You can't keep a sociopath exercising absolute power sweet

Three minutes after ten is the time. A very good morning to you. And, well, here we are. It's hard to track, isn't it, whether or not we are... hitting brick walls or just passing through ever more milestones in the assembly of increasingly incontrovertible evidence that the United States of America is led by a lunatic. I wonder whether it's time even to drop the F word. Fascistic doesn't seem to come close to some of the conduct that's been on display now.

Donald Trump is a lunatic. Some of the problems we have in properly tracking these moments, of course, is knowing what's real and what isn't real. I've seen a letter and it's been posted on a reputable site that appears to show Donald Trump complaining to the... Prime Minister of Norway, that because they didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize, he's doubly committed to the notion of stealing Greenland. I'm presumably thinking that one Scandinavian country is very much the same.

That's the other. We'll look into that a little later in the programme. But the point, of course, is that... Never has it been more important to rely upon trusted sources. And how can you when so many of those sources in this country have been in abject and fairly pathetic denial about the obvious threat that Donald Trump poses both to the world?

order and to the safety and security, whether economic or actual, of former NATO allies, most obviously of course in the Baltic states and Scandinavia. I thought it might be helpful. to run through moments upon which, it's not an exhaustive list, but notable occasions when a UK Prime Minister has formally addressed the nation.

It's not quite as rare as you might have thought. You might have thought, well, what is it? Wars and pandemics. With a little bit of Brexit, probably, the morning of. But it's a little bit more than that. But not quite as much as you might hope.

on a morning like this if you are thinking of investing in the odds on this not being a moment of massive importance. So if we were to go back to 1939... 3rd of September, no prizes for remembering, or indeed simply knowing, that that is the moment at which Winston Churchill chose to announce that Britain was at war with Germany following the invasion of Poland. Just under a year later, he gave the blood toil...

tears and sweat speech. It wasn't Churchill that announced Britain was at war with Germany, of course. He didn't become Prime Minister until May of the following year, at which point he gave the blood, toil, tears and sweat speech. And then on the 8th of May, 1945... He announced Germany's surrender, still commemorated, of course, as VE Day. Then you have Clement Attlee, shortly after becoming prime minister that year, announcing Japan's surrender. Then you have...

15 years, pause, before Harold Macmillan gave the Winds of Change speech, which was addressing decolonisation. So that probably was the last big speech about empire, the end of empire. So the beginning and the end of wars and the end of empire so far, if we were to track from 1939 to 1960, those are the moments that merited the sort of address that the Prime Minister has just delivered.

The beginning and the end of wars, or the war, and the end of empire. Tony Blair gave an address following the September 11th attacks on the United States. Also, I think, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. and the announcement of UK military action in Iraq. David Cameron announcing the coalition government, something... Sufficiently unprecedented to merit such a moment. And then later, six years later, announcing his own resignation following that Brexit referendum.

Then you've got the Manchester Arena terror attack, the first national COVID lockdown in March of 2020. And then another COVID one in May, outlining the first steps to ease lockdown restrictions. And now this, which sits, I think, closer to moments of peril than it does moments of country management. Some of those examples would fit into both categories, wouldn't they?

You heard much of that speech. If you didn't, we'll be sharing some clips shortly. But Claire Starmer charged effect. Well, if I have a little listen to a small piece of it now. Mature alliances are not. about pretending differences don't exist. They are about addressing them directly, respectfully and with a focus on results. On Greenland... The right way to approach an issue of this seriousness is through calm discussion between allies. And let's be clear, the security of Greenland matters.

And it will matter more as climate change reshapes the Arctic, as sea routes open and strategic competition intensifies. The high north will require greater attention, greater investment. and stronger collective defence. The United States will be central to that effort, and the UK stands ready to contribute fully alongside our allies through NATO.

What's your first thought on hearing that? And probably it will be based upon what you heard earliest rather than latest. But I found myself reflecting upon the possibility of having a mature alliance with a demonstrably immature partner. Can you have a mature alliance with a toddler? Can you have a mature alliance with a four-year-old having a tantrum? Can you have a mature alliance with somebody so utterly detached from normality that the...

very concept of maturity seems, well, moot at the very least. I don't know. I mean, it's a question you might choose to answer. I bow to a few people in my admiration for Hugh Grant.

And of course, he will be in mind later as Prince Harry turns his attentions. to the Daily Mail in that High Court, a case that anybody who wonders how this cavalcade of catastrophe has been visited upon our country over the last 10 years would do well to follow. The Daily Mail, probably unique... the malign and hideous influence it's had over public discourse and politics in this country, let alone the personal lives and privacy, allegedly, of the plaintiffs in this case.

But the legacy Hugh Grant has given the country for which I do not thank him is the closing bars. Love Actually, when he provides an entirely unrealistic account of what a UK Prime Minister might reasonably do in the face of, I mean, a monster.

In the White House. I don't know that we should thank you, Grant, for that. Because you'd be surprised how many messages I get. Genuinely, apparently, seriously suggesting that Keir Starmer should take a leaf out of that character's book when he is dealing with Donald Trump. Although, of course, Mark Carney arguably has managed to be a lot more robust. This is an opinion, not a fact.

And my opinion is that Keir Starmer couldn't have done much more in that moment than what he did. You can't do your brinksmanship. in a press conference. Neither can you really, even if the other side is, engage in sort of public exercises of leverage. She had little choice. but to essentially, well, he tried to ride two horses, didn't he? We will resist this. NATO, or the rest of NATO, Europe, call it what you will, will resist this ludicrous attempted land grab.

by Donald Trump, but we hope it doesn't come to that, which would explain why he hasn't come out with all guns blazing. That is, it's nowhere near the end of love, actually, is my first correction of the day. There you go. You've probably got me on that one. I...

I don't know is the short answer to whether or not it will be proved to be the right thing to do. In the same way, I still don't know whether rolling out the red carpet for... Donald Trump at that ludicrous state visit at Windsor Castle, where they just essentially let him ride around the garden. He was allowed to ride around the King's Garden in various golden carriages and was sent home looking as pleased as Punch, even more pleased than he was.

was when he was given the FIFA Peace Prize. I don't know whether that was at that moment in that... the right thing to do. But all the buttering up in the world, it seemed to many of us at the time, would probably come to naught. But you bet the house on the probably, don't you? You bet the House on the probably. It would probably come to naught, but that, of course, means it might not. And he's still doing that today.

He's still doing the mature alliance. He's still doing the respectful partnership. He's still doing the good grief. I hope it doesn't. come to pass that we need to turn the dial up to the next notch. We've come a very, very long way from when Mark Rutter called Donald Trump daddy, haven't we? In the hope of keeping him sweet. You can't keep...

somebody sweet, if they are a sociopath or a fascist or whatever a curious condition it is that Donald Trump suffers from. It might be helpful for you to think of Henry VIII at this point. And the way in which you would go from being the most trusted ally, the key consigliere in a Henry VIII administration, to being beheaded the following week. We often focus on the wives.

We often focus upon how you could go in the blink of an eye from being the beloved apple of his eye and the subject of the song Greensleeves to being beheaded in the blink of an eye. Such were his whims, such was his psychopathy. But also it was the key advisers. It was the Thomas Moores, the Thomas Cromwells. They would go from being absolutely numero uno in his favour to being dead.

by tea time the next day so you can't keep these people sweet permanently when when absolute power is being exercised by absolute monsters you cannot keep them sweet and here's the jeopardy

You probably still have to try You probably still have to try what else can you do? So Donald Trump is threatening a trade war Chiefly against the countries and NATO allies that have been most vocal in their opposition to his plan to steal Greenland. Against the express wishes of the population of Greenland. And what else can you do? Not just Starmer, but the, if you like, the normal world. What else can you do? Butchering these people up, trying to keep them sweet.

is never, ever a guarantee of being excused from their caprice or their cruelty. But if they possess almost all the power, what else can you do? Should we do that as a phone-in first? 03456060973 is the number that you need. I mean, look, 2020 hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But saying that he never should have been invited to Windsor Castle, I don't think that's helpful. I don't even think that it's correct. But what I do think would be helpful today is examining what the UK Prime Minister's options are. And if you want to throw that net a little further, and we're blessed now with a listenership that can be fairly described as international, would countries... Or would the leaders of countries that are still in the European Union have more?

cards in their hand at the moment? Would they have more weapons in their arsenal? I suspect they probably would. Danish, German, Swedish, Norwegian, French, Dutch and Finnish troops have already arrived in Greenland. There is a single UK military officer there as part of the multinational reconnaissance force. Starmer continues to try to, and I hate the word...

I hate the way the word appease has become an unalloyed negative in the context, probably for British history, of Neville Chamberlain. We all appease. We appease every day. You appease in your personal relationships. You appease in your professional relationships.

call it compromise. Very, very few of us end up getting 100% of what we wanted when we go into a negotiation. That's why Brexit was such a disaster, because everybody in favour of it thought that they would be able to do that. Remember? You remember that rhetoric? But we all appease. We all reach compromises. We all reach agreements. We all recognise ultimately that you mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So he continues to...

try to appease Trump while working with European allies to preserve the rules-based international order. For the avoidance of doubt, you cannot stay on both of those horses indefinitely. So I'm not... coming after people saying that Starmer should have been stronger he should have been more Hugh Grant he should have been less appeasing I'm not coming after you with all guns blazing today because you can't stay on both of these horses indefinitely

You cannot stand in lockstep with our European allies and in defence of the international order, the rules-based international order. You cannot do that and appease Trump indefinitely if he stays upon the course. of annexation of Greenland. So what else could Keir Starmer have done this morning? 0345 6060973.

I don't know how helpful it is to ask in quite two-dimensional terms, what did you make of the speech? Because in many ways, people whose opinions are... built upon prejudices and ignorance can often rise to the surface in conversations like that. But what he could have done differently is a lot easier to examine.

