look for the feet of clay, if you like, which is a very roundabout way of telling you that I can't find any this morning.

When is the last time I came on air and said to you, I think that a politician's performance during a potential or a period of crisis has been close to perfect? When's the last time I did that? I don't know that I ever have actually. And oddly it's not just the politician I'm going to be saying that about this morning. I would suggest that.

Sir Mark Rowley's response to Donald Trump's lies about London, which are lifted wholesale from Russian bots, racists and Nigel Farage fans, although I appreciate that if that were a Venn diagram, it would look a lot like a circle. Russian bots, Russian bot farms, trolls. obvious white supremacist racists and Nigel Farage fans who obviously don't live in London because if they did they wouldn't be able to lie straight in bed after claiming that this city is at some particular peril.

So Mark Rowley has probably responded to them in terms that are close to perfect. And I think we may talk about both today. In fact, we'll examine both. slightly hyperbolic claims of mine that these men have both come close to political perfection.

So, no, I said nice things about Matt Hancock. I definitely never said he was handling things perfectly. I fully appreciate that is the biggest historical example of the curse of O'Brien, which is not confined to right wing politicians, by the way. Whenever I say nice things about...

anybody they end up letting us down. Maybe that's why I've got this reflex reaction now to people who are pulling ahead of the pack. If I join in and say, oh yes, he's got leader written all over him, then it'll turn out tomorrow that he tortures puppies for fun at weekends. Or similar. But I think it's healthy as well. You know, if you are relying on me to help you form the opinions you need to vote and think in evidence-based, informed, fact-based fashion.

then I can't get caught up in other people's cults. I can't get caught up in other people's fan clubs, even if I am sometimes tempted to. So...

We are, I think, facing a bit of a flumageddon. You can have that for nothing if you want. I think there's a bit of a flumageddon on the horizon. Clearly... The figures are much greater than this time last year, much, much greater than two or three years ago. There'd be various reasons for that. But the incidence of flu, whether you're looking at it from a big picture or a little picture perspective,

It's looking pretty hairy, right? It's looking pretty scary. It's not just the politicians telling us that. It's the NHS professionals and the NHS leadership. And you can't help but feel that... for resident doctors to go on strike now, to go on strike next week, in full knowledge. that the NHS is under mortal threat from a flu, a particularly virulent flu epidemic that is currently growing at a rate of knots, you can't help thinking.

that it would be a particularly ill-advised position for resident doctors to take. Well, at least I would say at the first turn, at the first glance, this so-called super flu, outbreaks in schools, for example. are off the chart. Some of these graphs are proper double-take head-turning territory, caused by a particularly infectious strain, with health chiefs describing a, and I quote now, worst-case scenario.

Hospital admissions for flu up by more than 50% in a week. Chemists, it happened to me yesterday. I went to three separate chemists. Two Boots and a Superdrug, which is a dreadful rewriting of the Partridge in a Pear Tree song, isn't it? Two Boots and a Superdrug yesterday, and three of them. Or was it Two Superdrugs and a Boots?

Hang on, three calling birds, two super drugs and a boots. And none of them had a jab and none of them had a flu jab, which I wanted to get. Because if I'm going to get a bit, if I'm going to ail a bit with the side effects, I'd rather I did it over the weekend. you see, when you don't rely upon me to entertain you.

and inform you so if i'm going to feel a little bit crook as you sometimes do with jabs but i didn't last time that was the plan so i'll be out today as well after the show looking for chemists that have doses um In fact, if you are a chemist and you have got doses and you are en route from London's fashionable Leicester Square back to Brentford, then let me know and I'll see you later. But...

They were running out, so I know that that's true as well. I also know two teenage boys who have been hospitalized, one with an infection that moved and one who was just simply absolutely... banjax by it so they had to put him on a drip and i don't know why i find the fact that they are teenage boys or fighting age boys as you have to say in the land of ferridge

uh fighting age boys you sort of think of them as being more physically robust they're certainly more physically robust than me or their nans aren't they and they've fallen pretty hard with it um Particular problem, of course, is that you can't get the vaccination if you are aged between 2 and 17. I think that's right. Four million children remain unvaccinated.

uh age between two and 17 by the end of october no you can get vaccinated you just couldn't go we couldn't get one yesterday for my 17 year old i don't know about the detail of it and that's not what our conversation is about today here is the question

Wes Streeting has called upon doctors, resident doctors, not to strike. And that bit is fine. That is what you would expect. But he's also offered to extend the mandate. So rather than striking next week, having a survey this weekend and deciding whether or not the strike goes ahead, rather than do that, he has suggested that they work through the flu outbreak.

and come back in January, at which point he will extend the mandate that is currently in place. So the last positive strike vote runs out of road, if you see, or I guess towards the end of this month. And as health secretary, he can, I presume, I presume he has the authority to say.

Don't worry about the mandate. You don't need to have a full re-ballot. You can do next month the survey you were going to do this weekend and just decide whether the support is there for strike action. And we often expect our politicians to come up with... answers to insoluble problems. And I am here, and the phone lines are open for you to attack me, hopefully in slightly polite fashions, please, because I can't remember the last time I heard a politician...

come up with something that sounded both constructive and correct. I mean, in a moment of crisis, not like an overall policy announcement. I really like what Lisa Nandy had to say this week, for example, about... But in terms of an imminent crisis, there is an iceberg ahead. And the captain of the ship, in this case the NHS, has, to my mind, issued really good orders.

precisely because of that postponement of the mandate. That's the bit that strikes me as both creative and correct. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you were not in favour of complete capitulation... What West Streeting has done with regards to the deal offered, the promises made... two resident doctors which address some of the things that pops up on this program caller after caller after caller insisting that they were not on strike

exclusively and in many cases not even at all for greater pay. They were on strike in pursuit of better terms and conditions especially for the trainees, the doctors, the resident doctors who were coming up in generations after them. He appears to have put together a package for precisely those resident doctors present and future that addresses many of the problems.

And with regard to the postponement of the mandate, I think he's closed down all avenues of complaint until you tell me otherwise. Listen, it doesn't actually make for brilliant radio. when we all agree that a politician has done something right. But every now and then I think it's important that we do it. I'm not suggesting for a minute you have to ring me to agree with me, but if it turns out that way...

What I suppose I want is a junior doctor who's unpersuaded, a resident doctor who is unpersuaded by this. The Holy Grail, perhaps. A resident doctor who was in favour of strike action but believes that the health secretary has done enough.

to assuage their concerns. We heard a couple of potentials in that category on The Breakfast Show this morning. And of course, because of the way that I'm framing the question, we can all get involved. This isn't just about resident doctors. This is about whether or not you, as a voter... and a potential patient or an actual patient in the NHS feel that the Secretary of State for Health is, as I'm going to say it,

All right, I think he's playing a blinder. I'm not persuaded that he's the king across the water. I'm not persuaded that he's the answer to all Labour's problems. I'm not even persuaded that he's a shoo-in to be the next Labour leader. He's got a small problem called the actual party membership to get over first, as well as...

lots of rivals in the event of Keir Starmer running out of road. But this morning, as of this morning, with regard to this crisis, this combination of crisis, the flu epidemic exploding... super flu exploding, and resident doctors still intending to go on strike next week, I think West Streeting has played a blinder. Do you.

0345 6060 973. That's it. That's the question. I think he's played a blinder. Do you agree? Whether you're a resident doctor, whether you haven't been to see a doctor for 30 years.

or whether you're only just getting across the facts now as I share them with you. They're supposed to be going out on strike next week. There is a massive super flu crisis. There is a strike mandate in place, and the Secretary of State for Health says, help us get through this crisis, and then come January... we can get back to where we are today but let's just press pause for a month and put the welfare the safety the health of the nation first i think it's a blinder but i could be wrong

19 minutes after 10, 0345 6060 973. Hit the numbers now, and you could be on first on this fun-filled Friday. Call 0345 6060 973. It is 21 minutes after 10, and it is a question I don't think we ask very often. Whoever's in power, I suppose you would have hoped I'd have asked it a little bit more often with the Labour government than you would ever get under Liz Chuss or Boris Johnson or even Rishi Sunak. But are we witnesses?

a politician gets something almost entirely right. I speak of Wes Streeting and his approach to the imminent resident doctor's strike. And I use a phrase I can't remember using to describe a politician in years. But is he... Indeed playing a blinder. There's two crucial constituents to this. One is the flu crisis that is unfolding and one is the postponement.

of the mandate or the extension of the strike mandate so that resident doctors are being told help us get through this albeit that we've put a better deal in place we've addressed a lot of the things that you were telling us you were worried about help us get through this And we can get back to the conversation. If you don't like the New Deal, we can get back to the negotiation. We can get back to the conversation about striking.

in january and i don't know what else he could have done except capitulate and if you think he should have capitulated completely well 03456060973 is the number for you just to just to clarify one thing the um usual rule in place on these, where absolute priority is given to resident doctors, people caught in the actual crux.

of the conversation is not in place i'm not a resident doctor i hope that doesn't come as a major surprise to anybody but um we are all affected by resident doctor strikes and whether we realize it or not we are all affected by And this is one of those juxtapositions, one of those moments where personal and political run headlong into each other. And I don't see much room.

I'm getting nervous now. I say something like this out loud and I think you're setting yourself up for a massive fall. I don't see much room for criticising how West Streeting is handling this. If you do, front of the queue. Anne's in Kenneworth. Anne, what would you like to say?

We may never know. Anne, can you hear me? Hello? There you are. What would you like to say? Hi. Thanks for having me on. Well, I was just saying to your researchers there that... I find what he's saying disingenuous. Oh, good. There we go. Straight out of the blocks. And we're already sort of reviewing the situation. Tell me why.

Well, because Wes is saying that he wants to protect people, he wants to protect staff, he wants to protect the general public. But I find that disingenuous because he is not doing the things that would protect the staff and patients. We had the medical editor for the BBC, Fergus Walsh, on the BBC News last night saying that the fluid-resistant masks that are being provided for the staff and patients in hospitals and they're being encouraged to wear, they're not effective.

So if Wes was really serious about protecting people from the flu when they're accessing health care and giving out the correct advice for how to protect yourself in this epidemic, he would be putting his money where his mouth is.

giving out the correct advice and giving out the correct PPE. And he's not doing that. Why is he not doing that? Do you know, in the days before therapy, Anne... I would be biting your head off now for failing completely to address the question that I have asked on the programme this morning and going off down your own avenue of complaint in the context exclusively of the strike.

You haven't actually answered the question that I asked, whether or not he could be handling the negotiations, the mandate, the imminent walkout and its relationship to the flu crisis better. But happily, I'm a warmer. I'm a more forgiving and I'm a kinder human being than I was before I discovered the joys of therapy. So I will join you on your football pitch.

And I will say I didn't know that. I'm swatting up now on the idea that the face masks may be suboptimal and that that obviously would be something that falls under the health secretary's purview. I mean, does it change any of the thrust of what he has been doing this morning with regard to the strike? Well, I feel that it is connected because I think he's taking the moral high ground.

And that is disingenuous. I find that disingenuous. If he was really trying to protect staff, the NHS staff, then he would actually be protecting them by giving them, you know... What's your angle on this? Do you work in the NHS? I don't work in the NHS. Well, my angle is I'm concerned about accessing health care. If I need to go to the hospital, I don't feel protected when I go to the hospital.

And I don't feel that my relatives are protected either. My father-in-law has just had a stroke. He's in hospital at the moment. Everybody in the hospital around him won't be wearing the effective masks. There's flu going around. He is at risk. I can't find the story you're referring to. So are you suggesting that the masks they wear all the time are not fit for purpose? Yeah, they're not fit for purpose because flu is transmitted predominantly via the airborne route, as is COVID.

I can feel my pre-therapy self fighting to the surface now because this isn't really relevant to the conversation that we're having. And I'm sceptical. Slightly sceptical of the idea that the masks, the PPE that the NHS is using in normal times, all the time, is pointless and useless. No, they're not pointless and useless.

Someone needs to call Michelle Moan, I think. They offer some protection. Yes, but you want more. You want better. And you feel that that should be higher up on the list of West Streetings priorities. I'm afraid you have the advantage of me. in terms of knowledge and understanding. It's clearly something you care about very much, and I would never dream of making light of that.

And I will. I'll endeavour to find the research that I need or the reports that I need to get a better grasp of what you're saying. I don't, however, think it necessarily changes the...

arithmetic of what we're examining together this morning. The junior doctors, the resident doctors are due to strike next week. The NHS is under threat from a massive super flu crisis. The Secretary of State for Health is charged with... Spinning those two plates and outright capitulation is off the table, not least because of the size of the pay settlement that resident doctors received shortly after Labour coming to power. But...

He has met them on many of the other non-pay related issues that they insisted were a rationale for the industrial action. And as a consequence of those two things, the flu crisis and the improved offer, he has said. get us through this current crisis and move us on to January, at which point we can come back to the table and start negotiating. There's nothing to stop him, if Anne is correct about everything.

picking up the point with regard to PPE in the meantime. But I don't want, for the avoidance of doubt, I don't want to go down that avenue endlessly. I want to look at the question of how West Streeting is dealing, not with...

Anne's concerns about PPE, valid though I'm sure they are, but with resident doctors' concerns about... A, the terms and conditions that they currently enjoy, and I think more crucially, B, the terms and conditions that their followers into the profession will enjoy, and the combination of imminent superflu crisis.