What could he have done differently? I put it to you cautiously at 18 minutes past 10 this morning. Nothing. That's question one. And of course, contingent upon that observation is that he actually did a very good job in incredibly difficult circumstances. Again, that's an opinion. Question number two, have a crack if you think you can. detailing and describing the significance of this moment. I don't know if you were listening last week. We had one of those moments where...

an idea occurred to me on the staircase towards the studio. I was desperately trying to decide which subject we should talk about first at 10 o'clock in the morning. Should we talk about the apparent abandonment of Ukrainian interests? upon the altar of more pressing and urgent issues? Should we talk about the situation on the streets in Tehran and Iran? Or should we talk about the designs that Donald Trump clearly had upon Greenland? And I did that thing that I sometimes do.

I can't make my mind up. I had all three puddings. We had a conversation about which of those three issues was the most urgent and pressing from the perspective of... UK interests or geopolitics. And it was almost unanimous. The consensus was Greenland. I really urge you to listen back to that programme on the LBC app because I found it absolutely fascinating and deeply illuminating. And here we are.

Everybody who argued last week that Greenland was the one we had to watch most closely has been proved categorically correct. As with all the things that we've been right about over the last 10 years, there's absolutely no pleasure or consolation in being proved categorically correct, up to and including all the idiots who used to use Trump derangement syndrome as a pejorative.

But today is not about I told you so. Today is about what happens next. How important is this moment? Explain to a sceptic why it absolutely merits a prime ministerial address. to the nation and yeah i think it probably is time to do this one as well if trump will not be swayed what do we do next

03456060973. And how sad is it that I have to qualify what we mean by we? It would once have been fairly clear. It would be the European Union. But we ain't in that anymore. It can't be NATO because the United States is in that. So I suppose loosely we discuss either the United Kingdom as an individual entity or we discuss the rest of NATO. The bits of NATO or the big bits of NATO that are left when the United States absence itself. 03456060973. What could he have done differently?

Just how important is this moment? And if Trump doesn't change his plans, what on earth do we do next? 0345 6060 973. 23 minutes after 10. Just pouring Corrigé les autres. I'm going to put Graham in Idiot's Corner for early doors this morning. You probably weren't expecting to...

be opening up Idiot's Corner quite so early, but please don't anybody else bother sending me this argument. Okay, Graham has written, it looks like you have fallen for Trump's trick of stopping everyone talking about the Epstein files by his actions over Venezuela and Greenland. MHO. Yeah, well done. Well done, Captain.

That's absolutely right. A prime minister or rather a president of a sovereign country gets kidnapped. The president of the United States of America sets his sights upon European territory. And you don't think we should talk about it because there are more things in town. That is an expression of almost unbelievable idiocy, which is why...

Idiot's Corner is open early for you today. And don't anybody else waste tempence sending me that message or indeed sharing that sentiment. The idea that you can't hold two thoughts in your head at the same time is heartbreaking.

David is in Seattle. David you can kick things off. What would you like to say? I want to apologize from Seattle for the trauma that we're inflicting upon the world from the U.S. My friends and I are trying to figure out how we're going to survive the next three years, and we're not sure what the path is. With regards to what Kiristama should have said or done,

I don't think you can have a mature alliance with someone who has no friends and who doesn't believe in the rule of law. At the same time, you have to find a way to survive the next. 10 months until the midterm elections and pray that he that he loses a lot of power after America sees right.

And if and if we don't see right and if we don't vote the Republicans out of office, then you need to start thinking about a post America world. I've got a couple of issues and I know you'll be aware of them. David, the first is I would no longer describe the midterms as a definite event. And Trump himself has made the first noises.

about the possibility of such a state of emergency or the Insurrection Act or whatever nonsense he comes up with to justify this. He even said, didn't he, last week out loud, I've done such a brilliant job, maybe we don't even need to have elections. So that's... problem number one with your thesis. Problem number two, I think, is that he's also demonstrated that he doesn't need or he won't wait for

congressional approval for doing things that historically and legally and constitutionally demand congressional approval. So two, three case scenarios. Number one, you're right. Number two, you're wrong because the midterms don't happen. And number three, you're wrong because the midterms happen. He takes a kicking but carries on regardless. The... If he loses power in the midterms, there's a lot that the that a Democrat Democratic House and Senate could do to get in his way.

I think that'll end all his all his judge appointments and he won't be able to put them through. Yeah. That will. But isn't this isn't this potentially I mean, we use the word fascist quite early. on this program because we've read a history book um but that is the point at which um fascism and democracy

clash and only one prevails. So we're still clinging to the idea that democracy can resist the fingers of fascism gripping the throat of a population. And history's taught us that it can't always.

Well, the question is whether the military would stay in line with him as he exceeds his authority and exceeds common decency. Yeah.

That doesn't sound apocalyptic anymore. We won't know that until it happens. Thank God the Secretary of State for Defence is a man absolutely... uh replete with integrity integrity decency and intelligence hey otherwise otherwise we might have a real problem that's a great analysis david and thank you for giving me that sort of three-pronged possibility i i don't think we'll dwell um

forever in Idiot's Corner this morning, but just by way of a counterbalance to David's intelligence and knowledge, Andy's been in touch. He writes, I can't stand you, O'Brien, but if Starmer had any sense, he'd use this situation to develop a better relationship with Europe and get some... better trading terms. They make it difficult for us to trade. Oh, a Brexiter, isn't it?

They make it difficult for us to trade, but they are more than happy to take our weapons for Ukraine because the Ruskies are on their doorstep. That man's vote is worth the same as your vote, remember? Just click on history and get a little flavour of where he's coming from politically.

Oh, here we go. Nice to see Farage starting to surround himself with people with experience in government rather than Starmer, who was completely unprepared for anything. So, again, Andy's vote is worth the same as... yours. It's coming up to half past ten. I think I'll leave those two, Graham and Andy, to play Canasta.

in Idiot's Corner where we carry on canvassing opinions from people who are worth listening to. What could Starmer have done differently and what on earth should he do if, stroke, when?

Trump fails to respond to attempts to ameliorate the situation. Dominic Ellis is here now with your headlines. Yeah, 10.33 is the time. This is now being reported by Bloomberg. I said to you at the top of the show today that I don't know anymore. If something pops up on my social media feed, I used to be able to trust Twitter because if somebody had a blue tick, they were reliable. Now, of course, on Twitter, if someone has a blue tick, they could well be a paedophile apologist.

And Blue Sky is simply not big enough or broad enough to have provided a similar sort of background, a similar context, which is, of course, precisely why Elon Musk has done what he's done. But this is now being reported by Bloomberg, that letter. that I suggested at the top of the show was probably real, but I couldn't be sure. Sent to the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Garstor.

in which Trump writes, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus. It's not really funny anymore, is it, when I point out that the word plus is inexplicably in capital letters. I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace. Although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America, the world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland.

And, of course, it falls once again to the Prime Minister to explain to Donald Trump that the Norwegian government does not award the Nobel Peace Prize any more than the British government awards the Booker Prize. Regarding the Nobel Peace Prize, I have several times clearly explained...

to trump what is well known namely that it is an independent nobel committee and not the norwegian government that awards the prize but the letter is real a letter from the president of the united states of america to the prime minister of norway displaying epic ignorance of all the relevant factors, but also explaining that because they didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize, he is not going to be swayed from his determination to annex Greenland. You're just joining us.

Keir Starmer this morning attempted to ride two horses. At this point in proceedings, I don't believe he had much choice or any choice. He has to try to de-escalate that dread word. He has to try to de-escalate the situation. in the hope that what Trump is threatening to do will not happen. And bullies often do respond to threats more than they respond to appeasement, but that time hasn't yet arrived. What happens when it does arrive?

What happens if attempts to keep the lines of communication open, the current reluctance or resistance to the idea of imposing retaliatory... tariffs, or at least threatening to do so in the event of Trump going ahead with his threats. Can you have, in other words, mature alliances, which is the phrase, Starmer favoured with profoundly immature entities?

I don't know. But I do like the two horses analogy. And at the moment, he can ride both of them. But he cannot do so indefinitely. So what happens next? Edward is in The Hague. Edward, what would you like to say?

James, thank you for taking my call. There's been a quote going around in my head this morning, and the quote is, the truth is what our contemporaries let us get away with. And I think whether you look at domestic or international politics,

far too many of us for far too long, have been engaging with Trump on his supposed arguments, as opposed to doing what we need to do, which is reclaim the truth. So the example this morning with the Prime Minister... is he started his statement by talking about global security in the global north, as if there's a flotilla of Chinese boats ready to make landfall in northern Greenland, which of course there patently isn't.

This has nothing to do with security. This has everything to do with a man late in life who has a long legacy of greed, corruption and ambition, who wants to create, recreate. in the 21st century, American dominance which existed in the 19th century. Whether you're talking about, for example, the creation of a budget for a national militia like ICE,

Whether you're talking about his arguments around dismantling international aid, whether you're talking about what he says about climate change, you can go right through the list of issue areas after issue area which he's dismantled. We engage with him. at his level, as opposed to telling him at a certain point, I'm sorry, we're going to live in the real world. When is that point? When is that point? I think that point occurs on a daily basis, and every single day we miss the chance.

I think that today, Starmer had an opportunity to say something specific to Greenland. But I think over the past 10 years, that point has come and gone on so many different issues. And we sometimes pretend like we're dealing with Trump for the past week.

The Trump phenomenon has been upon us for the past 10 years. Obviously, I agree with every single syllable that you've said intellectually, but I don't feel it in the same way that you do. I still think he has to keep one foot on the other saddle. the saddle of potential de-escalation, the saddle of reasoning Trump into a retreat as opposed to threatening him into a retreat, which is... the next option, but you don't go to that until this one has failed. Does that sound Chamberlain-esque to you?

I wouldn't fall a Chamberlain-esque. I agree with what you said earlier. I don't like the notion of compromise as being labelled appeasement. But I do think a concerted effort amongst... The EU, amongst other NATO allies, amongst other leaders in the Commonwealth. You see Mark Carney doing a very good job of this recently in China, for example. But a concerted effort of everybody coming together and essentially saying...

This far and no further. How much does Brexit prevent Starmer from doing that, do you think? And obviously I'm a bit bent on Brexit in the idea of my... conviction that that it has been well it has been an unalloyed bad but maybe it isn't quite as bad as i think it is and this isn't the reason why starmer feels the need to almost operate if not alone then detached from

other members of what would be the alliance in this case? Well, you're talking to someone who works on climate change and spent nine years working for the European Union. And I feel that Brexit was the biggest act of national vandalism. in pursuit of personal vanity in the history of public policy making. And I think if that hadn't happened, we would all be standing up right now looking at a very, very different situation. But in the absence of being part of the European Union, it is...

feel possible to forge those international alliances. It is possible to get on the phone with Mark Rutte and say, Mark, your approach to calling Trump daddy clearly didn't work. We need a different approach.

This is something that's happening on a weekly basis. Can you imagine writing that up for a PhD thesis in 10 years' time? And history reflected that Mark Rutte probably made an error when he described Donald Trump as daddy during a well-publicised intervention. You get that sent back.

It's part of a wider pattern, and I think the wider pattern, which has been proved to be ineffectual, not only over one week, but over 10 years, is that you cannot go on placating someone who is insatiable. At a certain point, somebody... We've had this phone in a million times. I mean, January the 6th, albeit that that's a midpoint in the window that you describe it. I mean, that to me was the point at which...

you realize two things. Number one, all bets were off that were built upon tradition or normality or rules-based international orders. And number two, people in our world, probably in your world as well, but certainly in my world, who had swallowed the Trump Kool-Aid. were never going to regurgitate it. They were never going to vomit it back up again. They were always going to have to pretend that they hadn't made the most epic misjudgment.

of their lives, except, of course, for Brexit, which most of them also backed. So what would what you describe look like? Bearing in mind that Starmer acts, if not in isolation, then certainly in a slightly different space. from other European leaders. Carney might be a more interesting parallel. But what would you have done in his shoes today at that conference? Well, I think in the conference today, I would have spoken a little bit more forcefully and severely than Starmer tends to do.

I feel that he often comes across in platitudes. Yes. And I would have liked him being much more forceful about saying when it comes to this issue, we are saying this far and no further. He's never done it, has he? He's never done it. And the line keeps moving backwards as he steps backwards. The line moves backwards to where his toes are now. I don't think he's a good communicator. I mean, I'm not a genius in saying that. I think what he is is somebody who's accustomed.

to speaking in legalese and doesn't realize that sometimes as a leader you have to have a vision and you have to have clarity and not nuance. Nuance is not understood by everybody. And I think... This morning was a moment for less nuance and more force. Beyond that, I personally think that people, whether it's the mayor of Minneapolis, whether it's perhaps disaffected Republicans on the Hill,

they take force themselves and they take a degree of courage by seeing that courage exercised elsewhere. What we do with Trump, I think, is we respond... to each and every individual action, as opposed to seeing this as part of a much, much larger pattern that's 10 years in the making. And how do we give, for example, some...

some courage to the members of the Supreme Court next week? Or how do we give some courage to some of the lawmakers on the Republican right that might be disaffected because of what he did in Venezuela, who never wanted to be involved in foreign entanglement? How do we give some courage for them to come and speak out if we don't come and speak out ourselves? And so what I would like to see is just more of a gathering snowball effect of people willing to come out and just challenge this man.

picture of reality. If I was sitting here thinking of moments that might create the environment that you're dreaming of, that you're describing. And there are reports today that the president, that Trump is facing escalating calls to change his stance on Greenland from within his own party. saying it could hurt the US economically. Others worried about the strain on the NATO military alliance. But if I had to pick something that you might cite as a kind of...

Lodestar. There you go. That's what he would need to do for people to start responding in the way that Edward describes. Try this one on for size, Edward. Vladimir Putin has received an invitation to join a US-led peace council for Gaza. The Kremlin has said. True or false? I would say given the current circumstances, I would not be surprised if that were true. It's true.

Breaking news. And this is a man who systematically put Syria in the rubble. Yeah. The Russian leader is currently studying the proposal, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. So Trump is offering... Vladimir Putin a seat at the table over the future of Gaza, reportedly. And Edward was in the middle, as that piece of paper was put in front of me, of explaining the necessity of not just people pushing back.

but also by pushing back, offering support and succor to members of his own administration or members of the American population who need something to rally around or to push back with. I'm reading a brilliant book. Thank you. I'm reading a brilliant book at the moment by Rutger Bregman, who you will know, well, a couple of things you'll know him for if you're not familiar with his work. You'll know him as...

The guy who gave that brilliant speech at Davos about them all turning up in private jets to talk about climate change while never discussing tax avoidance, never discussing tax avoidance, the richest men and women in the world. And then more recently, of course. He was giving the Reith lectures to the BBC and the BBC decided to censor him and remove his description of Donald Trump as, I think he called him, probably the most corrupt, openly, openly corrupt American president.

in history or in living memory. So Rutger is a man who is not afraid of speaking truth to power. And his new book looks at the people who throughout history have... found it within themselves to stand up, even when they were the only one, for what is right. He's particularly taken with a guy called William Clarkson, who was one of the key abolitionists and who was ploughing a lonely...

When he started and what he's learned from looking at people. So Rosa Parks is in there looking at people throughout history who have done what is objectively right, morally right. is that they often need somebody else to go first. It's not the case that fascism is resisted on the scale that we thought it was. Even in Germany, in France, these countries didn't have the levels of resistance that...

that were reported in the 50s and 60s, there was a mythology of resistance. But where it did happen, there was always an early adopter or a ringleader. And without the ringleader, people who would do the right thing would not.

I think we can all agree today that Keir Starmer has not availed himself of this opportunity to be a ringleader for what is right. When I'm feeling my way into a story, which is most mornings at 10 o'clock, does anyone keep a record of all the questions I ask before I settle on the right one? Because I sometimes think at 11 o'clock we could go back to the second best. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. That book that I referenced a moment ago by Rutger Bregman is called Moral Ambition.

And I probably should have said it's as much a self-help book as it is a history book. The subtitle of the book is How to Find Your Purpose. And it's an era in which many people are feeling that they should somehow be doing more, but they don't know what. And that's where he happens upon the discovery that when proper resistance of proper horrors, fascist horrors, totalitarian horrors, slavery, you know, throughout history, Nazis.

proper resistance of that has always taken a human catalyst. It's always involved one person who sort of galvanizes. I don't know. He's on full disclosure on Friday. And I didn't ask him this question because it's one of those interviews where my brain was just buzzing and fizzing so much that when I thought of something I wanted to ask him next, he'd go off on a mad tangent. And I wouldn't, I'd forget the question and I wouldn't steer him back to...

what I was thinking, which was that it sounded a bit like bystander effect. You know that if you witness something bad happening, most obviously, I suppose, in a closed environment like public transport, and you want to do the right thing, but you don't quite... Do it yourself. But as soon as someone else makes the first move, you're in like Flynn. It's a sort of international...

or a much bigger form of that, I think. But it's a highly recommended book. Mark is in Brighton. Mark is a highly recommended caller, a tireless chronicler and observer of American politics, both personally and professionally. and someone from whose insights we've already benefited enormously this year. Mark, what's going on? What made you pick up the phone today? Well, James, how are you doing, first of all? Happy New Year. And to you, too. Thank you.

Well, I'm sitting here with my greyhound, Ozzie, and Ozzie gave me the answer. It's not an easy answer, but it is an answer. And part of this...

is going to involve something that Keir Starmer is incapable of doing. Let me start there. What has to happen is somebody, some politician, has to bring together... the south americans the asians and the europeans and cripple donald trump's enablers you have to start there because he'll listen to them he won't listen to anybody else but he will listen to the people that bankroll him and the people who benefit from his presidency and the distasteful part

is the fact that he's going to, somebody, maybe not Starmer, probably not Starmer, he's going to have to deal with the Chinese. The Chinese are holding $800 billion in U.S. debt. They call that debt. Trump's got a problem, an immediate problem. And what do you think would happen, James, if the Chinese tomorrow decided to nationalize iPod City? Yeah, iPod City.

I'm sorry, iPhone City. I've no idea. I mean, well, except that obviously Apple would be in all sorts of trouble. Yeah, and Apple's Tim Cook would get in contact with Trump and say, what the hell are you doing?

See, you have to think laterally when it comes to this. Greenland is, and I know this isn't an exact comparison or exact analogy, but to me, Greenland is Trump's Sudetenland. Yeah, no, I think that's a help. I mean, potentially it is. It could be that he stops there. His ambition stopped there, but it could be that, you know, what if he fancies the Falkland Islands next? Then what do we do? Or if he allows his ally in Argentina to make eyes at the Falkland Islands. James, he won't stop.

All I may have said this to you before, but as far as Trump's concerned, there's a Columbo episode where somebody says all he wants is all there is. That's it. He wants. everything. He wants a Nobel Prize. He wants Greenland. He will set his eyes on something else if he gets away with Greenland. The thing that will stop him are the people who enable him.

And that's the only leverage that we have. I've got two thoughts. I'll probably forget what the second one is while I'm explaining to you what the first one is. But you're reminding us, indeed, as Crispin has done in a text, of the parameters of normalcy bias, aren't you? The underlying design. not just belief, that reason will assert itself often presents us from seeing things clearly. This needs tactics that are not normal because it is a situation that is not normal.

And that is what you are describing, reaching way beyond the normal arsenal of international relations. Getting China on board is probably a bit pie in the sky, but certainly moving in that direction is not doing big things, big and un... unprecedented things to tackle a big and largely unprecedented threat. And the second thought that I had is, what if this is next Monday's phone-in? What if actually Starmer is right?

in the first instance, to at least attempt the negotiated climb down, the negotiated retreat, as opposed to the coerced? It won't work. It's as simple as that. Do you have to try it first or not? Nope. Don't try it because this is not a man you can reason with. That's what people seem to not understand.

Donald Trump is not somebody who you can negotiate with. Zelensky has shown it. Virtually everybody he's talked to since he's been in office. You give him what he wants. You give him what he wants or you get humiliated.

Yeah, and the way you deal with a bully is punch him in his face. It's as simple as that. Well, I mean, you know and I know it's not as simple as that, but a couple of people, Andrew, among them, reminding us he's already talked about what he'd do next. play into your Sudetenland analogy is, you know, he spoke about Canada in the same way that he spoke about Greenland not that long ago, didn't he? Yeah, good luck with that. The Canadians, the Canadians...

will fight him with everything they have at their disposal. And that's why you have to get all of these people together. Carney might not be the worst person in the world to do this, but you've got to get this coalition. You've got to get Lula in Brazil. You've got to get the Europeans. democratically elected, quasi-progressive European countries. You've got to get all of them together. And you do have to do business with the Chinese. You have to.