And imminent industrial action. I think with those two counters on the table, he has displayed tactics that are close to faultless. In that very specific window of examination, close to faultless. But... You are, of course, welcome, indeed, encouraged to disagree. 03456060973 is the number that you need. And that other line he said to Nick, if the strike goes ahead, I cannot tell you that no patient...

will not come to harm or fatal harm. I cannot make that guarantee. He accuses the BMA of having chosen this week because, and again, I quote, they know it will be most painful for the NHS. And that is an accusation of opportunism. I wonder, Thor and Peter will be up first after the news, I wonder if you could accuse West Streeting of opportunism. Because the flu crisis is a weapon with which he can hit junior doctors, he can hit resident doctors over the head and sort of undermine.

the mandate and the rationale that they had for industrial action in the first place. Do you see what I mean? Maybe he's also being an opportunist. You can say to people going on strike at a crucial time, they are being opportunistic. They are using the crisis as an opportunity to drive home their point. possibly where Streeting can be quite easily accused of doing exactly the same thing. Half past ten is the time. Thomas Watts has your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC. Call 0345 6060 973.

10.33 is the time. We are nothing if not live, as you know. I've been signally unable to find any support for the idea that the Face Master NHS staff wear. are a cause for concern, as an earlier caller expressed. In fact, quite a lot of NHS people are a little unhappy about that opinion being voiced. I mean, perfectly entitled.

to be unhappy about it, but people are equally entitled to voice their opinions. But just for the avoidance of doubt, I would park those concerns until we are provided with...

More evidence or proof. And it is why the question is quite tight in its parameters this morning. West Streeting is addressing. the concerns of resident doctors he is introducing emergency legislation one of the strangest things about this country at the moment is the number and this is quite a middle-class observation i grant you The number of wannabe doctors with exceptional A-level grades who can't get into medical school.

the number of training places is smaller than the number of applicants. So 4,000 more specialty training places, specialty training places overall, 1,000 specifically for 2026. If you're paying exam fees and Royal College membership, you're going to get the money back. You're going to be reimbursed for that. The less than full-time allowance will be increased by 50% to £1,500 and the emergency legislation in the UK.

and Republic of Ireland medical graduates as well, as well as doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period of time, will be given priority over international graduates, something else that many of our callers told us. about so he is meeting those concerns without upping the wages and he is extending the mandate for the strike without expecting another full vote by the bma what could he have done better

Thor is in Walsham Forest. Thor, what would you like to say? Hello there. Good morning. Okay, just as a background, I've said this before, I was... In his next-door constituency, Leighton and Warmstead, and I was the Conservative chairman there for several years. And my best friend, John Kissane, was my opposite number in Ilford North, where Wes comes from.

I had two very hard-fought general elections where I campaigned against him. Okay. And I have to tell you, this man, Wes Streeting, has integrity coming out of his ears. He is... Never a dirty trick comes from him. Never any sort of unprofessionalism. I've been constantly impressed with his ability.

Do you know, the problem here is, and it's not your fault, this, but he is not very popular with much of the Labour membership, of course, and he's perceived as being very much on the right wing of the left wing party, the right wing of the Labour party. He's part of Labour Together. But what you're doing...

is, for them at least, I'm not suggesting they're right. I'm just telling you exactly what will be going on in their minds at the moment. You're proving their point. If you, as a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, you love West Streeting, that proves all the terrible things about him that this lot consider to be... Self-evident. But I'm a wet One Nation.

It was one of those one smoking facts I thought was wet behind the ears. You're a dying... You're an endangered species, Thor, aren't you? I'm an endangered species. Well, I'm not even a member anymore. There you go. I'm not surprised. Go on, tell me...

Did you really? Well, that's fair. You are the political constituency just while you're here that fascinates me most, actually, because I've got no idea where you're supposed to turn at the moment. But at the moment, you're turning towards West Street. I think he's...

He's a centrist. He's on the right of the Labour Party and I was on the left of the Conservative Party. So we kind of agree on a number of things. And I think, I mean, look, we've had some other good MPs in our area. Calvin Bailey, our current MP. ex-RAS guy. I think he's pretty good.

Just let me steer you back, if I may, rather than a sort of quick round-up of local MPs. Steer me back, steer you back to why West Streeting has got this right. What do you like about this intervention? Because he's... He's taking an unpopular stand, but he's absolutely right. We've got no money. We have no money in the kitty. And that's not really the fault of any government. It's because we have an aging population. We're in the middle of the...

The generation trap where we've got far too many retired people and not enough people paying in. There's just not enough money to pay for everything that people want. He doesn't have anywhere to go. We have nowhere to cut it from. But the doctors have had a big payout. Yeah, they want more. Everybody wants more. But you can't have it. And you can add a yet to that to sugar the pill. I can't let you make claims about our economic.

A parlous economic state without shouting Brexit at you, or of course pointing out that £11 billion... Well, I was part of the better off together. alongside my Liberal Democrat and Labour... I had a feeling you might be. I was going to be campaigning with them against Jeremy Corbyn, who didn't help us at all, but people always let off.

I don't let him off. He gets a whole chapter in how they broke Britain. But again, you're doing it again. It's like nailing jelly to a wall talking to you. I'm trying to get you to focus in on the thing under... Well, I suppose I brought Brexit up, didn't I? You did bring Brexit up.

are called par so you i mean you're a fan already as it were or an admirer already and the rationale for not giving them a pay rise is one that you have explained very clearly what about this notion of ending the mandate because in a way that keeps the dream alive of a pay rise it just postpones judgment day until next year and as as a sort of political veteran you probably have a stronger bead on that than i do because it's it's proper sort of

pork-barrel politics, isn't it? It's proper kind of detail, tactical detail, deciding to do something that plays very well with the public but actually kicks the problem down the road rather than removing it entirely. Real politics is about nuts and bolts. It's not about ideals. It's about getting things done.

Yeah, I mean, again, an area in which the left of the left would be shouting at the radio. Exactly. He says politics isn't about ideals. If I read you a message from Bruce, do you promise to take it in good spirit? Of course. He said, it's not the fault of any government, he says. Was this guy in a coma for 14 years? To which we both respond by saying, no, he was in the Tory party. Yep, OK.

I did check. I did check. I did check. 10.39. But you're right. The demographic change that renders... or explains much of our plight at the moment is not something that any government was responsible for, although some political parties remain in abject denial of the reality that Thor describes.

Peter is in Wolverhampton. Peter, what would you like to say? Hello there, James. Hello there, Peter. First up, congrats on your new Nelson Mandela state. Thank you very much. This is a reference, if you weren't listening yesterday, to my receipt of the Global Player Peace Prize, brackets, mid-morning weekdays, LBC only, close.

brackets. Thank you, Peter. Carry on. Well, I agree with your opening premise, actually. I disagree with your first call around. I'm in the rare position of thinking a politician wasn't disingenuous at all. Yeah, same. Instead of evading... He tried to just give straightforward answers to his proposals, you know. And I personally think that if resident doctors...

go ahead with the strike, they're going to shoot themselves in the foot because it seems to me that strikes work when they've got the public behind them. And I think he was entirely reasonable. Like I say, I'm in a rare position of agreeing with a politician and actually silently applauding one for just saying that this is what it is. Don't do this. And they'll shoot themselves in the foot.

yeah i think i mean again i'm open to correction as i'm sure you are as well but there's something there is something a bit odd about this sort of feeling in that you are pretty clear that nothing has been kept from you you are examining the conduct of a politician who is trying to actually get over a line he's not sort of he's not blowing smoke up our backsides and he's not

I don't agree with Thor about ideals. I think ideals absolutely have a place in politics. I think there has to be an interplay between pragmatism and idealism, and somewhere between those two posts, perfection lies. Political perfection, although neither of us have ever seen it in our lives. Yeah, I mean, he had a nice phrase this morning.

Don't substitute perfect for good or something like that. Yeah, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. I thought it was right. I thought it was right. I mean, I could say, over the course of my life, I've heard politicians... being asked questions and then answer a different one because the answer that they know they need to give isn't the one they want. I thought he was clear as day.

I think I agree with you. Although, as I explained at the outset, it makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I'm much happier lobbing criticism or picking holes in political positions than I am offering up cautious. As indeed Peter has been doing, cautious praise. That idea of, of course, answering a question utterly different from the one that you've been asked is increasingly known in the trade as faraging. I'll leave you to work out why.

Karen is in Kingston. Karen, what would you like to say? Hi. Briefly, I'm a doctor's mum and what... Sounds very simple, like your last caller alluded to as being very clear as day, etc., etc. It actually isn't when you know what goes on.

in the lives of junior doctors. It's like a lot of things. It's easy to talk the talk and sound simple whilst doing very little. I'd just like to make the point that we wouldn't be having this discussion if doctors hadn't been striking. They wouldn't be getting anywhere.

The value of strife speaks for itself. But let me just say... I don't dispute that. Sorry, where to start? Shall I talk about offer of more jobs for doctors? I think it's mentioned like 1,000 or something. 4,000. 4,000 specialty training. places overall but but crucially the prioritization of british and irish graduates over foreign international graduates

Come to that very briefly. We've been in opposition for many years. Well, this explosion of international doctors, it's literally been an explosion in the last few years, the last government, this one. Nothing has actually happened. We've had words, but nothing. has actually happened while doctors... Well, it's not a retrospective. I mean, he's literally saying, we will do this now. He's not saying we will do this last year or when the Tories were in power. So why hasn't it been done before?

Well, because the pressure hasn't been brought to bear upon them and the scale of the problem hasn't been properly appreciated. Again, this is a peon to strike action. This is a reminder of why industrial action is good. But I don't think you can say... Because he didn't do it in opposition, we can't trust him for saying that he's going to do it now. No, but he's been, how long has he been in power? About 18 months. Yeah, and the ratio, the difficulties of doctors' unemployment have...

been an explosion waiting to happen. He has known about this. Yeah, but they called off their strike action after getting the pay rise, Karen, as you know. So that was the BMA.

who punted it down the road, the problem, not the health secretary. The BMA went out on strike. They got the pay rise, and then they went back to work. They didn't say, sorry, thank you for the pay rise, but we're staying out until we get the... prioritization of British and Irish graduates over international graduates I mean you can't have it both ways because industrial action is a good thing and it focuses the mind and it can change

working terms and conditions, but equally going back to work has a similar heft and it was the BMA's decision to go back to work while this problem that you accurately describe remained unresolved. What are we saying that doctors carry on striking until it's resolved? I think it's something that we would expect the health secretary to perhaps be taking action on.

And they haven't as yet. This is what I mean by trying to have it both ways. As you correctly said, we wouldn't be having this conversation if they weren't on strike. But equally, he isn't going to address a grievance that they have gone back to work. They got the pay rise. They went back to work. I'm not picking a side here. I actually have enormous sympathy for the resident doctors. I just have a little bit less sympathy for your position as you're laying it out this morning.

I'm sorry, I'm probably not being very clear. I think what I'm saying is why isn't this being addressed? As a country, we're training doctors in the NHS and as a population, we're sending our children to be trained as doctors and we have a health secretary. feel as we speak, prioritising or making it very difficult for those doctors.

get jobs with the influx of foreign doctors as we speak. That's the health secretary's job, isn't it? I think he's addressing that. I mean, better late than never is a bit mealy-mouthed. I grant you that. But resident doctors could get, this is according to the BMJ, the British Medical Journal, 4,000 more training posts and Royal College examination and member fees covered. This is if they go back to work.

And they can postpone that decision until January, which is part of the conversation we're having about the political wisdom of what he's done this morning, as well as prioritization for UK medical graduates for trading places under a new deal proposed by the government. So you like what he's proposing.

just cross that it hasn't happened already I don't trust what I'm not an expert but one thing I don't for example the new jobs I understand from the medics and the chatter about it the lord of these are redesignation of existing jobs which won't help them progress up the chain as you know doctors they do a full day's work an incredibly difficult day's work they're all always going home to study for exams and their next training post to get

promotion in a speciality you have to keep doing blocks of say three to four years and reapplying for new jobs and to get those jobs you have to basically have attended loads of courses you have to show research that you've done you have to pass huge exams all in your own time at your own expense at the moment and you basically have to show exam fees are

going to be subject to reimbursement. So again, he's addressing that. And I suppose what I'd say to you on the question of trust, I suppose if I were West Streeting, I'd simply say, did they get the pay rise we promised last time? Can I say about the pay rise? Only after you answer my question. I'm late for them. Did they get the pay rise that was promised last time? They got the pay rise. So why don't you trust him?

Because they're still being paid less than the assistant standing next to them, the physician assistant. That's not what the industrial action was about the first time around. They accepted the offer on the table. And listen, I hope my mum would speak. speak up for me with as much passion and clarity as you speak up for your child.

But I have got a lot of resident doctors who are warm towards what West Streeting has done thus far, who were not as in favour of this round of industrial action as they were the previous one, and who I suppose we can join at the dining table, Karen.

we all tuck into a nourishing plate of wait and see pie. So it's funny that in the space of two calls, you go from someone championing the integrity to somebody questioning it. And I'm equally... sympathetic to both positions i just don't know what you judge we're streeting by in terms of good faith except whether or not he's delivered on the last things he promised to deliver the last time he met the bma halfway and um

presided and negotiated a settlement that saw them go back to work, considerably better rewarded than they were before they went out on strike. If I've missed anything there, I apologize. It's 10.49.

James O'Brien on LBC. Call 0345 6060 973. 10.52 is the time. Does this sound to you like a mystery hour question? Because if it is, we might do it next week. But have you seen the story about how much it's going to cost to go to football games at the World Cup next year in the United States or indeed in Canada? or Mexico. The figures are actually staggering, even by the standards of how expensive football can be.

in the in the modern day although obviously as a kid of mr harrier's fan i'm very rarely at the sharp end of price gouging or particularly expensive tickets in fact they let kids in at agborough for a pound of pots a lot of the time, which is lovely, encouraging a whole new generation of football fans. They won't be doing that.

in the United States next year, letting children in at a pound a pop in order to build up more love for the game. So you're looking at, for the cheapest tickets for the group games are £165, but in that, I don't, not entirely... possible event of England getting to the final, the tickets are going to cost more than £3,000. That's more than five times what they cost at the last World Cup finals in Qatar. And the question I wondered... about, whether it might be part of Mystery Hour.

We didn't break the website yesterday. They must have a much bigger... I think we broke Wren's. I was thanking Wren of Wren's Pantry for the lovely Indian spices that she sent me for Christmas. And then I was trying to flog some Mystery Hour games by sending you over to mysteryhour.co.uk because we have the... brand new travel game, James O'Brien's Mystery Hour Travel Edition.

It's in a tin. And we didn't break the website. Loads and loads of satisfied customers. And you can, of course, be one of them. Christmas just around the corner. But we didn't break the website. But is it a mystery? Our question, where does all that money go? Do we actually know? How can something go in price suddenly in a space of four years to five times?

more than it was last time it was on the market. That kind of price inflation seems to me to be stunning. Some of the money goes to the venue, but how much does it cost to go to a normal game in a US stadium, to go and watch a...

It'd just be American football, would it? Baseball diamonds are different, aren't they? I don't know. Don't at me on this. But where does all the money go? FIFA will get a big slice, of course. They've just been sucking up to Donald Trump in the most hideous of fashions.

And then the venue would get something. But how on earth can prices have gone up by so much? If I don't get an answer to that by close of play today, and I remember, which, let's be honest with each other, is entirely unlikely, then we will...

Stick it on Mystery Hour next week. Back to the strike. Back to the resident doctors. Back to Wes Streeting and the cautious suggestion that he's handling all this rather well. Indeed, extremely well. First sort of naysayer a moment ago. Omar in Hackney is on the line. Omar, what would you like to say? Hi, James. I don't think West Street comes off as genuine in pretty much any of his proposals, really. He's repeatedly caused...

called us delinquents as well and doesn't retract on his moaning mini remarks when he spoke to Nick earlier on. That's the leadership, isn't it, of the BMA? That's not the average doctor. That's not the average resident doctor that he's talking about. No, but Nick did clarify that doctors were also part of the BMA and he still doubled down on it. Yeah.

And in regards to... I think it's an important clarification. Even the delinquency, the juvenile delinquency comment, which he hasn't retracted and which he stands by, is directed very, very much at the BMA leadership. So, of course, you're entitled to feel... that he's tarring you with that brush. But he could equally argue that he isn't. Sure. The other side really is the offer that he's...

And it's quite hard to take that in good faith, especially with when the previous deal was struck with the resident doctors, where it was acknowledged. On the paper that this wouldn't be acceptance that this is full pay restoration and doctors still have some grievances regarding that. But then ever since then, all we've heard really is, well, you've received your pay offer. Why are you complaining now? And he does multiple times say he just can't understand why.

we're striking, which kind of baffles me, really. Well, again, you just stick a now in that sentence, don't you? I mean, it is a dream to restore... to achieve full pay restoration, to bring you back to... Although, as you will know, there's some dispute over which date you should use as the benchmark for equivalence for pay restoration. The argument from the government...

and it's the one that Thor in Waltham Forest put forward, is simply that we can't do it now. We obviously can't afford it now. Just stick your head out the window. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that. And a part of the way that you would move forward from that is getting a multi-play deal. But in any of the conversations, the government, West especially, has just rejected any form of that.

And I'm pretty sure most of my doctoral colleagues would agree with a multi-pay deal that is credible. But that just seems to have gone out the window. I mean, that would just stop the strikes from a pay aspect.

just there and then. But unfortunately, that really hasn't happened. But that's capitulation, isn't it? I mean, that's rarely how things end. Industrial action usually ends with negotiation. You start off with a demand in... very low expectation of getting it a lot of doctors were telling me last week a lot of junior doctors resident doctors were telling me last week

that the pay was actually not the big driving force for them. And that if he were to come across with the kind of offer that he's come across with regarding exam fees, Royal College membership fees, specialty training places, the full-time... allowances that then they would be satisfied you are clearly not one of those resident doctors no i mean it would only affect a subset of resident doctors that are in training the other doctors that are

SAS doctors or the doctors that are locally employed, it just wouldn't affect them at all. They wouldn't get any investment from the fees for examination. They wouldn't get any reimbursement for membership fees. because we're just not part of that club. And then you lead me back to the figure that I find almost impossible to believe. 40,000 applicants for 10,000 specialty training places that none of what he's announced is real. Well, except the prioritization of domestic graduates far over.

international graduates, but that's not going to give 30,000 people the jobs that they want overnight. So if West Streeting were here, what would he have to say at the very least, like your lowest possible offer? in order for you not to continue with your intention to strike? I mean, I think it would have to be multifactorial, really. There would have to be, in terms of pay, I'm sure the BNA membership, there would be a lot better. So you won't allow him to detach?

pay negotiations from the other issues. You will strike as long as there is no more pay on the table. I think that is one factor. The other factors that have become quite strong as time has gone on is... The training that is offered to the UK population, really, and other doctors that contribute to it. I am also quite baffled about the figure that he mentioned that it's one in four.

um that will be reduced to one in two where even just before this call when i went on to the previous year cycles ratios there were you know there were there were numbers like one in 13 for anesthetics one in 73 for cardiothoracics and I'm quite confused as to where he had

That's one of the ones where you should have rung him, not me, isn't it? I mean, again, off the top of my head, I mean, it's possible that you're going to have, when you're doing an average, you're going to have high numbers at one end and then very low numbers. at the other end, but I take your point. I think even if you were to do a simple Google search for what the applicant ratios were, if you were to just even eyeball the ratios,

you yourself would be quite baffled and even the members of the public. I spend my life in a state of bafflement and the NHS has no prescription for that. But before you go, how do you deal with this? Public opinion. Hang on. Can you answer the question before I've asked it? Opinion polling has got support for opposition to this. And remember, you had public support last time out. Opposition now is roughly 53 to 38.

against and that's that's a that's a nightmare scenario for everybody patient and practitioner alike i that is quite unfortunate um i mean but i'll be honest it's quite It's something that doesn't really come into my equations really, especially when, especially the reason why it really is when I'm faced with unemployment constantly, even though I'm in employment right now.

This isn't guaranteed. So if we're not in a training post, then we're in a never-ending cycle of six-month fixed terms, 12-month fixed terms. And so the moment you're in a job, you're already thinking about, well, am I going to be in here for the next six months? Am I going to be there after? And there's nothing on the table that addresses that.

Absolutely nothing at all. That is something everyone should care about. I mean, it's not, and as we've established, the difficulty in separating the pay demands from the rest of it is acute. And it's not necessarily improved by the way the conversation is being conducted. But I'm glad you were listening. I'm grateful for your input and at least some of the gloss.

has been knocked off the earlier analysis of what the health secretary was doing, although, and Omar's very honest to say, it doesn't really bother him what the public think, and arguably, nor should it, because you want him to be good at looking after you when you go into hospital. not necessarily relying upon your ability to crunch political moments. But the support for West Streeting, I think, is probably higher than ever among patients, potential and actual.

and higher than before among resident doctors, which again in political terms has to count as a win. I think, again, when we return to this subject, as we possibly will next week, you can explain to me in greater detail why I'm wrong. It is 11.02. On your radio. On the LBC app. And... Play LBC. Leading Britain's conversation. This is LBC. This is LBC from Global, leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien.

06 is the time. And remember when I used to talk to you all the time about magic eyes, the magic eye illusions, the things that if you were around in the sort of 90s, you'd have these pages, these pads of...

optical illusions. You'd stare at these sort of weird... patterns and shapes on a page and if you stared at it for long enough then an image would come into view i don't know how they work like a train a steam train would suddenly appear in the midst of all these fractals and apparently random shapes and squiggles I feel like that on a good day

I feel like we're looking at something which appears to be quite confusing and disparate and unclear. And if we look at it together, and together is crucial here, if we look at it together for long enough, then...

It will come into focus. And I'm pretty close today. I've got it entirely clear. Simon Marks is very helpful at moments like this. But here are some stories that I think speak to the same... moment in our history in our island history the first you just heard in the bulletin is sir mark rowley addressing the i mean obviously ridiculous lies of donald trump not just of course about

London but about the whole of Europe but I speak to you every morning from London I live in London I have lived in London since 1991 and will continue to for the foreseeable future And therefore, and it is also our capital city. So, you know, wherever you are, in England at least, many, many roads lead to London and in the context of the United Kingdom. London remains by far the biggest and most economically significant mass of people on this land, in this country, in these countries.

been looking at the fractals I've been looking at the patterns for a long time trying to work out where this comes from and I still don't 100% get it. I'm getting obviously a lot closer. The point is it's a tapestry of answers and I've got some of the threads or it's a patchwork quilt and I've got some of the patches but I haven't got all of them. What is most... extraordinary to me is the way in which the president of the United States of America has essentially become a parrot.

of the kind of obviously toxic white supremacist lies that started to swill over Twitter under the previous ownership. But under the previous ownership, of course, they would generally be excised and removed, sometimes too late. But under Elon Musk's ownership. Twitter has become a silo for toxic white supremacist lies. Our profoundly racist tropes go utterly unchallenged and the lying is off the absolute charts.

And now Donald Trump is doing the same thing. And it seemed to me fairly obvious in the run-up to Brexit, but then afterwards when, you know, everybody got what they wanted and yet they stayed very, very angry.

And as many people who were paying attention could have told them and did tell them at the time, the immigration figures, for example, went up, not down, because of some rather obvious... factors all the people who thought that they were voting for brexit in order to get rid of the foreigners were i mean they were stupid on two fronts they were stupid for believing the liars that lied to them and they were stupid for not realizing that the opposite would be true

And I remember the first time somebody told me, and they really knew what they were talking about, that a lot of the accounts that were peddling this sort of nonsense were going to be coming out of St. Petersburg bot farms. I was a little bit skeptical about that. I sort of found out why would they go to that trouble of trying to influence things? And the answer is actually blindingly obvious. If we are your enemy, then...

The more division and disruption there is among our populations, the better it is for you. So if you can actually get a country to pull out of the European Union, if you're in the Kremlin, that's a huge, huge win. You know, it's no coincidence that the kind of politicians most obviously associated with getting us out of the European Union are in many cases exactly the same politicians who...

We're either taking bribes from Kremlin Stooges or parroting the lines of people taking bribes from Kremlin Stooges without apparently having to be bribed. I suppose in Nigel Farage's case, the fact that he's made no secret of his adoration of Vladimir Putin, his profound admiration for Vladimir Putin should have set off rather more alarm bells than it did. But here we are.

Why would you want to disrupt a relatively peaceful liberal democracy? Answer, because peaceful liberal democracies make a mockery of everything you try to inflict upon your own people. And I always got that with regard to the Kremlin. As I say, it took me a while, but once you understand it, you understand it. And you use social media to persuade people into positions that are not logical. So your nan voted for, particularly if she's Welsh.

she possibly voted for Brexit because she saw the films that were punted to her Facebook page by Cambridge Analytica that kind of made it look like in the event of us leaving Brexit, you would never have to wait for an operation at the hospital. the ethnic minority doctors and nurses would somehow be miraculously replaced by people who looked like they'd stepped out of the Von Trapp family on The Sound of Music and nobody would ever be ill again.

date of some of that propaganda was off the flipping charts but you could get your head around that because the kremlin was our enemy right i appreciate not everybody acknowledges or agrees with that Looking at you, Nigel. But for most of us, the Kremlin was our enemy. And the way in which you could understand those desperate attempts to divide us and to sow all sorts of hideous division was clearly...

a big win for our enemies. Sadiq Khan, when he started coming into the studio to do his... conversations is to take your calls. The vitriol, it was the first time I saw it seep off social media onto messages. There's a big difference between sticking something on social media, I think, and sending a specific message in the hope that somebody sees it.

maybe there's not it's difficult to know when you spend your life with your head above parapets but the I mean the vicious utterly dishonest hatred that was um on display whenever Sadiq Khan came into the studio. And the lies about everything from no-go zones to Sharia law to the number of Muslims in London somehow explaining how he could get elected, none of which stands up to even the vaguest.

mathematical scrutiny but i didn't take i took it seriously on his behalf but i didn't take it seriously as a as a threat to my country it was a threat to him But I didn't take it seriously as a threat to my country because it was so obviously Rolex.

I mean, would you take seriously a threat to your country posed by people who insist that the earth is flat? Would you take seriously a threat to the peacefulness of your nation or the safety of your capital city from people who believed that the moon was made of cheese or that you...

You could catch COVID from a phone mast. No, of course you wouldn't take it seriously until you should. And when should you take it seriously? Well, the short answer to that is when the leader of the free world, when Donald Trump joins in. and starts echoing precisely the sort of rhetoric that used to be the preserve of Billy Buncher numbers with a bulldog avatar. I got a complaint the other day about mentioning bulldogs.

in this context. It's a bulldog avatar. Bulldogs are lovely animals, but the British bulldog as an avatar is beloved of people who are furiously hard of thinking quite often. Let's say they've got 48 flags often upside down in their profile. Some of those people were real. I'm not suggesting for a minute that they're all inventions of St. Petersburg troll farms. But the rhetoric was so rancid and so obviously daft that you didn't take it seriously, even after Brexit.

when it sort of ramped up and moved focus. And having come out of the European Union, even as enthusiasm for membership in every other member country went up... as a direct consequence of them literally watching what was happening to us. Online, if you were British-based, online just shifted effortlessly from attacking those foreigners to attacking those foreigners.

And brown-skinned people, black-skinned people became more and more the focus, more and more the target for the kind of hatreds and ignorances that had driven us off the cliff of Brexit. And again, you know, even if Elon Musk puts Yaxley-Lennon back... on Twitter, even if he invites various racists and white supremacists back onto Twitter with open arms and starts applauding them again, you kind of think better of your people. Who could fall for this? Crud.

close who could fall for this crud about london all you have to do is visit all you have to do is talk to people who live here and then i started hearing conversations from americans oddly who had A lot of friends who I'm going to loosely describe as educated, college educated Americans, particularly oddly in Silicon Valley. And they started telling me that their friends were expressing concerns about our city.