They don't have to show it's in their interest. I'm going to run something by you. Yeah, no, I hear you. Although at the moment, they'll be rubbing their hands with glee at what's going on, won't they? They won't be feeling any particular need to curtail Trump's ambitions because...

Of course, the more he indulges in similar behaviour to Putin and Xi, the more they think that they're getting carte blanche to crack on with their imperialistic or colonial ambitions. But I just want to run something by you, more to hear your response out of curiosity than anything else.

This is from Paul. The problem is, Mark, that we, by which he means the UK or Europe, we recognise fascism because it started here in the 1930s, but the Americans don't because they think World War II started in Hawaii. He's absolutely, absolutely right. Let me tell you something. He just brought something to mind. I have always admired the British people for one thing.

over and above anything in the United States. And I'm an American, okay? America has never had to fight a foreign enemy on its own soil. The British have. And the British have, I thought, a great deal of heart that came out of that. during the Second World War. We've never had to do that as Americans. On European soil. On European soil. Not actually, thankfully, on British soil. Not since 1066. And we lost that one, so we tend not to talk about it. But yeah, that threat.

of um yeah well i mean they bombed they bombed england they did yes no of course they did we know what that feels like they tried to bomb it and overrun it and america has never had to face that kind of direct threat never

except in the War of Independence, but that doesn't count. It's not the same. It's not like a foreign aggressor trying to take over. It's actually the domestic resistance trying to repel. You're right. And I don't know whether or not that is relevant to where we are now, the passage of time since...

making many Europeans perhaps a little bit slow to recognise what have been obvious signs of fascism for a very, very long time, which is why it is so funny today. to hear the people or to read the people who used to complain about Donald Trump being described as a fascist, now complaining about Lisa Nandy in an interview on Sky News, refusing to tell the interviewer that she didn't think Nigel Farage was a fascist.

Nigel Farage, of course, struggles to choose between his two favourite politicians on the planet at the moment. On the one hand, you have Donald Trump. On the other hand, you have Vladimir Putin. I can't quite believe this and sometimes when things drop while I'm on air I struggle to process them properly because I'm in such a strange place emotionally or adrenaline.

But Vladimir Putin has now received an invitation to join a US-led peace council for Gaza, the Kremlin has said. We should probably talk about that at some point too. It's three minutes after 11, time perhaps to have a look at what our allies are doing as we continue to contemplate the question of... whether or not Keir Starmer could and indeed should have done something differently this morning from the attempt that he essayed to essentially ride two horses to keep.

the bigger threats or the bigger responses in abeyance until the possibility of a negotiated settlement is defeated, has disappeared. One editorial this morning. Reminds us that bullies often back down when confronted, this written before Keir Starmer's speech. Their power relies on fear. Francis Emmanuel Macron has said, no amount of intimidation. will alter Europe's position. Denmark has anchored the issue firmly.

Inside NATO's collective security, EU leaders have warned that tariff threats risk a dangerous downward spiral. Even Georgia Maloney, a successor in some ways of... Mussolini's party is and seen as ideologically close to Mr. Trump, as you'd expect from somebody seen as a successor to Mussolini, publicly called the tariff threat a mistake, adding that she has told him so. All of this, of course.

written before Keir Starmer gave his speech this morning. We've joined allies, although we are now outside the EU, to...

Talk of a dangerous downward spiral and of undermining transatlantic relations. That's a joint statement that we are part of. But when Keir Starmer stands alone... He is reduced to essentially pleading, or if you prefer, begging for better behaviour from the bully. This line in The Guardian is something that you might want to reflect upon. Later today, Britain is like Greece to America's Rome with the added trauma of having once been Rome itself. Canada, probably the best bet.

But they are for some form of leadership of resistance. They're also hedging their bets at the moment, as indeed Keir Starmer is. But they've got a trade deal with Beijing in the offing, which brings us back to Mark's point about... the necessity of somehow involving China in attempts to clip Donald Trump's wings, even as many very wise people in this country are terrified about the threat that China poses to our security, up to and including the new...

mega embassy so these are really important moments and one of the best things about this job in recent years has been the fact that we can rise to them The days of this radio station being the preserve of casual racism, taxi drivers and phone-ins about parking tickets and motorway hard shoulders are happily behind us. As we demonstrated in the last hour, you are as likely... to be illuminated by my callers, by our callers.

as you are by the kind of people that other radio stations and other radio programs book as guests. Although this may well be an hour where we reach, well, we're going to have one guest at least this hour because Evan Harris is in the High Court today for the opening of... Prince Harry's latest salvo against the...

The British newspaper industry, almost single-handedly, although this occasion, of course, joined by fellow doughty defenders of our rights, including Stephen Lawrence's mother, Baroness. Doreen Lawrence so we'll catch up with Evan later this hour we've got Simon Marks on standby for the final hour to give us as ever the perspective from the other side of the Atlantic and I don't know what else we'll move on to I don't currently have the first idea how to address the question or the issue

of Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin, being invited to join the US-led Peace Council for Gaza. Nigel Farage is having a good day, isn't he? He wanted Trump to impose tariffs on the UK, I think. He was calling upon him to do it. in Congress, a Congress committee not long ago. And now his other big hero, Vladimir Putin, is despite being embarked upon a hideous and illegal invasion of Ukraine, is now being...

reportedly invited onto the top diplomatic table on the planet with regard to the future of Gaza. Quite what the rest of the world will make of that. I honestly have no clue. I only dropped it into the conversation.

partly to illustrate the point that was being made by Edward in The Hague about the necessity of action and what the rallying call for action might be. What is the point at which? the resistance, the abandonment of normalcy bias. So what's meant by that is the point at which you stop thinking that everything will be okay because everything is always okay.

that reason will eventually prevail, that gravity will ensure that things don't float away. What if there's no gravity? What if Donald Trump... operates in a universe that recognizes and respects none of those man-made as opposed to natural laws. And, you know, if somebody like me, who has been pretty clear-eyed about who Donald Trump is and the threat that he poses to...

most of what we hold dear, still clings to the carcass of normalcy bias. There's still a little bit of me that thinks, no, he can't. No, he won't. What's he doing? Greenland? No, he won't do that. What's he going to do? Put shoots? Well, he kidnapped a president. of one country and accused him of drug trafficking while simultaneously pardoning and releasing the president of another country who'd actually been convicted of drug trafficking in a US court if that doesn't break the spell what does?

He continues to lie about the 2020 election. He incited an insurrection, a bloody and potentially murderous insurrection containing people begging for the blood of his own vice president. Yeah, but normalcy will prevail. It won't, will it? And yet, I don't know whether it's an evolutionary trigger. We cling to the idea that it will eventually prevail, but it won't. You know, I wonder how many members of...

Henry VIII's court were clinging to normalcy by us up to the point their head ceased to cling to their shoulders. I don't know, and I don't know why I'm thinking about Henry VIII so much at the moment. It's a bit like that old meme from last year about the Roman Empire.

But we've already brought the Roman Empire into proceedings with that reminder of the supplicant status that the once mighty Greece had to adopt when the walls fell. I want to continue this conversation. You will be unsurprised to learn. And I'm going to put quite a big question in front of you next. Mark had a crack at this, and it was Mark in Brighton, Mark Riley, who cited this notion.

that there is a meaningful response. It doesn't go to a different school. We're just not entirely sure what it is yet. There is a meaningful response. Macron seems to be there. Or at least Macron seems to be...

relaying the rhetoric when Emmanuel Macron talks absolutely unquestionably about there being no amount of intimidation that will alter Europe's position. So let's just refresh our memories on what the... position is. Donald Trump wants Greenland for reasons that remain a little bit murky. He could access all of the rare earth minerals that are there through trade deals with Denmark. He could have a greater and enhanced military presence there through Denmark's membership of...

and involving NATO allies. None of the arguments he makes about security or about raw materials actually hold water. But since when did that matter in the Trump universe? Donald Trump wants Greenland. It's hard to imagine a more... stark illustration of not having the first idea what the Nobel Peace Prize represents than his intervention on that front this morning, telling the Prime Minister of Norway that he is no longer interested in peace because they didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Again, I'll say that there's two stories today. Regardless of the threats to Greenland, I'm no longer going to pursue peace because you didn't give me the Nobel Peace Prize. And, oh, why doesn't Vladimir Putin join the board that will be... deciding the future of Gaza. Those two right there are two stories that should shatter normalcy bias. Still clinging to the idea that everything is just the same as it always was with a slightly different source.

It's the same meal. It's American democracy. It's American diplomacy. It's the same sort of setup. It's the same world order. We're just having a different source. We're having a different side. We're having, I don't know, sweet potato fries instead of French fries.

it's essentially there, two stories, right there President of the United States of America says I don't care about peace anymore because you didn't give me the Nobel Peace Prize behavior that you would caution and indeed probably discipline your six-year-old for and even more terrifying if it turns out to be true and you can't trust the Kremlin but then again can you really trust them any less than you would trust the White House in the current climate?

that Vladimir Putin has received an invitation to join Donald Trump's Peace Council for Gaza. And we haven't really got time yet to talk specifically about either of those issues because I want you to talk about this. Do you know what I mean? Again though, before we get that question up and running, you've got to do a little bit of Brexit. The European Union does not make trade policy in Berlin or in Paris.

or in the Hague, or in Lisbon, or Barcelona. It does not make trade policy in European capitals. It makes trade policy... in Brussels. There were so many Brexiters who didn't realise that. So he cannot browbeat European institutions designed to withstand coercion. This is really relevant. In fact, Trump, Brexit, Putin, I've said to you for years now that these are all things that you have to see through the same lens.