And they were absolutely incredulous. They would say, hang on a minute, you live in San Francisco or you live in Washington or you live in New York. How can you possibly think that there's anything... going on in London that you need to worry about and they would say things like well hasn't it been overrun by Muslims can't you not go to the shops isn't it true that they've shut all the pubs and you'd literally sit here going what what are you where are you getting this from

What possible source can there be for such obvious and spectacular nonsense? I mean, it is genuinely breathtaking how stupid these claims are. And I would once have said how stupid you would have to be to believe them. And I would have meant it. How stupid do you have to be to believe these claims? But a lot of the people that believe them aren't stupid.

And the way that Donald Trump spoke about the mayor of London recently would not that long ago have united the entire country in outrage and disgust. But Cammy Badenoch isn't going to condemn him. Nigel Farage certainly isn't going to condemn him and Keir Starmer, to be honest, was a little bit slow out of the blocks in condemning him. It is entirely of a piece with...

Billy Bunch of Numbers on social media with a bulldog avatar and 48 flags in his profile. And that, those racist lies about London in particular, about Europe in general, those racist lies are...

providing incredible levels of division and anger. And there'll be people who have fallen for it who don't... think of themselves as having fallen for it they will say yes i am angry but i'm right to be angry because they've got shakira law in soho and and you'll go but why don't you talk to someone who lives there or who works there why don't you go there

Oh, well, you're just some lefty. You don't know what it's like. You're too rich. So hang on a minute. I thought it was the rich people that couldn't be in London because they were going to get their diamonds stolen or their Rolexes ripped off their wrists. Oh, and look, here is a story about that happening. Therefore, it must be happening to everybody.

And Donald Trump joins in. And the country doesn't unite behind the idea that we're doing pretty well in difficult circumstances, thank you very much. Sling your hook, you weirdo. We don't do it because...

Well, because what? Because why? Because why? I'm going to take a little break. I've got rather more to say about this than I realise. It will be a phone-in about why are they attacking London. That's what I want you to tell me. But I've got a little bit more to say first. Or, of course, if you've got something brilliant to say, interrupt me, spare everybody more of my pontifications. Why on earth are people attacking London when everybody who lives here, everybody honest who lives here...

Loves the place. Look, there's a difference between having a few quid in your pocket and not. If you've got a few quid in your pocket, it's an even better place to live than it is if you haven't. But none of these racists on Twitter are saying the distribution of wealth in London is appalling. Poor people deserve more.

None of them are saying that, right? I'm saying that. A little bit of distribution. I'd like to have seen my income tax go up, for example, as I've told you on a few occasions, but it hasn't. So hey-ho, on we go. in terms of of why are these people and why are british people joining in so there are two questions for you the first is why does donald trump keep attacking london

and Sadiq Khan in particular, when his electoral record is, I mean, unimpeachable, unlike the president, who's actually impeached. But why? Why is it happening? Because I could make sense of it when it was our enemies doing it online in the hope of sowing division and dishonesty. Why is the President of America joining in with what was once the preserve of St. Petersburg trot farms?

Bot farms, white supremacists and just racist grifters on social media. Why is he doing it? And why are so many British people joining in? Why are so many British people joining in? Hit the numbers now. You will get through. 0345 6060 973 is the number you need. For the avoidance of doubt, I've lived in this city since... 1991 in various different areas i currently live in brentford which is a

I'm top of the league in terms of multiculturalism and diversity. I work in the middle of the West End. I go out two, three, about six or seven times a month. at this time of year, late at night in the West End, at dinners, theatre trips, walking through public transport. I go everywhere by public transport. So I know what I'm talking about. And yet there are British people in, largely presumably in rural.

or smaller towns and cities who think that they can rely better upon the testimony of some racist liar who's never been to London. The number of these far-right accounts that turned out to be coming from... um the subcontinent the other day was extraordinary and yet that made perfect sense to me i get why they're trying to do it they're making a few quid out of it but why are so many brits joining in and why on earth is the president of the united states

attacking our capital city when anybody who can count, as Mark Rowley pointed out this morning, anybody who can count can see that it is measurably and infinitely safer than... pretty much every American city you care to mention what I would ask you is going on it's 11 21 This is LBC. Message James O'Brien on WhatsApp now on 0345 6060 973.

23 minutes after 11. Do you remember when Barack Obama explained what America's response to Brexit would be? When the President of the United States of America said, in the event of our ally doing this thing... our position would be this. Who is better qualified to tell us what the United States of America is going to do in a theoretical future scenario than the president of the United States of America?

He was telling the truth. He was describing accurately his understanding of a situation. And he was speaking from a position of concern and care. He was speaking from a position of allyship. And most people responded quite sensibly by going, crikey, he paints a fairly unattractive picture. We probably shouldn't vote for this thing that he's urging us or encouraging us not to vote for. But a particular constituency of people in this country went nuts.

I started screaming about how a president of the United States should never get involved in British politics, how a foreign politician had no business. It's an insane position to adopt. A foreign politician should... have no business telling us about what their foreign policy would be in the event of us doing something. It's so insane. I didn't even realise how insane it was at the time. But imagine how those people, if they had an honest bone in their body...

Imagine if people who were objecting furiously to the idea of Barack Obama telling us uncomfortable truths about America's reaction to something like Brexit. Imagine how utterly...

they would be if they had an honest bone in their body about this. Terrible mare. And look at the crime you have in London. My mother loved London. She loved that city. She'd always talk about... That was a different London than you have today. Today you have people being stabbed in the ass. Or worse.

But no, it's crazy. It's true. It's awful. It is. It feels much safer here. Your mayor is a disaster. I don't know him. I don't even know. If you put him there, I wouldn't even know who he was. I can tell you he is a disaster. it's a pure trump isn't it i don't know who he is i wouldn't know who he was but i know he's a disaster

I mean, and, you know, I presume it was that interview conducted in Washington, D.C. I forget what the statistic is, whether you're 22 times or 32 times more likely to be murdered in Washington, D.C. than you are in London. I mean, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. It is your racist Twitter users in the White House. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe it is just Occam's razor. Here you go. David says, Occam wants to know, James, if it could just be because he is a racist loudmouth on social media.

It can't be that simple, says O'Brien, again, when very often things do turn out to be that simple. So then the head of the Met. Sir Mark Rowley is compelled to respond. Great questioning from Nick Ferrari this morning. And the head of the Met did exactly what you would hope he would do in these sort of circumstances. So there's no no-go areas. That's completely false.

Is that fake news? I think how anybody in America can suggest the UK is violent is completely ridiculous. The homicide rate in London is lower. than every single US state. It's lower than all their big cities. I think the murder rate in New York last time I looked is about three or four times higher than it is in London, sort of per capita. Whilst I make this point...

The homicide rate in London is lower than it is in Toronto. It's lower than Paris. It's lower than Brussels. It's lower than Berlin. This is a safe city. I'm not going to pretend it's perfect. It's a safe city. Injury violence in London is lower than the other cities in the UK. And I think this trend of trying to rubbish London, some of which is driven by politics, we who are proud Londoners need to fight back about it because there's lots to be proud of about London.

Clear there are some crime issues that we're tackling and it's not perfect, but I'm proud of the progress we're making at reducing crime. So it is people who are enemies of our state. who are peddling these lies. That's what you do. If you're an enemy of a state, you peddle lies about that state.

Unfortunately, when the head of the Met asks for or points out the necessity of pushing back or fighting back against it, you can be fairly confident that Kemi Bedanoff's Conservative Party won't be fighting back against this. Nigel Farage's Reform UK won't be fighting back against this.

rather either absorb and accept or even perhaps disseminate the lies. And tragically, client journalists who are far too close to either Kemi Badenot's Conservative Party or Nigel Farage's Reform UK are not going to fight back either.

despite all the evidence. I would play that again, but I'd want to at least take one call before half past. I think this subject is the one that animates me most at the moment. I really do. And it goes hand in hand with lies. on every level. This will go up as a clip on TikTok. I had a look at another clip about me defending London on TikTok the other day. It's something I need to fix. It started popping up in my own algorithm. Nobody wants that.

Nobody wants that. But the lies, just about little old me, were extraordinary. Just the way in which you can't actually tackle the fact. So you'll start telling lies about me. What were the lies that I saw about me? It's like the good old days of Twitter. People claiming I didn't grow up on a farm. Where does that come from? The idea that I didn't grow up on a farm just outside Kidderminster in Worcestershire. Literally. Tractors parked 200 yards from my...

front door. My dad obviously wasn't a farmer, as I've told you a million times. He was a Daily Telegraph journalist. But we lived on a farm in the old farmhouse in the middle of God knows how many acres of farmland. But you can't tackle the things that I'm saying about...

the lies you believe about London, so you claim I didn't grow up on a farm. My favourite was probably the one that said I drink whiskey for breakfast. Again, you sort of go, here's a bloke laying down some facts that you have... somehow failed to understand. How on earth are you going to deal with the fact that you have been incredibly stupid? Well, I think he must be drunk. He must be drunk, this bloke telling the truth, because I prefer the liars. It's up there a while ago.

Someone pointed this out to me. People were claiming I went to my wife's hen night online. And I could not for the life of me work out where this was coming from. And I remember, I told you, I think last year, that I bailed on my own stag night when a couple of my mates wanted to go to a, shall we say, a rather... a rather insalubrious joint in Soho. And Mrs O'Brien was out with friends nearby, not on her hen night.

So I texted her, I said, when are you heading home? Let's go home together. And suddenly in the world of racist online weirdos, that becomes me going on my wife's hen night, which happened two weeks later in Paris. So it would have been a very difficult thing to do. So, you know...

You know that these people are liars. You know that they have an allergy to the truth. But you also know that they think they're patriots. They think they're patriotic. How can it be patriotic to tell lies about your own country, particularly your own capital? and especially your own mayor. I do not know. So, oh, crikey, I said I was going to take a call before the news, but you probably didn't believe me anyway. Here's Thomas Watts with your headlines. 32 minutes after 11. There's more.

but I will press pause on my own. contemplations for a moment and just remind you of the question, because you could be very easily forgiven for not knowing. The question is this. It took me a while, but I got my head around why obvious enemies, declared enemies of our state, would want to spread lies about our country.

And I understand how racism works and how seductive it can be. But lies about the UK in general, Europe in general, the UK in particular, and London very specifically, and London's mayor very specifically, that have their seeds in... either Russian bot farms or propaganda arms of regimes that wish us harm, that wish us ill. They want us to be divided. Why is the president of the United States joining in? And why are so many British people?

joining in. 03456060973. Sophie's in Burgess Hill. Sophie, what would you like to say? You're right. I have actually completely lost my trail of thought. I am very passionate about this subject. I think that there's huge division in this country. But what I would say about London... is that it is beautifully multicultural and diverse. The diversity of London has taught us a lot about being compassionate, a lot about the understanding on the bigger world outside our country.

something that I think the US often lacks. But historically, most US people, certainly most educated US people, would have an enormous soft spot for London. And why would they join in? I mean, there's two things going on here, isn't there? It's content for the con men and compassion for the con. There are people who are disseminating lies about our city who must know that they are lies. Donald Trump, the person interviewing him, they know that this isn't true because they can count.

And then there's the people falling for it. So I don't know how easy it is to distinguish between the two, but why would somebody who is not supposed to be an enemy of our state join in with these lies? Because everybody's struggling. What we're seeing across the world now is we're seeing a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. The middle class is disappearing and people are trying to figure out why. They're blaming international people. They're blaming immigrants. It's the them and the us.

And that is what Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, is looking to push, that there's a reason why, other than the rich people, why we are all suffering. So what's the end game? If you were to say, what's the plan here? Because with Putin's... sponsored propaganda, it's easy to see what the endgame is. The more fractured and the more divided his enemies are, the stronger his position becomes. But what's the endgame for somebody like, why would Trump be wanting London to be on the hook for this stuff?

Economic inequality in the United Kingdom is not his problem. He's not got anything to worry about on that front. Well, the world is global, isn't it? Yes, we're very far away from America, but the people with money are much closer to each other than we realize, even though they're halfway across the world.

maintaining control and taking away, little by little, the freedom that we have. So by further supporting Donald Trump and further supporting his rhetoric, he's going to make our lives better. He's going to make the working man. The Americans, if you don't do what I do, then you will end up like this. And then you point out that, well, we're not anything like the things that you say that we're like. And that's where...

That's where the British Lord Whore Whores, the British traitors, not just the ones that take bribes from Kremlin stooges or their mates and colleagues, but people, ordinary members of the public. Is it simply a hatred of a brown-skinned mayor? that informs this vitriol. Why would you join in with a tax on your own country? And that is literally the definition of treachery. And yet it's happening right across the UK media and right across the political landscape. I think that a lie...

particularly a racist lie, but a lie, any lie, a damaging lie about your own country is treachery. If a foreigner is doing it, it is a hostile act.

To lie about this country is a hostile act if you are Russian and indeed if you are American. But why would British people join in? Why would British people join in with it? 0-3-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3. Ned's in Bradfield. Ned, what do you reckon? Yeah, James, how you doing? I'm good. I'm genuinely confused. Some people think I shouldn't be, and some of the answers are quite straightforward, but...

And I may, after I've spoken to you, extend it to people that we know and try to work out what on earth they get out of this. But why would British people join in with hostile attacks on their own, untrue hostile attacks on their own country? I've got two theories on this. One of them just came through while I was on hold, actually. There you go. That's the beauty of a long monologue, mate. It gives you time to... Time to work it out, right?

So the first one I've got for you, it's a good one. It's not mine. I saw it on social media. Somebody wrote, said Donald Trump has given people permission to be the worst version of themselves. and that's why his bass will never desert him. And I pondered that for me for a minute, and the conversations that we have on the radio and what happened, I thought, hmm. Then the other thing that dawned on me while I was on hold...

There is a bit of born-here-die-here-itis. I mean, I was born in London, but then I moved out, and then I moved back again in my late teens, early 20s, lived there 35 years, and moved back out again. James, you don't have to get very far out of London for the social attitudes to change. No. Hence, you'll see a lot of flags on lampposts. So when I moved back, not far from Cambridge, I remember being in my mid-twenties.

People were suspicious of me because I've come from that London. Yes, but it wasn't racist then. Well, no, but they were a bit like... I'm putting myself in their shoes. It was a bit like they... People sort of moved to big cities for sort of...

better jobs or adventure or something something you did something i did yes you know be part of that cohort and then there's the people that still have to be the night manager in tesco's and still go out the girlfriend that what they met at school and what have you which is most of the country and i just think

you've got this little social bubble i rang you up a few weeks ago said that my landlady in the boozer is a vegan and does yoga yes said that you know she wouldn't go to london because she had to wear a burqa and it was under sharia law and you went i've not heard and i went well it exists

And I'm only 60 miles away here. I mean, I'm next door to Nigel, and this parish voted Tory. Well, you're not, mate. He's never in Clacton. You'd be safe there. It's the best place to be. Yeah, well, it's true. But this parish also voted Tory. the last election so i'm surrounded by quite well two pensioners and tradesmen you know and you go to the pub and it's just sort of that's the sort of the hum you know it's like

That London, you know, that man. It was such a victory, isn't it? So, hand on heart, because I pushed you on this last time, and I'm still sceptical. An Essex landlady, she's not just... reaching for extreme figures of speech. She truly believes she would have to wear...

a niqab or a burqa in London. She doesn't. I don't believe you. I still don't believe you. You know what? I even took a photo just so I could show you. You wouldn't even believe that this would come out of a burqa. A human being's mouth. No, well, don't do that. understand why but i wonder how many because i wonder how big my bubble is my big diverse multicultural bubble living in the parts of london i've lived in and how many people in your um position

would be going, no, James, I promise you I believe him. It's going to be according to how London you are, isn't it? If you know the city, people are going to find it very hard to believe that that level of bigotry and ignorance exists. And yet, if you're living in it... then you're going to find it quite easy to believe. I might do a quick text vote. Do you believe Ned? Yes or no? 84850 now or WhatsApp 03456060973. An Essex landlady who honestly believes that she can't go to London.

Unless she wears a burqa. There'll be Americans who believe it. I don't doubt that for a minute. But somebody in Essex? I just... I'm not ready yet, mate. I'm not ready to buy that. It's too sad. Because it's my town and it's also my country and it's suffering in every imaginable way. Ned, take care. I don't think you're lying. I just think she might have been not yanking your chain, but just perhaps reaching for an extremity rather than a fair description of...

of reality and I think that line about the permission to be the best version of yourself and that's why the worst version of yourself and that's why he'll never be deserted by his base I think that might be one of mine although it's

perfectly probable that I didn't say it first. Hannah is in Stookley in Buckinghamshire. Hannah, what's going on? Why is Trump doing it? And possibly even more urgently, why on earth are British people joining in? Hi, James. So I actually just wanted to read you an email that I received from a potential US customer last week. So my husband and I run a candle company and we make candles named after all the different counties in the UK. So to me, it was quite clear.

that we're a British company but we ship all over the world and she'd emailed about something so my first exchange with her was to say we ship from just outside of London she came back not knowing anything about me and felt perfectly comfortable to say, please unsubscribe me. I'm sorry to say goodbye. And it's so sad what has happened to beautiful England with all the illegal immigrants trying to prevent that from happening in the USA.

And I was completely floored that somebody in an exchange with a stranger would feel comfortable enough to say things like that. And she clearly believes all of this that Trump has been peddling. And I just didn't quite know what to say to her. And actually, I was listening to LBC driving through London on Tuesday, sat in traffic outside Fortnum and Mason when Trump's speech about Sadiq Khan had come out.

And I was looking around just thinking, this is the most beautiful city I've ever spent any time in. And I can't believe that people are believing it, but it's scary that they are. And there perhaps is the beginnings of a slightly more... substantive answer than just he is simply a racist online troll if he is as simon marx has warned us minded to declare some sort of state of emergency in the united states of america in the hope of avoiding

democratic um elections next year and we know how he feels about democracies he hates them because he's trying to subvert it all around the world i'll get to that story shortly then how do you persuade your own population to let you take away their rights and freedoms answer you pretend that you're protecting them from from a threat and if there's no real threat there you invent one so you say yeah look at london and look at the uk and if we don't

declare a state of emergency and cancel all the elections then we could end up like them yeah and they fully fully believe it but i have noticed a difference in we've got two shops one in the coxwells and one in cambridge and we get lots of american tourists And the Americans that I have met anyway, that actually leave the US and they come and they visit the Cotswolds and they visit Cambridge, talk completely differently about, I think they're the only ones that can really defend us.

I mean, as Sadiq Khan often points out, Americans are moving here at a rate of knots. Yeah. So it's again, we talk about... But it's the ones that never leave that are the ones that believe everything that he says because they've never left. And it's scary.

Yes, it is scary. And why then do you think so many British people join in, including, sadly, politicians now and quite high-profile journalists? I honestly, I don't know if they're jumping on a bandwagon. I don't know how they can look around London. Obviously, every city has its flaws. But how you can look around the country and believe it when you're physically here.

You know, we're based in rural Buckinghamshire. And when I got that email, I wanted to send her a video of, you know, the farm that we work from. And, you know, it's as if they think illegal immigrants are running through our fields. And it's just...

It's madness. Brexit was a tiny bit like that, I suppose. An awful lot of people in the Daily Mail comments section who lived in some of the least immigrated areas of the United Kingdom were convinced that people were coming for their biscuits at every...

Do you want to mention the company? What's the Worcestershire Candle? What's the Worcestershire Candle got on it? Ah, so the Worcestershire Candle is a black pair and freesia for the black pair of Worcester. Yes. And yes, we're called the Home County Co. So we've got... 40 different county candles and more to come. Lovely stuff. I love that. I think that is a sort of almost perfect, isn't it? Perfectly of a piece with one perception of the United Kingdom, of the sort of green and pleasant land.

completely at odds with the one that's been perpetrated by the leader of a country that was once our staunchest ally. So we've got a little bit of clarity on why Donald Trump would do it. Because he may well want to terrify or terrorize the American population into a position where he can claim he's protecting them by taking away their rights and freedoms, most obviously their votes.

which again I still think is a little bit extreme, but wiser heads than mine, or certainly people more plugged into the American politics than I am, have expressed that view very forcefully and very persuasively. Why on earth would British people join?

Why on earth would British politicians join in with these lies about our mayor here in London, our capital city if you're listening in the United Kingdom, our country if you're British? Why would they do it? I genuinely don't know. I get some of the answers and some of the bits. But is there really? I mean, I think there must be. I think I may owe Ned an apology. It's a big majority of people.

who think it's perfectly feasible in the climate described by Hannah and others, it's perfectly feasible for an Essex landlady to somehow believe that if she comes to London, she would have to wear a burqa. I don't know if I'm ready to... Oh, boy. 11.49 is the time. It's not left-wing or right-wing, this. A couple of people seem to be confused. It's truth and lies.

Have a listen to what Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had to say this morning on Nick Ferrari's programme. And remember that, you know, police have a tendency towards authoritarianism. The idea that the capital is being portrayed in a very negative light could be used by a dishonest policeman to argue for more powers. Well, you know, I don't think things are quite as bad as he describes, but one of the reasons why I believe that the...

Home Office should be giving us a lot more money is because we do have quite a lot of problems in London that the President of the United States is alluding to. You could imagine that happening, right? If you had a slightly less honest...

commissioner than Sir Mark Rowley. But I'll play you both again. I'll play you Donald Trump lying and then I'll play you the... commissioner of the metropolitan police doing what every patriotic brit should be doing which is pushing back against foreign agents lying about our country i mean how can i even be saying this in 2025 who would it have to be

for your mate with the roundabout painter or your mate on Twitter? Who would it have to be for them to go, oh, hang on a minute, I don't want to be on his side of this argument? Because in a way, it's already Vladimir Putin. Farage has got no bones about saying how much he admires Vladimir Putin, but does your Uncle Bob feel that way? If it was Kim Jong-un coming out with this stuff about London, would your Uncle Bob be going, oh, hang on a minute?

Maybe I'll check for myself. If it was, I don't know, if it was the child catcher out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang coming out with this stuff about London, do you think your Uncle Bob would go, ooh, maybe I should give my head a wobble and actually speak to people that live in London. Who would it have to be?

Do you think for all the Brits that are going along with these racist, treacherous lies to give their head a big enough wobble to remember what day it is and where they actually live? And crucially, what it's like. So here is the President of the United States of America. talking out of his forgive me ass terrible mayor and look at the crime you have in london

My mother loved London. She loved that city. She'd always talk about... That was a different London than you have today. Today you have people being stabbed in the ass. Or worse. But no, it's crazy. It's true. It's awful. It is. It feels much safer here. Your mayor is a disaster. I don't know him. I don't even know. If you put him there, I wouldn't even know who he was. I can tell you he is a disaster.

The interviewer, tragically, formerly of this parish. But there you go. I hadn't spotted that the first time around. So here is the Metropolitan Police Commissioner telling some very simple, obvious truths that if you want to double-check, you just need to be able to count. And I don't even say that with my tongue in my cheek because presumably a lot of people up to it, including that interviewer, can't count. So there's no no-go areas. That's completely false.

Is that fake news? I think how anybody in America can suggest the UK is violent is completely ridiculous. The homicide rate in London is lower. than every single US state. It's lower than all their big cities. I think the murder rate in New York, last time I looked, is about three or four times higher than it is in London, sort of per capita. Whilst I make this point...

The homicide rate in London is lower than it is in Toronto, it's lower than Paris, it's lower than Brussels, it's lower than Berlin. This is a safe city. I'm not going to pretend it's perfect. It's a safe city. Injury violence in London is lower than the other cities in the UK. And I think this trend of trying to rubbish London, some of which is driven by politics, we who are proud Londoners need to fight back about it because there's lots to be proud of about London.

Clear there are some crime issues that we're tackling and it's not perfect, but I'm proud of the progress we're making at reducing crime. And it's not just, of course, the sort of online weirdos. You're going to see it in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Telegraph. There's probably... God forbid there might even be current LBC presenters buying into this absolute bilge, this demonstrable bilge. So...

We've got some theories now on why Donald Trump is doing it. They're not pretty, but they are plausible. Why on earth would anybody British join in with this treachery? Foreign agents talking down our country, lying about our population and our country. Why would British people join in? And I'm tempted to even try to dig into a conversation about...

How feasible it is that a landlady in Essex can have been reduced to believing that she would have to wear a burka if she visited Knightsbridge or Camden or Hounslow. Brian's in Horsham. Brian, what would you like to say? Yeah, I think one of the reasons why the people in this country are attacking places like London, especially London, is that it's multiculturalism that works. I mean, not only have we got a Muslim mayor...

You know, and I suppose that that probably fits in with their idea that everyone is wearing burqas or everyone's Muslim. So that's why they voted him. But how is it that in London, in Ilford, they're voting in West Street in New... a white man, and he was gay. Yes. You know, how multicultural and how woke, I suppose, that is. And I think that's one of the reasons... Just simply unbigoted. Yes. Exactly. How...

How multicultural and how woke is London? And I think people, some people on the right, absolutely hate that. And it seems to work. So there's a, I mean, there's a narrative of decline and you have to... portray London as failing because it is an affront to, I mean, at its purest form, it's an affront to white supremacism. Not only is it...

proving every single day that there's no inherent genetic advantage to being white or that white people can't get along with everybody else and brown people can't get along with everybody else. But we also keep electing a brown-skinned man as mayor, which makes a complete mockery of almost... all of the politics that people like Elon Musk subscribe to. Exactly, and I think if they can paint it as it's a hellhole and people shouldn't go there.

Donald Trump can say that this is what will happen if we allow that to happen over here. OK, so why the journalists then? Because there's an old adage that I only came across in the last 10 years or so. It wasn't one of the ones I was aware of growing up. But if somebody says it's raining and somebody says it's not, my job is to go outside and see if I get wet and then report back to you.

Report back to my listeners. How on earth can journalists join in with lies about their own cunt? Well, I suppose the Daily Mail was rooting for Oswald Mosley and Hitler not that long ago, wasn't it? But why would they not simply report what they see? I suppose they want to peddle that lie that multiculturalism doesn't work. Yeah, and maybe some low-level Islamophobia as well. I remember...

What's his name? Goldsmith. The Goldsmith brother. Zach. I remember Zach Goldsmith's mayoral campaign going very, very racist very, very quickly. And I think to his credit, he was subsequently a bit ashamed of that. But the way in which some journalists went along with it, very, very racist politicking because Sadiq Khan was a...

was an Asian man and a Muslim. And you could see how that worked. So maybe just political opposition, maybe because he's Labour, right-wing people look for anything to hit him with and because they can't find anything particularly. hurtful they come up with his ethnicity or his religion i don't know but why would british people join in with this new york has a muslim man now

which I imagine is striking terror into parts of the United States of America, the ones that are best served perhaps or most served by Fox News. Love is quite the right word. That landlady, I don't want to sort of mythologize her, but would we be able, do you think, to have an hour talking about people like her? So almost what does your uncle Bob believe?

03456060973. Because some of this stuff shocks me, and I do this for a living. As I said, I dip my toe into, is it TikTok? What's the one that's owned by, well, anyway, the stuff that comes up on your Facebook, the reels that come up on there, they're TikToks as well, are they? or I don't know. But anyway, LBC still puts up clips of me. I'm not on social media anymore. I'm only on Blue Sky. And I had to look at some of the replies on one of them for the first time in months. And...