It's not a coincidence that these Venn diagrams often look like circles. Trump, Brexit, Putin. Putin, Brexit, Trump. Brexit, Trump, Putin. I mean, they are three legs of the same stool. Putin desperate for Western destabilization. Brexit absolutely destabilizing the West. Trump...

absolutely destabilizing the West. Russian interference in his election, Russian interference in Brexit, still criminally, hideously underexplored and underreported. But because we're not in the European Union anymore... We don't have a place in the room where it happens. Europe can stand up to the tariff threat from the United States of America. I don't know what the United Kingdom can do.

I don't know what the United Kingdom can do. 03456060973 is the number you need to tell me. And it has to be realistic, remember. This can't be Greece supplicating itself at the feet of the Roman Empire. Well, maybe it is, actually. It has to be realistic. What on earth? Can Keir Starmer, as the Prime Minister of Brexit Britain, not as Churchill's heir or as a key member of the biggest post-war alliance on the planet?

What can Keir Starmer do as the Prime Minister of Brexit Britain in the face of these hideous threats from Donald Trump? If I told you I can't answer that question... Am I setting myself up for an education or an empty switchboard? 03456060973 is the number you need to find out. What can the Prime Minister of Brexit, Britain, do?

in the face of trade threats from the United States, given that the only trade policies over which he holds sway are the United Kingdom. So he's no longer part. We are no longer part. of the biggest single market on the planet. That focuses the mind, doesn't it? That's a bit of a cold shower for saber-rattlers. Domestic or trade-based saber rattlers? So that's question one. 03456060973. Is there anything he can do beyond words? And then question number two.

becomes what is it? What is it? What does it achieve? Acting alone. not part of the single market, not part of collective trade policy, framed in Brussels, decided by European leaders, what does the Prime Minister of Brexit Britain have to do? What are his options? What possible course can he follow? And remember, again, I hesitate to bring him into it, but he remains ahead in the polls. This is one of those moments where you find yourself wondering what on earth it was about a European army.

that Nigel Farage was so diametrically opposed to. Presumably still is. You know? And crikey, a world without NATO or a NATO without America is a world in which a European army becomes a de facto necessity to protect everything that we hold dear. How could any patriotic European be opposed to a defence force for Europe?

How could any patriotic Brit be opposed to a defence force for Britain and her allies? We may get on to that, but the question I want you to answer first and foremost is simply, let's say...

What would all... If Keir Starmer came out today with all guns blazing, what would those guns have looked like? That's all. So in terms of meaningful and substantive... response because we can sit here till we're blue in the face saying i wish he'd been a bit tougher i wish he'd been this i wish he'd been that what would it actually have looked like what would a meaningful and substantive pushback

from Keir Starmer have looked like, have sounded like? What threat can he possibly make that would actually make Donald Trump even notice, given that we act since 2016 alone?

0345 6060 973. And while I'm at it, and I may return to this question shortly, how is this being reported in other European countries? I'm keen if I can, and it's a bit of a pet and personal obsession. I'm keen to work out how big a role.

Brexit plays in our position this morning but that may be of more interest to me than it is to you but if you're in France if you're in Germany if you're in the Baltic states if you're in Denmark most obviously or Greenland specifically if you're in any of the countries that are also

being threatened with these tariffs by donald trump how is your how in your view is your government responding and how in your experience is your media reporting it okay 0345 6060 973 is the number you need to answer either, any or all of those questions.

Anyone else thinking about Suez? No, I'm just weird, right? From Henry VIII to Suez, we're supposed to be talking about Greenland. But Suez being a moment where Britain's status... became clear to people who had been viewing it through rather rose-tinted spectacles. That, in many ways, was the sort of ebb and flow of the world order, though, whereas this, what Brexit perhaps has done to Britain in the context of this great threat Europe now faces from the other side of the Atlantic.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it, whether or not this position, the country that Keir Starmer leads is not the country that David Cameron led into a referendum. In the context of European unity, we are...

i'm not entirely sure what we are i'm really not uh hamish is entering hamish what would you like to say yes good morning james i think um I think my idea, I'm just about to tell you, might actually connect a lot of the conundrums you're putting to us this morning. I think Starmer could easily lead a conversation with all the other European leaders.

regardless of Brexit and what EU represents to us in terms of a trade body or free trade or anything like that. But just Europe is a continent of countries. And I think that he could lead a conversation with them all to approach Denmark. Why would they let him lead? Well...

He can be in the background. I mean, I'm not saying... I mean, in terms of what Starmer can do, I think I agree with you, is that all he can do is essentially hope that the European Union let him join in whatever they decide to do. No, sure, sure. But I think it's... if you try and compare it too much with what European Union is rather than the continent of Europe, i.e. a geographical map.

And it's irrefutable who's within Europe. But we've got military alliances, we've got trade alliances. What countries in continental Europe aren't in the European Union? Sure, exactly. There are some who don't participate in it. Not really. They're closer than we are, whether you're looking at Switzerland or... I don't want to turn this... Well, maybe I do, actually, but I think you're sounding a little bit pre-Suez.

in your analysis of Britain's status and role. We are tragically massively reduced. But I think we do still retain a bit of gravitas. I do, and I think it needs exploring, and it's going to be something that leads to this. People are looking for good ideas. And if a good idea comes from us first, it doesn't mean... And what is the idea? The idea is that we approach Denmark and we buy Greenland from Denmark, Europe.

is Greenland, or everybody. And for one euro, this is a, let's play this out, we buy it for one euro, and then Greenland belongs to the entire continent of Europe, not just one. country Denmark and then Trump if he wants to invade he's technically in he's engaging in war with the whole of the continent of Europe or if he wants to trade We sell it to him for a trillion dollars. I'm making these numbers up. I know. That's not all you're making up, Hamish. Carry on. But the point is...

We out-Trump Trump. It's a completely wacky idea. He doesn't believe in the normalcy bias, as you were talking about. All existing systems don't work. I think if he does then move forward, either trying to buy Greenland from the continent of Europe, he will then be kicked out by Congress, or if he declares war on Europe.

he'll be kicked out by Congress. I mean, this is... We out-Trump Trump. Okay, I mean, yeah, I'll tell you what, if this comes to pass, I'll give you the money myself. You can have all the mystery out of board games in the warehouse because it sounds Brexity, oddly, and it sounds... Suezzy, which I wasn't expecting and it sounds bonkers.

respectfully. It is bonkers. It is completely bonkers. Also, you haven't taken into account what the people of Greenland want. But what you have highlighted, perhaps unintentionally, is that Keir Starmer acting alone can do nothing. No, correct, he can't. But it doesn't mean to say you can't have a good idea of the fact you're outside of Europe.

It's not a monopoly on good ideas. Well, no, but you don't have any treaty-based agreements that would involve other people considering and consenting to your good idea. So did you vote to remain or leave in the European Union, just out of interest? A passionate, passionate Remainer. No, I thought so. That's all right then. So I'm insulating you and indeed defending you from accusations of Brexity.

exceptionalism but but yeah if the idea is brilliant and I don't know that yours was but if the idea is brilliant then it shouldn't matter who came up with it you would imagine that everybody sensible would would go along with it what you've got in Europe is unprecedented in the post-Brexit period, when Georgia Maloney is essentially singing from the same hymn sheet as Emmanuel Macron, and the song is anti-Trump.

then you've got a sort of unity that looked like it had been consigned to the dustbin of history not that long ago. And who thought that that would be galvanised? by the White House rather than the Kremlin. Maybe, I don't know, maybe Hamish has illustrated something a little bit more powerful than I've credited him with. Steve is in Petersfield. Steve, what's going on?

Hi. First caller for the show, so be gentle on me. Of course. I think what the UK needs to do now is think where it wants to be, because it's trying to please everyone now. It's kind of sat in the middle of the road. And, you know, as one famous politician once said... The middle of the road is a dangerous place to be. So what I think is needed now is that the UK needs a referendum.

on whether or not it's allegiance to the US or it's back in the EU. And what allegiance to the US means, I'm not entirely sure. Does it become part of the... We follow Greenland and then Canada and then the UK and then we just hand over. We become, what is it in 1984? Airstrip One, I think, isn't it? We become Airstrip One in the post.

Democracy settlement. I mean, you know, and I know that we ain't having no referendum anytime soon on anything. But without, absent the referendum, the choice facing Starmer. you've actually turned it into countries rather than horses. At the moment, he's trying to ride both horses. He's trying to be a European and a post-Brexit ally of Donald Trump's America.

Trump continues down this path towards and about Greenland, he won't be able to do that, will he? He'll have to choose. Well, whatever happens next, I think Trump's going to get Greenland and then it'll be Canada. No, he's not.

wherever else. No, he's not. That's a very British perspective. If you were listening to a phone-in in Paris or in Berlin, I don't think you'd be thinking that. And also, you'd be in a country where 80% of the newspapers hadn't been cheerleading for Trump until midnight last night.

You'd have been able to rely a lot more upon the honesty and the probity of columnists and commentators than you can do in this country, which brings us, of course, to the other big story in town at the moment, which is Prince Harry's. um court case along with others including sir elton john and dame

Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Harry in court today, accusing the Daily Mail of all manner of abuses. And of course, it is the British newspaper ecosystem that has allowed many members of the right wing... political establishment in this country to either close their eyes or pretend not to understand the obvious threat that Donald Trump poses to everything from democracy.

to decency and most things in between. In fact, just on that front, that simple point about this story, not the Trump story, but looking at what the mayor has done.

to public discourse in this country and the people they've inflicted upon us, putting Boris Johnson in Downing Street, cheering Liz Truss to the rafters, telling you that Brexit was going to be brilliant. If Harry and his... fellow plaintiffs hadn't brought this case against the Daily Mail with this plethora of allegations, it's highly likely that Paul Dacre would currently be the head of Ofcom.

Ofcom being the broadcasting regulator that would not only oversee me, but would also oversee the Online Safety Act. Just sort of Boris Johnson's determination. to put one of his key client journalists into a big job. He wanted to put Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, in charge of the BBC. And he wanted to put Paul Dacre...

editor of the Daily Mail, the one responsible for those deeply fascistic headlines like crush the saboteurs, enemies of the people. He wanted to put him in charge of Ofcom. Such is the arrogance, the entitlement, the hubris of these people on this side of the Atlantic that we would have had a man running the online safety.

of this country who used to boast about not having a computer whether or not he's got one now I do not know but certainly when I was on newspapers he would be brought on paper things to read rather than pollute his desk on Kensington High Street with a computer terminal. And if this case hadn't been brought, then we could currently be living in a country, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails.