You can persuade people of absolutely anything. But there needs to be something there first, doesn't it? I mean, why would anybody believe an obvious and easily... disproved lie unless they needed to so what does your uncle Bob believe in the way that this Essex landlady believes and most of you think this is plausible not all but most of you think this is plausible

believe that she would have to wear a burka to visit London. How widespread is this among our own populations and our own families? Where are you listening to this? Our numbers are great now. I think we've just overtaken Radio 4, would you believe, among... Is it 32 to 54 year olds? Like the crucial demographic. This programme nationally has just overtaken BBC Radio 4. It's the biggest game in town. Full stop.

So you could be listening to this in any corner of the country. You could be listening to this thinking that I'm lying to you. Couldn't you? You could be thinking, oh, James, you know, no one's falling for this nonsense. I live in... I don't know where you live. I live in the middle of Cheddar Gorge and I know what London's really like. I live in Tennessee. I know what London's really like. I know Tennessee's not in the UK before you waste up and sending me a message.

I live in Worcestershire. I live in the Cotswolds. I live in the Lake District. I know what London's really like. I live in Essex. I know what London's really like. I haven't been there since 1983 because I'm not going to wear a burqa. But do you see what I mean?

How do people end up believing this stuff? And I know how many of you now are shouting Brexit at me. Sometimes it feels like I spent 10 years saying to you, how can people end up believing stuff that's so obviously nonsense? We have to obey their laws. What laws?

Oh, get lost. You can prove anything with facts. Can't say your English in this country anymore without getting arrested. I promise you, you can. No, you can't. Can't go to London without wearing a burqa. I wonder whether Stuart would accept that as a gag. Would Stuart Lee? The patron saint of honesty.

in these kind of conversations. Would Stuart Lee think that was a push too far? I wonder, I might check in with him afterwards. Does he believe that there is a pub landlady in Essex who honestly thinks she can't go to London?

without wearing a burqa? Or was she kind of indulging in a little bit of performative racism or possibly yanking our correspondent Ned's chain because she knows that he's one of the good guys and she's kind of wanted to wind him up? Because that's the other thing you do when, apart from... You can't win any arguments. So you say, oh, it's upsetting all the right people. What is? Well, my lies are. Well, hang on a minute. How can...

Your lies upsetting people be a win for you. It's like admitting that you're lying. So yeah, I don't know. I don't want to talk about anything else. It seems to me the way that Sir Mark Rowley has focused. attention on the necessity of pushing back against this seems to be a moment that we should mark properly and that means at least a couple of hours on it but if we can get your uncle bob

If you can get your Uncle Bob and the stuff he genuinely believes about London, that would be wonderful. 03456060973. And I'll read this message out. Thanks a lot, James. I've only got nine months left in that demographic. Mate. I've only got a month. Well, no, if it's 32 to 54. No, I'm all right, actually. I've got a year and a bit. It's 12.02. This is LBC from Global.

Leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien. 12.05 is the time. So, I mean, this is the question that intrigues me most. And I make no apology for my fascination with the mentalities of my fellow Brits. I remain... fascinated by the number of people who were persuaded to vote for Brexit, which everybody now recognises was a really stupid thing to do. You've got that version of communism.

haven't you? A lot of communists say, well, you don't know that communism isn't brilliant because it's not been tried properly yet. So you've got what you might call Brexit communists.

People who insist that Brexit was a great thing to do, but we just haven't tried it right. It's been poorly implemented. But no one says, oh, it's done brilliantly. We're really glad we did it. Literally, nobody says that. If they do say that, you probably call for the nurse. Fascinated by how many, so many people.

people that I know, people in my family, people I went to school with, people I used to speak to on a daily basis. Well, I probably still do. They just don't speak back. We're absolutely adamant that it was going to be great and going to be this and going to be that. And people believe it's just the most interesting thing about humans in many ways.

I'd say the most interesting things about humans was probably our capacity to love and to think. But from a political point of view, to believe things that are obviously untrue. And so this line that runs effortlessly from Brexit to Donald Trump...

leads us to this question now. How can people who live here believe lies being told by foreigners about our country? Even that language is beautiful, isn't it? Lies told by foreigners. You're a patriot, right? Yeah, absolutely. What were you doing last night? I was out painting roundabouts, James. No one could question my patriotism. Rule Britannia. Britannia rules the waves.

What were you doing last night? I was out painting roundabouts, James. Okay. How do you feel about foreigners telling lies about Britain? Stone them. I hate them. I hate them, James. I hate them. I hate foreigners telling lies about our country. What do you think about Donald Trump?

Oh, it's great. We need someone like that here. What do you think about London? Oh, you can't go to London these days. Shakira Law. No goes. Hang on a minute. Those are lies told about our country by foreigners. No, they're not. You woke lefty. That's the truth. I live here. I work here. I use public transport. I go out at night here. I have daughters here. I have a wife here. I have lived nowhere else since 1991. I will tell you what London is like.

Yeah, but I'm not going to believe you, am I? I'm going to believe Donald Trump. Okay. Why? 03456060973. So why? Why do British people join in with this?

foreign propaganda this anti-british foreign propaganda that's it that's the phrase why do british people and and what i'd like to do now two things one i thought might be a little bit too parochial But looking at the number of people that are doing it anyway, I'm going to do it. And this is one of the most, what's the word that I want? One of the lowest bars I've ever set for a phone in.

OK, but I genuinely think, listening to Mark Rowley's words, that we should do this today. You are not from London, but you visited recently. All right. This is like North Norfolk Digital.

I joked this morning that I was going to call the show Midmorning Matters this week. Imagine if I was on North Norfolk Digital. I said, anyone been up London lately? Did you have a nice time? Give me a call now on 0345 6060. I don't know what that accent is. I'm so sorry. It's certainly got nothing to do with Norfolk.

It's not got a lot to do with humanity, actually, in any way, recognisable form. But I mean it. 0345 6060 973. You are not... I mean, I tell you what would be even more interesting. If you actually were a little bit worried about coming to London because of what you've seen on your Uncle Bob's Facebook page, or because of what you've seen on social media, or I suppose we have to say because of what you have heard the President of the United States say.

You're a little bit worried about coming to London. You don't have to be. That's not a prerequisite. You could have been supremely confident that London has not changed from the most magnificent city on earth as long as it has been.

If you've been recently, for the benefit of everybody who is still swallowing this crud coming out of the president's mouth, what was it like? Just give me a quick heads up on what happened when you visited London most recently, because I can fill my show with people who live here.

But in many ways, we're the choir. And I'm preaching to the choir, people who don't live here but have visited. So two ways into this. I'm going to make it more personal now rather than political. Or rather, I'm going to make the political personal. So question number one. Have you visited recently? And what was it like? Because people need to know. Not Donald Trump. He's a liar. But people falling for his lies need to know. Okay? 03456060973.

But also, tell me about the people who believe the lies. So Ned has opened the betting. Ned has opened the betting at... A landlady in Essex who thinks she'd have to wear a burka if she came to London. I'm still sceptical about that. I'm not sceptical about Ned. I'm sceptical that, and I don't... What I mean by that is I know that she said that to him, but I don't know that she believed it. He thinks she did and he was there.

which is typical me, really, isn't it? I wasn't there, and I don't know her, but I'm convinced I know better than Ned about what actually happened in that conversation he was actually part of. But we're going to open the betting with a landlady in Essex. who thinks she'd have to wear a burka if she came to London. And Essex is only, you know, what, 50 miles away? So tell me about your Essex landlady or your Uncle Bob or you. Maybe it's you.

And you can tell me what you do believe about London. And I can just let you know, as a Londoner, indeed as Sir Mark Rowley described us, as proud Londoners, we can just let you know whether it's true or not. So the big question is, why do British people join in? with foreign propaganda attacking our country. And the little question is, have you been here lately? How was it for you? 03456060973. And...

What else have you encountered people, genuine real people who you know, who you may even be related to or work with? What do they believe about London that you know to be bonkers, but they genuinely believe it? That gulf fascinates me. Between the bonkers and the belief, all the good stuff lies. Andy's in Hornchurch. Andy, what would you like to say?

Hi, James. First of all, love your show. You're very kind. It's part of the problem, actually. It's part of the problem, this show. Going around, getting shot in the ass. People listening to this show. If you listen to this show, you increase the likelihood of getting shot in the ass by about 400%, Andy.

Be careful, all right? Stay sitting down when you're on public transport later today. Go on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I will be as well. So will I. Right, OK, so lived in London 52 years. Used to live in Somerset where... Fights in pubs was quite a regular thing, you know. Yes. The only trouble I've seen here, I used to be a head teacher, the only trouble I've ever seen here in terms of violence is on the playground, the occasional scrap with 11-year-olds. But, you know, it's...

It is just crazy. Well, no one... I mean, that will be the common experience, is that most of us are lucky enough not to have encountered violence firsthand. But of course, no one is suggesting, and obviously not you, but for the...

avoidance of doubt or for the comfort of idiots there is violent crime in this city there are not there is knife crime in this city there are problems in this city but they are nothing compared to the same problems in american cities and things are actually better now compared to most

british cities so um i mean it's just a statement of fact that you that you share with us from a perspective of having actually lived it why do british people why are so many british people desperate to believe the opposite desperate to believe the untruth I think when you repeat the lie enough times, you know, on Facebook, on Twitter and all the rest of it, and why would they have any reason not to believe it? Because, you know, there are people claiming that they live in London.

Sharia law and all the rest of it. Shakira. Yeah. If I was living in Norwich or something, you know, even though I'm fairly discerning with my reading of social media, I'd begin to think, well, maybe there's something in it. You know, it can't all be live. I like you. That's generous. You'll be more generous than I am. It's just that there's so much of it. There must be fire. There's so much smoke. There must be fire. Yeah, yeah. And I...

I mean, I sent a message in earlier that I spent a month in the States going through the southern states in February. And I spoke to so many Americans who felt sorry for me. They commiserated with me when I said I was from London. It's not funny. Most of them voted against Trump. They hate Trump. But they've been absolutely drowning in anti-British propaganda. Yeah. Masquerading as pro-British.

sentimental cause, because they think that we need protecting from whatever this unspecified non-existent threat might be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, I mean, we should do that as well. This is one of those topics. It's like a flower. It keeps opening. New petals keep appearing. Could we get a whole hour? Do you remember during the Brexit aftermath, we did a whole show where we wouldn't take any calls from Britain. We wanted to know what we looked like to the rest of the world.

None of that counts for RAJR. I don't get paid for any of that, you know. It's just not fair. I get rewarded in other ways, for example, with my Peace Prize. But the idea of doing a conversation with... Have we got any Americans on the line yet? Maybe it's the Uncle Bob. We need your Uncle Bob. What do your American friends believe? What do you in America hear from your friends or your neighbours and your colleagues about the city I live in? 0345 6060 973 is the number.

that you need so you've got people who don't like trump but are still believing the anti-british propaganda how have we ended up in a place where we can't all agree that anti-british propaganda is a bad thing answer because some british people have believed it

Question why? Leading Britain's conversation. LBC with James O'Brien. 17 minutes after 12. Peter's in Connemara. Hi James, I live in the west of Ireland. I've just come back from a lovely week in London. I felt as safe there as I do here in Connemara. See, I told you he was in Connemara. Johind is in North Wales. Hi, James. I'm in North Wales. You see, I told you. And I love our trips down to London. Perfectly safe and a lovely city to visit.

Withdraw my name, please, says bleep. I live in Essex, and my neighbour said just the other day that she won't go to London anymore, as the last time she went, it was full of P words. Seriously. Well, I've got sadly no problem believing that. All I would point out is that five years ago, she probably wouldn't have said that to you. She'd have just harbored those thoughts in private. Unless, of course, she went to Dulwich College, in which case she would have been fine saying it out loud.

albeit a few years ago. Simon says, James, people need to continue the poison narrative because it's far easier to con someone than it is to get them to admit that they've been conned in the first place. And he makes the point that there are echoes of Brexit here. Gary, Southend, happy Friday. Same to you. I'm off to London shortly. I'm not packing a burka, I can confirm. Only a sense of being excited for the good fun ahead. What a load of old cobblers, mate.

It's bizarre, right? As a fairly regular visitor to the violent metropolis known as London, I can confirm that I always feel safe. Now this is a British complaint from David. You ready for this? You can confirm that you always feel safe, but, or rather, however, in capital letters, here it comes. Here's the British, possibly Scottish, complaint.

Little bit of low-level racist prejudice there. I do apologise. Here it comes. Ready? However, they do know how to extract the cash down there. They sure do, David. You should see how much a pint costs. Chris is in Arundel. Chris, what made you pick up the phone? Well, actually, I've been listening to you for a long time and never called in, but you said people who were on their way back from having been in London. And I had my Christmas dinner with my work colleagues last night.

Oh, I didn't mean literally. Crikey, this is sensational. You're literally on your way. Are you okay? Are you all right? Do you need any... Shall I send support? I could get the red cross to you probably in five seconds. Are you all right? Do you have any injuries? Absolutely no injuries whatsoever. Did you get stabbed in the ass? No, but one of my colleagues did say that her boyfriend had said, oh...

Be careful if you're going up to London. She's from the West Country. Right. And she laughed about it because we work in London quite often. And, you know, the people who don't regularly visit have a... preconception that it's this dangerous place that you're going to arrive in. When did it start? People desperate to steal your phone. Do you know when it started? I mean, I grew up in Kilimanjaro and there were always people who were...

oh, you'd never catch me in that London. And it was, I don't know what it was, and I don't want to be mean because they were lovely people, but it wasn't a fear of non-existent threats that informed it. When did the fear of the non-existent threats kick in?

I don't know if I could put my finger on it. I've worked in and out of London for the last 30 years, all my working career, really. And people have just always had this thing about, I wouldn't like to go into London. I wouldn't like to work in London. All of those tropes have been there for a long time. When it became more racially motivated, because I think it is now, I think it's this perception that it's full of brown people. I am a British Asian.

So, you know, I have a vested interest in this conversation, I would say, is the fact that the multiculturalism is something that they don't like and they don't like the growth of it. They all like to eat a curry on a Friday night or a Chinese. But what I don't like is seeing that all over the place, which you do. One of the things I like about going into London, living in Arundel, I'm kind of, you know...

the exception rather than the rule. And I like going into London to see the multiculturalism that's happening. and the people that are out enjoying themselves, and how it's not pigeonholed into groups. No, I mean, and of course, on a very obvious point, I know you don't need me to point this out, but any business that wasn't...

enjoying custom would not last. So, you know, regardless of how many people are eating, I mean, what would, apart from fish and chips, what would an English takeaway sell? It wasn't there a... sketch show, goodness gracious me, where they used to go out for an English. Make it really bland. I want the blandest dish you've got. It's a different age, actually, when you could... I wonder if that would land as well now, because...

It almost celebrated the fact that some of those prejudices felt like things of the past, didn't it? Whereas now...

They're arguably moving back front and centre. But, yeah, I don't know what it would be. I think it's one of your phrases, isn't it, that people now say the quiet bit out loud a lot more than they used to. And I'm in my 50s now, and so I lived through... you know going to school in the 80s when there was quite a lot of of overt racism but also quite a lot of the anti-racist kind of movements that were you know friends and and and then colleagues who who were

part of that kind of thing as well. And I think we have got back to that stage where it is acceptable to say that quiet part out loud now again, whereas for a long time it wasn't. No, you're right, and that's why they used to shout. I don't think that people feel it more. I think they just say it more.

is probably the case. Well, I don't know what I hope, to be honest. I just hope things get better sooner rather than later, although history suggests that they won't. I don't know that I agree with you. I think some people are now harbouring thoughts they didn't harbour before because they are believing lies. And so it's a real feeling, even though it's built on lies. I never really understood why people used to get so cross about...

quote, political correctness, end quote. And some of the stuff that would be... amplified by the right-wing media, was comical, you know, and you'd hear about they want to ban blackboards or they want to ban Bar Bar Black Sheep, the song, the nursery rhyme, and you'd read into it and it was...

At the very best or the very most, it would be sort of one or two individuals or organizations who were making claims in the face of almost universal opposition. But of course, you don't get that from a headline. It creates the idea in people's minds that something that is under threat. You saw it most with claims that Christmas was under threat.

when again it's coming back around again this year because of christmas trees for sale in a supermarket that labels them differently because if they stuck christmas tree on five different boxes with five different trees inside people will end up buying the one they didn't want But you create feelings of negativity. I'm less optimistic than you are. I don't think they were there all along. I think they've been created or maybe more optimistic than you are.

I don't know. The idea that they've been created. Because if they've been created, they can be uncreated. Thank you, Chris. Safe journey home. Bon voyage. There's Chris. Possibly the only person to have visited London last night from outside the capital who has not been stabbed in the ass. or robbed or any of those things and listen for the avoidance of doubt because you know this program needs to be idiot proof for obvious reasons there are crimes in this city there are crimes in this capital

There are hideous crimes in this capital. There are hideous crimes in every city in the world. But the head of the Met, who has a rather better finger upon the pulse of what's going on than any of us do, certainly than Donald Trump does. has been pretty categorical in how worried we should be about this stuff. And I don't think we can play this clip often enough, actually. And sadly, I think it should be on a loop in many Fleet Street offices because...

This is the truth. You can't reach Billy Buncher numbers on social media and Donald Trump's not going to change the habit of a lifetime and suddenly start caring about the truth. But newspaper columnists, newspaper editors, right-wing politicians, all joining in with a foreign propaganda attack upon our capital city, should probably have a little listen to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

So there's no no-go areas. That's completely false. Is that fake news? I think how anybody in America can suggest the UK is violent is completely ridiculous. The homicide rate in London is lower than every single US state. It's lower than all their big cities. I think the murder rate in New York, last time I looked, is about three or four times higher than it is in London per capita.

Whilst I make this point, the domicile rate in London is lower than it is in Toronto, it's lower than Paris, it's lower than Brussels, it's lower than Berlin. This is a safe city. I'm not going to pretend it's perfect. It's a safe city. injury violence in London is lower than the other cities in the UK and I think this trend of trying to rubbish London, some of which is driven by politics, we need to sort of...

We who are proud Londoners need to fight back about it because there's lots to be proud of about London. Clearly there are some crime issues that we're tackling and it's not perfect, but I'm proud of the progress we're making at reducing crime. It is 26 minutes after 12. Nobody says it's perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than most of the alternatives. So why does Donald Trump keep lying about it? Why do so many British people join in? And what's your reality?

What can you actually say from lived experience rather than racist lies that you picked up on social media? Sandra is in Liverpool. Sandra, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Hello. Yeah, recently back from a... Fantastic visit to London. Are you okay? Three ladies. Are you sure? Three ladies? Yeah, but you brought ten male bodyguards with you, didn't you? Just to be on the safe side. But no one knew you were ladies because you were wearing burqas. You could have been anyone.

any kind of burgers. It was a surprise for a friend's birthday. We took a trip to London and I have to say it was one of the best weekends that we've ever spent together. We've been to other cities and other countries and nothing compared to the visit to London that we had. We felt completely safe. We went to a show. We did the tourist stuff. All we saw was people getting on with their lives.

No trouble. You're one of those clogging up my pavements, aren't you? And I'm trying to get to the tube station in a bit of a hurry and you're all there pointing at things. Again, the tube. We did a lot of travelling on the tube. Everyone was helpful, respectful. No problems whatsoever. Walked through Wales Court to get to a show. Didn't feel unsafe. I think it's just obviously it suits certain people.

proper, you know, agenda, doesn't it? I guess it does. I'm not 100% what the agenda is, but I think it is. You can't possibly have a happy multicultural community. Were you expecting to be safe, or did some of this smoke reach you in Liverpool before you came down? Well, I think being from Liverpool, we hear a lot of misinformation about our own city. This is true. So we're quite, you know, aware of that. A little bit more clear-eyed than another.

You know, we did have the odd comment, you know, don't walk around with your phone, don't do this. Well, I had my phone out plenty to find places that we wanted to visit. Never felt threatened at all. At all. But I think, unfortunately... The people who are sort of spreading this, they don't want...

They don't want the facts to be known because it doesn't suit them. And that could be coming from a whole heap of places. It could be just basic racism. It could be Donald Trump's hope of terrorising his own population. It could be a hatred of...

sadiq khan not because he's a muslim or brown skin but simply because he's a labor politician but you would think at some point the priority would become patriotism and it would overcome the prejudice but it but it doesn't it's gone so far now it's remarkable Well, talking about patriotism, I mean, to me, patriotism is not pulling down your own country. And also, just as a little side, I actually live in Liverpool, but I work in Manchester. And I've worked there for 13 years and I travel in.

And never, until about three months ago, in 13 years of travelling there, ever see the Union Jack flag or the St George's flag. And now I travel down a certain road and everywhere, on every lamppost. and it really upsets me. I don't like it. Because we know why they've been put up. Yeah, of course we do. And there may well, I mean there may be, I'm not convinced, but there may be some people out there who are putting flags up.

probably not in the middle of the night while wearing balaclava helmets and painting a couple of roundabouts on the way home, who really are doing it from a... a celebratory um perspective of everybody british everybody in this country but um they're very quiet if they are because they've been hiding for a long time then haven't they i think you're right i think you're right and um and that of course is in many ways the carol

of patriotism I wonder how many flag hangers I have to say hangers I can't use the rather more felicitous turn of phrase that is popular to describe these people, but I do wonder how many of the flag hangers are victims of the foreign propaganda campaign or exponents of it, people who are doing it. Or just falling for it? And where is the line between people falling for it and then people spreading it? Sandra, thank you so much. I was walking around. In fact, I lost my phone the other day.

I told you what happened, didn't I? It's almost like the polar opposite. Look, it's one phone. No one's pretending phone theft isn't a big problem in this city. But my phone was...

handed in to a police officer who was part of Operation Servitor on the streets of Brentford, West London, by a almost certainly foreign born, because I went over to talk to him when the policeman pointed out where he was. They were just... on the other side of the road waiting to pick up food from mcdonald's an uber eats delivery man or a just eat delivery guy on a moped an asian chap who had picked up my phone after it fell out my pocket on the way back from tennis

handed it in to a police officer who was on duty in my part of London, and the police officer rang the number that was put on the phone on the emergency message, which was my wife's phone, and lo and behold... I got reunited with my phone. That's what happens in London, if you're not careful. That was about what you might call a Susan Hall crime.

in that I lost something, it got handed in, and I got reunited in it, and I'll be appearing on The Breakfast Show on Monday to explain how this is proof that Sadiq Khan's London is out of control. It's 12.32. That's not a dig at Nick, by the way. That's a dig at Susan Hall, for the record. Amelia Cox has your headlines James O'Brien on LBC call 0345 6060 973

12.35 is the time for balance. This is from James. James, I had a terrible experience while visiting London recently. I walked past Oliver Dowden. Behave. Scott's in Dundee. Scott, what made you pick up the phone? Good afternoon, James. It's a long-time caller. Sorry, long-time listener. You've messed it up, man. Start again. Start again. Do it again. Right, rewind. Scott's in Dundee. Scott, what made you pick up the phone?

Good afternoon, James. Long time listener, first time caller. Excellent stuff. Carry on. My fiancé and stepson, we were in London a little bit early in the year. He had just finished primary school, so it was round about July-ish time. And we had a great experience. Prior to coming down though, we were aware of news that was coming out about the devil's puff or whatever it was called, this mysterious kind of powder or that that was being thrust in people's faces on the tube.

I missed that. I mean, to be fair, I only live here. Like what blinds you while they nick your phone, does it, or something? I think it was, I think the devil's puff, I'm sure that's what it was called. It's what it was called in the media up here anyway.

It seems to be like a psychedelic type drug. And that's when they would then, if you get knocked out, they could then nick your phone or your wallet. I'm sure it has happened if it was reported in the media, but it's not something that has reached me. So yeah, you have genuine... concerns because there's so much smoke, there must be some fire.

to a degree and we were worried about that as far as being the tube goes late at night there was also the media that we see up here sometimes in Scotland has to do with muggings or phones which is again reported widely a lot by ourselves and LBC but When we went down, we didn't find any of that at all. It was just a fantastic experience. We would hop on, hop off bus for tourism. We did Paddington. We wandered around Harrods. It was just fantastic. We felt safe.

And Paddington's in the news today, actually. I've got you an unhinged headline. You've just reminded me. Get the unhinged headline sting ready, and I shall dedicate it to Scott. Long-time listener, first-time caller, if I can find it, which, knowing me, I almost certainly can't. The problem is an obvious one. It's as old as the hills, isn't it? The queue for the ghost trains are 100 times longer than the queue for the Speak Your Weight Machine. If you had been a victim of a violent crime...

particularly if you were rich enough to wear a Rolex, you would have made the Daily Telegraph. But we can have 100, 1,000, 10,000 people over there visiting the capital and having a wonderful time and going home happy. and replete if a little bit lighter in the wallet area. And it's not a story. It's dog bites man, isn't it? So that's part of the problem here is that there's loads of smoke.

There's next to no fire at all, but there's no whatever the opposite of smoke is. You're not going to go on your social media to see people waxing lyrical about what a lovely time they've had in London. And let's be honest, Scott, if we did, we'd probably scroll through to the next one immediately because there's nothing... Nothing more boring than somebody else's holiday snaps. Of course, yeah. Negative news makes the headlines, doesn't it?

The thing recently as well, I suppose, with Trump jumping on the bandwagon, is the politics in the news is obviously the immigration, Farage, reform, all talking about it's the immigrants causing the problems and that's why we should get them out. I should point out for a start, firstly, I don't believe that at all and I'm starkly against reform. But that's the kind of thing that would be jumped upon by those who believe or who are maybe on the fence.

Darren Brown once posited the idea through one of his experiments of mob mentality. Yeah, just up and running, it works. Well, yeah, I guess so. But again, you know, we could potentially all be part of the mob. It's interesting, isn't it? In some ways, the most interesting testimony is probably from people that came feeling a little bit trepidatious.

Like that, like Scott, and thinking that, you know, because you would. I don't want to, you know, attack everybody. It's just the people. I mean, I'm starting with Donald Trump, and then I'm starting with journalists who live in London and know that it's lies, know that it's not true.

And then, you know, obviously you've got the usual suspects on social media. But then your uncle Bob on Facebook, a bit like Brexit, is content for the con man, compassion for the con. How has he ended up believing this nonsense? But it's easier to disbelieve than Brexit lies.

Because literally all you have to do is ask people or visit. And when you do, you realise that all of these fears were utterly misplaced. Again, for the avoidance of doubt and to make the show idiot proof, of course there is crime in London. But the idea that an American political figure can claim that it's less safe here than it would be in pretty much any American city, it's not even...

bizarre. It's beyond bizarre. It's something much uglier. Mohamed is in Oxford. Mohamed, what would you like to say? Hi, how's it going? Very well, mate. What's on your mind? Just before I get off, I wanted to say that... I want to go on yet. Go on. I wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you for the great service that you provide to journalism. You do have such integrity and perspicaciousness.

And I think you're a modern-day hero for that. Oh, you're very kind. Is there a big but coming? I'm hoping to get you on fire again. I feel like there's too much emphasis placed on the people propagating these.

notions as opposed to accountability for the people perpetuating them. I mean, like, the crux of the issue is really that we have a deeply ingrained racism with this society. It's a slightest scale between... ignorance fueled by prejudice or prejudice fueled by ignorance to racism fueled by bigotry. It's about how fertile the soil is, I think. And obviously, I'm going to have a bit or a lot of white privilege here. But to me, it's about how fertile the soil is.