If it hadn't been brought at all, we'd currently be living in a country where the future of online safety was being presided over and decided by a man who doesn't know one end of a computer cable from the other. Here's Dominic Ellis with the headlines.

11.34, so many echoes of so many conversations that we've had on this program over the last 10 years. um are are ringing in my ears today most obviously or first and foremost perhaps that idea of the difference between operating as a member of a massive organization and operating alone you know one of the greatest um

idiocies of Brexit, of course, was the belief. Probably best expressed by David Davis. Do you remember him? Kidding Mr. Harris has got a player called David Davis now, so he's currently the second. best known David Davis in public life, the former politician. And he said, oh, on the day after the referendum, we'll be in Berlin striking deals with the car company or whatever it was, demonstrating complete ignorance of how the European...

Union framed trade policy, even as he insisted that we had to leave it. Imagine being that stupid and that arrogant at the same time. I know nothing about this. I understand nothing, but you must do what I say. And here we are responding to threats from Donald Trump alone and independent or sovereign, if you prefer, as opposed to part of the biggest single market on the planet. So what can we do? Canada could hurt.

in retaliation on track tariffs because they're such a huge customer of the United States. I haven't got the numbers in front of me about how big a dent we might make in their economy by refusing to buy anything that they make or currently sell us. But it would not be as big as the dent.

left by either Canada or a United Europe, a European Union. What can Britain do alone? It's a horrible question there, especially for those of us who understood the patriotic importance of staying in the European Union.

So that is one of the echoes. Another of the echoes, of course, that we are hearing today as we look at this is of the UK status. I'm looking at the question of... how much power we have. And that's why I'm hearing echoes of Suez, although we haven't had many phone-ins about Suez over the last 10 years. We've had plenty about Donald Trump. And once again, you find yourself sitting here wondering, is this the point at which everybody realises?

that the only person with Trump derangement syndrome is Trump? Is this the point at which the cheerleaders in the UK media, Dick Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, is this the point that they realise that they've staked everything upon a fascist? Or at the very least, an insane narcissist. And the other echo that we hear this morning is conversations about the Daily Mail. Because you sit here thinking that...

In the 1930s, it must have been a consensus. There must have been a unanimous opposition among the UK.

establishment to resist the rise of Hitler. We must have been all on the same page. Churchill had to fight tooth and nail to turn that oil tanker around. And of course, at the very forefront of sympathies for... the nazis and for the uk pound shop equivalent oswald mosley at the very forefront of that was the then owner of the Daily Mail, whose grandson will be watching events in the High Court today very closely because Prince Harry is part of a legal case that also includes Elton John.

Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, Doreen Lawrence. of course, a baroness, her son murdered in a racist attack, and the former politician Simon Hughes, former leadership contender in the Liberal Democrats, all of them joining forces to... well, essentially, examine allegations they have made against the Daily Mail, one of Britain's, probably Britain's biggest force.

in media. And Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP and former director of the Hacked Off campaign, who nowadays...

works with the claimants legal team, has been in court watching proceedings. Evan, thank you, as ever, for your time. How surprised are we that we've got... even this far? Because, of course, many of my listeners will be aware that newspaper companies historically, whether it's the Mirror Group or Rupert Murdoch's,

outfit, settle huge amounts of money upon people bringing cases like this, while somehow simultaneously insisting that they've done absolutely nothing wrong. And such is the British legal system that the plaintiffs are left with little choice but to go along with that. Yes, I can only talk generally and agree with that because obviously I can't talk about whether there have been any moves in that direction here. But you're quite right. A lot of people wouldn't have expected this to go to trial.

on the basis of previous history, but if you look at what the pleaded cases are, what's striking about this case compared to the News of the World and the Mirror is in those cases there were admissions made. by those newspapers, not The Sun until the very end, but by the others, because they were forced to make admissions. And that meant they could settle cases without making all the admissions. They had an excuse to settle. It would be very difficult.

I'm talking, again, in theory here, for the Daily Mail having said, we haven't done anything wrong, nothing zero, right? And then make a settlement because they would not have the fig leaf that the news of the world had of saying, well, we're paying for this.

you know isolated period that we did it here even though the everyone agreed that the payments they made were much larger than would be reasonable for just that period of unlawful activity here there's no basis for for a settlement to be made on the basis of admissions and also the sheer aggression which they're entitled to, let's be clear, of the Daily Mail's denial, saying these are preposterous cases and there's not a shred of evidence and we've just been hearing a few hours of...

of evidence, so there certainly are shreds of evidence, means that it would be an enormous climb down, I think, were there to be a settlement which could only really be made if the defendant offered to pay the claimant's costs. which are enormous on both sides in this case. There's a lot of moving parts there, isn't there? And I don't know that you would be able to answer this question, even if you knew the answer to it. But do we know who's driving the Daily Mail?

Pan Technic on? Is it Rosamere or Dacre? I have no inside information. One can assume that it is Mr. Dacre with the backing of the owner. And what has come out in court is that Mr. Dacre is coming to give evidence and indeed his counsel said that he was going to be the first to give evidence because he wanted to lead his troops. Whether that's into the machine guns or... Into the breach, dear friends. ...on a march to victory, it remains to be seen. This is a fiercely contested...

And I think what will be fascinating about that evidence, which I think will be in late February, mid-late February, is that when Mr. Dacre was cross-examined by... David Sherbourne, who is now the claimant's lawyer during the Leveson inquiry, Paul Dacre lost his temper after about 20 seconds. He's going to have a whole day.

being cross-examined by David Sherborne, and that will be box office, I think. A word, if you would, on David Sherborne and the relationship between his experiences at Leveson and his determination to help the... plaintiffs in this case pursue their cause he's on a personal mission as well i think um

Yes, and that's one way of looking at it. And obviously lawyers get paid for their work. Now the point about this is that this case is being done on a no-win-no-fee. And a lot of lawyers don't do those because they always like to be paid. If this case isn't won, or isn't fully won, and we can discuss what winning means, then he won't get paid, I won't get paid, and the other...

10 or 12 people working on our relatively small team were dwarfed by the other side, also won't get paid. But he has been committed to this. He went through the... news of the world and some litigation and one so was paid and also the mirror litigation and and one um so uh and i think this is this is kind of completing the set

What are we... I mean, I don't imagine we've learnt much this morning except some timetabling and the confirmation that Dacre would be appearing in the witness box. Well... No, quite a lot comes out on the first day because the claimants, the parties are allowed to put in what's called open written submissions. Well, skeleton arguments normally. So we thought we were doing a skeleton.

We did what's considered a rather long one at nearly 200 pages and thought the judge might be annoyed and only to find that there was a nearly 500 page one. that the associated newspapers produce, which they had the decency not to call a skeleton. They called it written opening submissions. Those are available to the media now from when our council opened his...

oral submissions and then what we've heard today is an oral different from the skeleton argument but taking the judge through specific examples this morning what he did was go through examples of what he said what we say are the obvious use of private investigators for obvious unlawful activity in relation to some example articles not related to the claimants, but specific examples relating to journalists with bylines.

on the articles that the claimants complain of to say, look, they did it here, so it's more likely that they did it there as well. And so that's what we've heard, but it's, we've only, you know, David Scherber will be going for a day and a half, and then the other side. we'll have bear go for a day and a half on tuesday and wednesday and then we have witness evidence on thursday starting with prince harry gosh um i suppose that's

partly the answer to my next question in terms of milestones. Is it now certain that this is going ahead in full? Is that now? Well, cases have been known to settle mid-trial. I know. There's nothing to stop that. But normally the incentive for a defendant to do that is to stop the...

hundreds of pages of documents I've just referred to coming to the media's attention. So I think it is going to go its full course, and it's nine weeks, nine to ten weeks. So the claimant's evidence... and I'm a witness, by the way, that's why I can't be too specific on some of this, will be...

going through to i think mid-february and then and there'll be those witnesses will be cross-examined by associated and then their journalists and mr dacre and some other executives will be coming forward and will be cross-examined by our council And I mean, is it all or nothing? Do we wait until the final and single verdict drops at the end? Or will there be bulwarks along the way that both sides will be looking out for? The former.

So there will be a judgment and it'll take, I suspect, months for the judge to write because it's a nine-week trial and he's got to determine hundreds of issues if he chooses to. In theory, there's a point here that... They've denied anything, doing anything wrong. And there's about 80 articles in play. If the claimants win on one, then the male have committed unlawful activity. They have to win on all.

We just have to win on one. Now, that doesn't mean that we'll get our costs if we only win on one. That's a separate question. But in terms of the moral victory, proving that this happened at the mail. is what we're seeking to do, hoping to obviously win on all our pleaded claim. And they hope, in fairness, they have made their denials that they can throw this out.

both on grounds of liability and on grounds of limitation, i.e. the claimants are too late. And that's a key part of their defence, in fact. that they've written about that, as have their allies in the telegraph. So this would involve simultaneously claiming that they'd done nothing wrong, but that it was too late to actually bring a case about the things that they had done wrong. Well, so they say the claimants should have known.

when the article was published, that's more than six years ago, which is the rule. The claimants say, we didn't know because it was concealed, and the article didn't say, we got this unlawfully. And then there were these denials at the Leveson Inquiry, for example, and ever since. And yes, the Daily Mail's case is a nuanced one, that's a polite word, which is that the claimant shouldn't have believed our denials, even though our denials were correct. But that does seem odd, and it does seem...

Well, it's no odder than the point that we began this conversation with, which is, of course, the many cases of media companies settling and involving huge sums of money and simultaneously. that they've done absolutely nothing wrong, which perhaps we should end with a quick word on that for people who still don't fully understand it. This is because if I took you to court, Evan, perish the thought, and an offer...

of a million pounds to settle was made, and then we went to trial, and the judge awarded me a hundred thousand pounds at the end of that trial, I would be in a... unenviable situation yes because you could have said you could have got what you were after and therefore you are liable for the costs of an unnecessary trial. So I would then have to pay, in this case, £40 million or £38 million, which is the projected cost of Harry's showdown in the mail. Yes, and I can't say.

if offers have been made and not accepted. No, of course not. But I know people like Hugh Grant have been very outspoken in the past about the suboptimal nature of this legal device. Yes, so there's another. So you can win. but still lose on costs if you haven't beaten an offer. And the sums of money involved are sums of money that would upend the lives even of very, very wealthy people by normal standards, which is why this collection, sorry. Well, generally speaking, people have insurance.

Okay, so I think that's an overstated point. Obviously, so the press have run that Prince Harry and Elton John and the people who don't have quite as much resource as them are at financial risk. One can assume that there is insurance.

in place because the premiums if the claims are successful are paid by the other side got it so so there's some and and all those cases in the news of the world litigation were insured and all the premiums were paid and the insurance companies never paid out because they all won.

And that means that the insurance companies have done very well out of this litigation and the newspapers have had to pay large premiums. So, you know, clearly, you know, we don't know what's going to happen in this case. And it is the most contested. I think it's fair to say.

that because there have been no admissions, the stakes are very high. Indeed they are. Final question, which quite a few of my callers, texters, are keen for you to answer. Where should they follow this? Because... I don't know whether they're overcome with undue cynicism and suspicion and paranoia, but they're not entirely sure that they'll be reading a full and frank account of it in any of the newspapers that have already been on the wrong end of this kind of legal action.

Yes, well, I think you can... The BBC, Sky and ITV have experienced court reporters. reporting in a balanced way according to the rules which is if you report one side you need to say it's denied and you should try and you know give both sides obviously it's over a week really because it's our day today and tomorrow morning

The Guardian also, and the Financial Times, the usual suspects. The Telegraph have been far worse than the Mail in their coverage of this. It's almost as if they feel they... they're owned by the mail um and uh and their coverage uh which is focused on on on me um embarrassingly has been um

designed to put pressure i say and i've said this publicly before on some of our witnesses to show that you know we'll be punished and uh and then the mail's done that to an extent in the times and what should be realized is that the the editor of the telegraph and the times were news desk executives at the daily mail at the time we say the news desk knew this was going on so they have a vested interest but none of their coverage admits

that there's a vested interest. I mean, I'm not saying they're guilty of anything. No, of course not. And it's not clear that that won't be determined at this trial. But I think it's something that, you know, I think that journalists with high ethics would say that that should be made clear.

And the Daily Mail had a journalist who is pleaded and is giving evidence. He's been writing their court reports. And that's been pointed out in Private Eye, how astonishing that is, with nary a mention of the fact that there's a conflict of interest. We can add Private Eye to that list, although, of course, they won't be providing daily updates. Private Eye are kind of fickle.

Yes, fair enough. And of course, for people who don't know, the Daily Mail is currently embarked upon an attempt to buy the Daily Telegraph as well. Anything else you feel we should have mentioned, Evan? Well, just to say that we've got Prince Harry giving evidence on Thursday. And on Friday, I believe, this can change, Baroness Lawrence.

And the Lawrence case is the one that Mayle is most sensitive to, because for the reasons that they have built a reputation on the fact that they were the champions of the Lawrence family. And her case is that they were... while they were championing her they were spying on her and that that's been a betrayal

And again, there is very intense feelings on both sides, it's fair to say, because the males say that they're deeply offended and upset by her accusations. And she says she's deeply upset by what she says they did. And we will hopefully be able to call upon you a little more as the case continues than we have done today. Thank you, Dr. Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP.

former director of the hacked off campaign. And nowadays, as you heard, a member of the claimants legal team and indeed. personally involved in this case too. And just a quick word, if I may, on that idea of newspapers intimidating potential witnesses or indeed potential plaintiffs, Prince Harry and his wife's entire lives.

over the course of the last decade or so, can be viewed as an exercise in intimidation by the UK media. Think of all the people you know who've got strong opinions about Prince Harry, a military hero. or indeed about his wife, a successful actress. Think of all the people you know in your life who've got strong opinions about them. Oh, no, I don't like them. Oh, I don't trust her. Where do you think those opinions came from?

You can malign and demonise innocent people so completely and comprehensively that you've probably got family members who think that they have a bead upon these two characters. while Paul Dacre's personal history will be completely new to them. They'll know nothing about the man responsible for newspaper headlines that wouldn't have been out of place in 1930s Germany.

And yet Harry and his wife have been turned into, or the massive attempt to turn them into, pariahs, public enemies. That's how it works. It's also, of course, how the mafia works.

It's 11.57. I do, I suppose, enjoy seeing the desperate contortions of people who voted for Brexit at times like this. pretending that they haven't damaged the country or brought the country to a place where it wields considerably less power than it would have done previously. But something that you're obviously not aware of, and that's not a criticism, because I probably should have told you sooner.

And it's only been in position since 2023. So, albeit that we would be much stronger had we not left the European Union, it was not something that we actually surrendered when we did. But you need to know about the anti-coercion instrument. You may have heard of it last year when the sort of trade negotiations and the first threats of tariffs were made. But essentially Brussels, by which, of course, we mean 27 countries.

Brussels has the power to limit American companies access to public procurement contracts in Europe. It has the power. to take measures such as import and export restrictions on goods and services in a single market of, count them, 450 million people. So it has the power to hurt the United States of America, and indeed it threatened to do so. last year during those negotiations, where Trump was threatening to introduce very steep levies, but a deal was eventually reached.

American tech giants have a services surplus with the EU so they would suffer. And last year Brussels drew up a list of services that it would potentially target. Lithuania used it. when it accused China of banning its exports because of Taiwanese diplomatic representation. So you probably need or I probably need on your behalf to swat up a little bit more on this. But that simple thing often described.

demotically as a bazooka, the anti-coercion bazooka that is in place and on the table is something to which the United Kingdom, to which Brexit Britain has absolutely no access.

unless they decide to let us join in. Well done, everybody. Are we going to continue with this? I feel that we're scratching the sides of it still, but... There's an awful lot of other stuff going on as well, not least the $1 billion you might have to pay if you want to join Donald Trump's Gaza board and the invitation that has reportedly been issued to Vladimir Putin. Yeah, you heard me correctly, to sit.

It's three minutes after 12. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I think it's looking at what CNN has said about the European response. It's quite sad, isn't it, that when they write this line, it's not often that Europe speaks with one voice or responds with such urgency. They're talking about a Europe that we're not in.

They're effectively talking about a European Union plus Norway, I suppose, in this case, whose prime minister received the message from Donald Trump overnight in which he says he's not interested in peace anymore because they didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize. This is because the Nobel Committee is based in Oslo, in Norway. So Donald Trump under the impression that presumably he thinks that what awards can we think of something funnier than the Booker Prize?

An award that's given out, presumably he thinks that the American government decides who wins an Oscar. But what would be the British equivalent? What's the biggest prize you can win in this country?

Rear of the year? He probably thinks rear of the year is in the gift of the UK Prime Minister, does he? So because Nobel is based in Norway, he's blaming the Norwegian government for the fact that he didn't get it. Because that's how his tiny brain works. He thinks he should be able to decide who wins.

an Oscar I mean he's always casting his views on late night television isn't he and telling media companies who they should hire and fire he honestly believes he should be in charge of absolutely everything

which is quite magnificent in a way when you think about it, but also, I mean, utterly ludicrous, lunatic and hideous. So what would it be? What would be the best punchline to that joke? Donald Trump thinks that the Norwegian government award the Nobel Prize. He's also under the impression that the British government...

government is in charge of deciding who gets rear of the year doesn't quite work does it what would be i don't know the booker prize a brit award a bafta okay we could go on couldn't we but that's it that's his brain

And that's the other bit missing from today's analysis of the Greenland situation. The question of why he wants it. And the fact that it could well be because of how maps work.

And once he's arrived on a course of action, of course, he won't step down from it unless he has to, unless he's forced to. And the way maps work, if you try to map a globe shape... on a flat surface, then the bits near the top and the bottom of the globe, in other words, the poles, as geographers call them in this case, look much bigger than they do on the globe because you need a flat rectangular or square piece of paper that like expands the top and the bottom of anyway

Someone I love very dearly was looking at a map at the weekend and they said to me, God, Greenland's a lot bigger than I realised. And I said to them, because I only learnt about it last week, you haven't heard of the Mercator projection, have you, darling? The Mercator projection is what I've just tried in my own very ungeographical way to describe to you. And there are a lot of people, much cleverer than me, who think that.

Donald Trump has looked at a map that distorts the real size of Greenland and decided that he wants Greenland because it's very big. And given that this is a man who almost certainly believes that people seeking asylum have been released from the institutions that we used to call asylums, as in the Victorian language of lunatic asylums.

So many pronouncements he's made on the subject. Mercator. Is anyone going to start correcting my pronunciation? I thought I got it right last time. Mercator. Mercator. The Mercator projection. Anyway. A man who clearly believes that anybody seeking asylum as a refugee has been released from an asylum, as in the Victorian institutions known as lunatic asylums, could easily, easily, easily, easily...

be building his entire foreign policy with regard to Greenland on the fact that he thinks it's much bigger than he is because he doesn't understand how maps work. Oh, boy.

Anyway, that line from CNN, it's not often that Europe speaks with one voice or responds with such urgency. A Europe, sadly, that doesn't really contain us. for the next stage, although the statement that is under discussion here does have Keir Starmer's signature on it. That emergency meeting in Brussels yesterday came after about a quarter of the population of Greenland's... An entire country joined protests against any potential annexation. So again, I wonder whether...

In this country, we're not fully engaged with the reality of what's happening in continental Europe. A quarter of the population of the capital joined protests against any potential annexation. There was a lot less. careful treading from other leaders than we've seen from Keir Starmer this morning. I mean, the true social posts that Donald Trump has made are unhinged, but we're used to that now. Emmanuel Macron describing the threat of tariffs as...

unacceptable. Keir Starmer sounding more bellicose yesterday than he did today when saying that applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is wrong. Macron went further. No intimidation or threat. will influence us, neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are confronted with such situations. That's kind of the point, isn't it? Mark Rutter, who not long ago was calling him daddy.

has said that he has spoken to Trump and we will continue to working on this. I look forward to seeing him in Davos later this week. I'm not sure that... Rutter is rising to the occasion as we speak. And even Giorgio Maloney, the Italian prime minister, who's an almost fully signed up member. of the Donald Trump fan club, given that a party rose from the ashes of Mussolini's fascist movement, that probably shouldn't be surprising, has described Trump's latest move as an error.

while on a state visit to South Korea, although she subsequently, I don't know whether this is clever diplomacy or not, she's trying to portray Trump. as having essentially misunderstood the resistance to his plans to annex. Greenland claiming that there's been a problem of understanding and communication. So she's trying to keep her own little fire escape open while publicly criticising somebody she'd previously been reluctant to criticise.