I wouldn't argue about the fertility of the soil, but seeds need to be sown and they need to be watered. And that's where I think we've really failed, where people haven't... I remember Sadiq Khan explaining to me, and I'm sure he's done it on air, so it's not in any way a betrayal of confidence.

um as the only time we talk off air really we'll be here when when um when the microphones aren't on and i said to him shouldn't you be coming down a bit harder on some of this abuse that's coming in shouldn't we be sharing more of it and his argument was always

that he doesn't want to put particularly young Asian people off politics. He doesn't want to put anybody off politics, and anybody in receipt of the kind of poison that he sees on a daily basis would put... somebody off and he doesn't want to put people off policies and i always found that a very persuasive argument but i'm beginning to wonder now

whether we should have moved further and faster against the forces that you describe, against the people for whom this is bread and butter, and bread, butter and bigotry. Yeah, I'll have to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, a lot of it just get a bit funny. I think that position is somewhat a commendable one, but...

We have to focus on a kind of larger issues before we go micro again. And how do we do that? How do we push back against... Mark Riley says proud Londoners have to stand up against this. And albeit that you're in Oxford, what does standing up against it look like? It looks like standing up to power in every form and shape. So if you look at kind of the reports on the mentally, emotionally racist, if you look at the treatment of...

ethnic minority women in pregnancy wards. If you look at all of these things, you can see a common theme running across everything that we do have at the very crux of our society. underlying institutional racism. And if we don't confront that, then we can't confront the individual because we're not supported by these agencies. Yeah, and of course, Sir Mark Rowley, who I have been...

Very praising of today remains a man who rejects the use of the phrase institutional racism even after it appears in numerous investigations into his own force because he worries about the impact upon... upon morale among his ranks and that would be no doubt a piece of evidence you could cite in defense of your position, Mohamed. So yeah, you're right. I mean, we're focusing upon one element of it.

But, of course, the bigger picture would involve the fertility of the soil. It's not so much why are so many people joining in with foreign propaganda attacks upon our capital city. It's why were so many people ripe for harvesting. And the answer, sadly, must involve a susceptibility to bigotry or a very low-lying bigotry or merely the fertility of the soil that can then be sown, reaped and harvested by...

by racists, or at least by opportunistic politicians who use racism to distract electorates from what they are doing and from the real causes of the problems that they, the electorate, face. Laurie is in Gypsy Hill. Laurie, what would you like to say?

Hi there, yes. Hi, James. I'm the first-time caller as well. I've never called any radio station in my life. That's all right. I mean, you know, you sound as if you're a little bit surprised to find yourself on the radio, Laurie, but I will take it as a compliment. I'm super surprised. There are a couple of reasons why I'm calling. One is that I'm just about... finishing my training as a blue badge.

tourist guide in London. So the things you're talking about have an impact on the economy of the tourist economy here in London. Secondly, I lived for seven years outside the UK. I've lived in Colombia in South America and my wife is from there. And thirdly, I'm a therapist and therefore I have some insight about why people live by certain stories. But I want to start with the Colombian thing because...

I just want us to catch ourselves. And by the way, I'm not talking here from wanting to be right or from having any kind of ideology to sell. But I will say this, that if I talk to anybody about Colombia. they will have a set of ideas and a story in their head that comes from narcos and that almost...

80% of them will make a joke about cocaine before I even start a conversation. And I think we just need to catch ourselves about, we're so indignant about what's going on here in terms of other countries having an opinion about London that isn't correct.

Try being a Colombian and living with that all your life and all your generations. That's a valid point, yes. And secondly, the same thing, if I were to ask you what your opinions were of the southern states of the United States, which I don't happen to know particularly well.

But, you know, there will come to mind a set of images of people with guns, Bible bashing, and being ill-educated and not having passports. Yeah, there's a difference between a stereotype and a blatant lie, though, mate. Yes. A massive difference. I don't want to accuse you of whataboutery, particularly not on the Colombian thing, because that's obviously very personal to you.

But a stereotype is built upon reality. It's an exaggeration or an amplification of observable reality. Donald Trump isn't stereotyping London. He's lying through his teeth about it. Sure, indeed he is. Indeed he is. But... So, okay, I mean, there are lies, but lies are perpetrated about...

lots of countries that become anecdotal and that people pass amongst themselves thinking that they're true. You know, I'm just kind of catching ourselves on that, first of all. I think the second thing I would say is that... People don't live, but we all live anecdotal lives. We all have individual experiences and we build a picture and a storyline around what meaning we create for a place, right? So I'm not...

in any way justifying, by the way, this view of London or these lies about London or whatever it might be. But what I'm saying to you is humans, sometimes I think that we struggle to believe that humans... have rationality as their core of what drives them. None of us is really very rational. We're all kind of extrapolating from our own experience. This is the ghost train.

always has a longer cue than the speak your weight machine and yet there's nothing actually frightening about the ghost train because it's mechanical and it's made by human beings and it's bits of skeleton dangling from a ceiling and yet we're still capable in an entirely irrational way of being frightened by it and we'll pace

someone to frighten us. Just before, because you made me late for the break, I just want to nudge you towards the economic impact of what Donald Trump is doing, which I think you have a personal investment in a bit. Well, I have a personal investment, yes I do, because the majority of tourists that pay for guides and are interested in London are Americans. And my impression, although I haven't started fully guiding yet, but from all the tutors and all the cohort that I know...

The sense is that the people who come here love London dearly. But the final thing I would say is the reason that we allow these stories to take place is partly because... we don't have an alternative positive narrative about London very much anymore. Yeah, and that's where we've been remiss, and that's where I feel a little bit... Guilty would be too strong a word. I mean, I still feel a little bit silly now, saying, give me a ring and tell me how amazing London is.

Because it's a bit like, you know, asking if you've ever had a parking ticket that was unfair. There'll be loads of people, but it's actually not the same, is it? Because of what Laurie says. What does fighting back look like? Oh, and the mayor, not the mayor, when the police commissioner says, we've got to start fighting back against these lies, against this ludicrous, racist narrative. My word's not his.

what does that what does that look like and at the moment i don't know i've got nothing other than what we're currently doing um and and that's quite a small response isn't it in the great scheme of things a drop in the ocean of social media where liars will be dominating the conversation, dominating the narrative. Oh, yeah, what does he know? I bet he's never even been to London. Genuinely, I'm not even exaggerating. I'm sitting in the middle of Leicester Square.

I came here by public transport. I'll go home by public transport. Went out two, three times in the last two weeks, late in central London. I don't wear a Rolex because I can't afford one. But I wear a watch. I lost my phone. a couple of days ago, got handed in by an Uber Eats driver of Asian extraction. Police found it, handed it to me.

called me up gave it to all of these things doesn't matter he doesn't know what it's really like i bet he doesn't know what it's really like do you know what it's really like yes i do where do you live um but um Well, nowhere near London. When's the last time you visited? 1994. When, sorry? 1994. Well, no, I came to the Millennium Dome in the year 2000. I came for the fireworks. Okay, and who knows this place better? You or me?

And, of course, the answer on social media is me. 100%, you big whoopsie. It's 12.49.

12.52 is the time. I've got an unhinged headline and a missed information and a full disclosure for you and a bunch of callers still waiting to talk to me about, quote, crime riddle Dundon, end quote. Spoiler alert, it's no such thing. Someone tell the president. Let's start with the unhinged headline.

Unhinged Headline. Gets me every time, doesn't it? Makes it sound like a proper radio show with stings and jingles and all the rest of it. This is from the Daily Telegraph. It's written by David Frost. The man that Boris Johnson put in the House of Lords for services to idiocy. Are you ready for this? You may not be aware of this. You may need this in your life, this information. Here it comes. Ready? Paddington is irrelevant to our island story.

I'm not even going to go any further. That's what the most important issue facing the country is today, according to... We need a little nickname for David Frost, don't we, Lord Frost? I think my favourite ever was probably Digby Pudding Jones. But what could we call David Frost in a very childish and juvenile fashion that would properly reflect his utter, utter idiocy?

I don't know. I'll come up with it. Anyway, Paddington is irrelevant to our island story. And on a slightly more serious note, would you like a misinformation? You would. Oh, marvellous. Missed information. Thank you, Emily. Here's the headline, also from the Daily Telegraph. Farage's old school says racism claims are distressing as ex-pupils leap to his defence. So that's an interesting headline. Farage, of course, still hiding. I'll leave you to work out why.

And I think the number of former schoolmates that are now recalling and confirming the allegations and accusations of quite hideous racism and anti-Semitism.

which Farage originally denied and then claimed couldn't possibly be remembered by anybody and then claimed that he could remember and it definitely didn't happen and then claimed that it did actually happen, but it wasn't racist and then claimed that it was racist, but it wasn't offensive. Are you still with me at the back? But I was struck by that line in the Daily Mail.

telegraph here because the daily telegraph and the daily mail are at great pains to pretend that this isn't um evidence of what is what the man is truly like um ex-pupils leap to his defense so i thought wow there must be more Since the last time he dared to show his face in public and claimed he'd received a letter from one former pupil, but he couldn't tell us who it was because he went to the same school.

So I've got to take the article. There must be loads more because the Daily Ticker-Off says they're leaping, leaping to his defense, no less. They've leapt. They've leapt to ex-pupils. I've leapt to his defense. Here it is. So this is a response to the current headmaster of Dulwich College expressing his dismay and indeed his distress at what Nigel Farage did when he was a pupil at the school, according to now 28 people who were there at the same time.

This is the ex-pupils leaping to Farage's defence. If he is interested, I can show him the many messages I have received from fellow pupils, including Jewish ones, that entirely contradict these allegations. A statement of such utter, utter absurdity that I'm astonished even the Daily Telegraph printed it. Even though they printed an article under the headline Paddington is irrelevant to our island story on the same morning. Because there are two problems with this. Number one...

Nothing's changed since the last time he dared to show his face in public and claimed that he was receiving messages of support from former pupils, but he couldn't tell us who they were. And number two, if I don't witness something, it doesn't mean it never happened.

i can't believe i need to explain that if i don't witness something it doesn't mean it never happened so even if he does have people saying i never witnessed this that is not support for the idea that it never happened unbelievable um

Before I get back to, I'm probably not going to have time for another call. I must shut up and talk less and take more calls. One day I will. The winners of the Global Player Awards have been announced this week, if you missed it. The News Agents win Best Podcast Show, officially the most listened to podcast on Global Player.

Biggest new podcast, Christiane Amanpour presents The X-Files with Jamie Rubin. You can find the full list. I'm not on it yet. And to listen to both these award-winning shows, just head to Global Player. My award came in a bit late, my Global Player Peace Prize.

Brackets, mid-mornings, weekdays only, LBC, close brackets. That came in a little bit late for inclusion in the full roundup, but I did win it nonetheless. And I won another prize last week. I got to sit down with someone I've been wanting to interview for an extremely...

long time i don't think i'm going to tell you who it is i'm just going to play the clip with and then it'll be a delightful surprise to you every 11 year old boy wants to be a footballer when they grow up when do you think looking back because you wouldn't have known at the time that that became a realistic prospect for you

It wasn't realistic until 1516. And by that point, I'd already been released by Southampton. What was that like? Well, heartbreaking at the moment it happened. A bit impersonal. You just got a letter through the post. There was no sort of... meeting but when I look back although the dream was to be a footballer

I didn't have any awareness of the realities of what that journey was going to be at that point. And it was only when I really, when I left school, went into full-time training, you're suddenly in this men's environment where people are planning for their livelihoods. you know they need the win bonus to pay the mortgage or so that sudden shift from this is a game I'm playing for fun with my mates to no this is a job

And it's a very different mindset. So this is doing a YTS at Palace. Yeah. Yeah. And I really struggled with that. Did you? Adaptation. Yeah. I had to get. two trains to get to the training ground before I was able to drive. Yeah I was physically a late developer.

I was psychologically a bit soft. Okay. So I had a lot of toughening up to do when I was 16, 17, yeah. It didn't help that you turned up in... shirt and tie maybe not a tie that's probably a bit no I went no tie but I did I did I turned up first day in my school uniform because I thought well you know I guess you've got to be smart on your first day and of course everybody else was in tracksuit so yeah

Because I had problems fitting in at the start would be very fair. The only interview I've ever conducted which began with me telling him that my wife told me to tell him that she loves him. I hope that doesn't become a habit. And Dear England, Lessons in Leadership by Gary Southgate is available to purchase now from all major booksellers, it says here, but I'm willing to wager minor booksellers.

We'll have it as well. Mediocre booksellers probably got it in stock and indeed rubbish booksellers as well. If you missed any of today's show... You can listen back on our free Global Player. The fight back begins against propaganda and lies about London. Not here, actually. It began with Sir Mark Rowley earlier on The Breakfast Show, but it continues. You can listen on the new LBC app. You can stay up to date with all the top stories.

You can put your news categories in the order you want. You can pause live radio, rewind live radio, listen to a range of podcasts, including Full Disclosure with Gareth Southgate, James O'Brien Daily, the best bits of this show every day, non-award winning podcasts galore, presented by me.

download the official lbc app free from you all right there sorry that's okay would you like a cough sweet perfect timing i feel like philip hammond and your theresa may um no coming up at four on lbc is tom swarbrick but now it's time for sheila fogarty god you've got your own back there

I'll be defending London at three as well. He keeps his head, Mark Rowley, doesn't he? But there was no disguising his irritation. President Trump's attacks on London and its mayor, of course. So what is the truth, Will? work it out together after three. The health secretary, West Street, you know is where I start. He says the resident doctor strike is risking serious harm to patients. I've said it before, I'll say it again. More on that after two. The super flu, as it's being called.