10 minutes after 12 is the time. Simon Marks with us at half past 12 from the other side of the Atlantic. Question of whether or not there is anything more that Keir Starmer can do will probably concern us until then. And if there is... What is it? Aqib is in Birmingham. Aqib, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Just want to thank you for all that you've done. Fair enough. You make me feel like I'm not senile and going crazy on my own. Well, it cuts both ways. Thank you, too. All right.

I'm going to just read it because I don't want to go off topic here. 90 years ago, we had the Olympics held in Germany. Yes. And now we're going to have the World Cup held. in the usa along with mexico and canada i know but most predominantly is going to be held in the usa i'm calling for european boycott of the world cup

I think that we should not be giving Trump a world stage to be on. We saw what he did with the Club World Cup. He made it all about him. I think that he's going to make it quite difficult for fans to go there. I think ICE agents are going to be all over people of colour. And I think that it will...

Within three months of doing so, he will reverse a lot of his tactics. I think secondly, we should stop buying oil in dollars, just like China has done with Saudi Arabia buying in their own currency. And thirdly, we should put a tariff on all Tesla products.

We should fight fire with fire. I mean, by we, this may be a bit of a pet subject, because by we, you mean Europe. I think. We're not going to land much operating alone, are we? No, no, no, we're not. But this is where Starmer needs to stand up and be counted. Hang on a minute. FIFA just gave him the FIFA Peace Prize. Yeah, but that's like me claiming to be King of Birmingham. Yes.

I thought Joe Lycett was king of Birmingham. Oh, I don't know. I just moved here two weeks ago. I don't know. Should I give him a chat or something? Would it make any difference? I mean, who knows? I don't know how many phonemes we can do dancing with. I mean, the guy only cares about money, right? Yes, yes. That's one thing that... we can pinpoint on the guy only cares about money and his public image of being king of the world. We take the World Cup away from him.

All European countries that have band together because right now we might not be in the European Union But we are part of a European collective that have disowned America for what they've said about Denmark and Norway. You know, I've got normalcy bias here. I'm thinking that's far too outrageous. We couldn't possibly do it. When was the last time?

The Americans boycotted the Moscow Olympics, didn't they? Which is why we did so well in the medals table. Was that the Winter Olympics, wasn't it? No, it was the main one. It was when Alan Wells won the 100. meters final and um yeah you're too young for that you are too young to remember but you need i mean individual boycott the problem is we haven't been able to keep the russians out of out of wimbledon really have we but so they'd all have to operate as long

It's not the greatest thing in the world, and I do feel sorry for any Scottish person listening right now. I sincerely apologise for the video. Brutal. Because I'm a huge Liverpool fan, and I love Andy Robertson to bits, and like... Honestly, he's one of my favourite players of all time and I don't want to see something happen like that. We could hold a cup in Europe, put the final in Denmark as a show of solidarity, but I think the time to play save to these facets is over.

I mean, what Germany did in the 1946 Olympics, we had Hitler there. We've got all the videos from that time, right? And he's sitting there like king of the world and watching all of these people compete.

And it just fed into his belief that probably, you know what? I'm going to get away with this. I'm going to get away with this. And the reason why I get away with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get away with it because however bad I am, they still treat me like I'm part of the gang. I love the idea of somebody. dipping in and out of the program today.

And hearing some bloke in Birmingham insisting that Andy Robertson is one of his favourite football players of all time while discussing Donald Trump's possible annexation of Greenland and then citing... He's not loved enough. The 1936 Berlin Olympics as a precedent for...

what we should do next i love it i love it i love it i love it okay thank you and and what else are you going to put on the list um simon nixon a journalist i really admire um formerly of the times

Wall Street Journal. Rob has sent me a little link to something he's said now. He's brilliant on Substack. Starmer's speech confirms what I speculated here, that Britain will be the weakest link in Europe's attempts to stand up to Trump over Greenland. Wouldn't that be... the ultimate, if you like, proof of Brexit, if it does leave Starmer feeling, whether rightly or wrongly, that he has no choice but to actually bend the knee.

for the man trying to steal sovereign European territory. I wonder where that will leave all the sovereignists. It's 12.15. It is 12.17 and I make no apology for bringing Brexit into our contemplations this morning. There are some mornings when I should apologise. It is something of an obsession of mine, partly because of what I do for a living and the fact that I've probably been more exposed to the...

brainwashing and the gaslighting than anybody else in the country. I honestly mean that. I don't have any of the calls or the clips from the heyday of that post-Brexit period you've seen, but it was an absolute game changer. For me personally and professionally, because I get to deal with the people that have listened, dare I say it, to some of my colleagues and ended up believing things that are obviously untrue. And the same is true of Trump, Boris Johnson, not just Brexit.

But that thing about the European army and, of course, talking about the Daily Mail today, do you remember when David Cameron issued a warning about what a Brexit might do to us in the context of... European peace. Absolutely unhinged responses to a relatively sober comment during the referendum about how we couldn't take European security architecture for granted.

It could change. Two headlines from the Daily Mail for you, just to reflect upon. One from 2015 or early 2016. David Cameron's doom-laden warning of Brexit causing war in Europe is rejected by nine in ten voters. new polling reveals and one from March of last year. Why World War III is already here and how the UK will need to lead in America's absence as Team Trump risks losing global conflict to the West's enemies.

following bust-up with Zelensky and concessions to Putin. That's before he even set his sights on sovereign European territory. Absolutely extraordinary. And I've shared on Blue Sky.

That article I was mentioning to you by Simon Nixon, formerly of The Times, before it lurched to the hard right and a commentator of particular perspicacity. Milan is in playa blanca in Espanol. do you pick up the phone? Yeah, good afternoon, James. Thanks for taking my call. You're very welcome. I was listening to Agui Chambre earlier and then also the young gentleman, I think, who called about 45 minutes ago.

who you asked whether he was a Remainer or a Brexiter. And both are commenting about the... I think I was talking to Nick, talking about PM Starmer being a bridge. Yes. I believe in one of your three questions you asked how the continent is perceiving the whole situation. I believe that was one of your three questions. Yeah, well, I've asked more than three questions today, mate, but you can answer any of them.

I just think maybe we need to take a bit more of a step back from how I would describe a tad bit of English exceptionalism. Honestly, in the media in Europe, it's not that... There's no malice intended, but we're just not being mentioned. It's not like I watched a German talk show last night, the Karamioska. There's no mention of us. It's not like...

There's nothing intended negatively about it, but it's just an irrelevance. We're not part of the trade club. And also I think many Brits, particularly English, I guess, we need to understand that the EU isn't just about trade. It's a political club.

social club and i just don't think that increasingly perhaps a military power as well yeah and i fully back up your your words about the eu army and i never really All the disgusting contributions Farage has made to public discourse in this country, the idea that Europe should be vulnerable to Russia or, it turns out, the United States is...

probably, in the great scheme of things, among the most disgusting. I'm talking about things he's done while a politician, not the things he did at school to Jewish classmates and sundry other... people from minority backgrounds, according to a huge number of them, of course, he continues either to deny it or to change his story every 10 seconds. But why the hell would you want Europe to be less safe? And we know that his mate Nathan Gill was...

taking money from a Kremlin stooge for parroting Kremlin talking points. But presuming that Nigel Farage never took money from anybody, except the owners of Russia today, I suppose. Why on earth would anybody in this country want Europe to be less safe, less protected from aggression? And just two quick further points related to what you're saying. You took the wind out of myself a bit with the bazooka thing.

I started to see reports of that last night. Yeah, well, I had to read it in France 24. I haven't read much about it in the UK media, but you can understand why. No, you've explained it, though, as well, what it is. Thank you. Thanks for explaining. And also, I think the Europeans are stepping back from ratifying the, ironically, deal they arranged in Scotland last summer, I think. But just in terms of what Britain could do...

It's really a question for you. I mean, would this not lend more credence to the whiff from the Lib Dems to sort of set up a customs union with the EU? I mean, doesn't it not? And then you look at the union, the customs arrangement that they arranged last week with Latin America. Doesn't this also lay credibility to that? I mean, even...

If I were to be uncharacteristically generous towards Brexiters, what Trump's rug pulling exercises prove is the necessity of strengthening all of our other relationships, even, you know. That would be true even if we hadn't damaged the biggest one of all irreparably just 10 years ago. But yeah, I agree with you. But those are all chapter two, aren't they? And in the context of chapter ones, beyond Akib's suggestion that we boycott the World Cup, I'm not entirely sure what...

What would turn Trump's head? Are you? I think the Prime Minister's done exactly the only thing he can do. Today? Yes, absolutely. But I think in terms of what he can start to do pretty quickly... I think single market in the EU, I think that is a step too far. Norway, I always get confused. Norway's in the customs union. No, Norway's in the single market. Single market, all right, okay. But no, it's...

I just think that would be, so that's where goods can be. So we essentially have to roll back on all those arrangements that Kimi Badenoch made and all that sort of stuff. Oh, those so-called trade agreements. We'd have to undo them. I think Ed Davey possibly is going to be vindicated in all sorts of ways by international events. But of course, he's unbound by the requirements of actual power, isn't he?

things that Starmer no doubt privately contends and believes that he couldn't currently say in public. And these might be among them. I don't know. While I have you. You're not the only Milan to ring LBC, so I hope Nigel isn't getting mixed up. That's the photo. His mum ran the post office. I know them, actually. But I think this is aimed at you. Can you please ask him why he hasn't called in to Nick Abbott for ages? He is missed by Nick and his listeners. No.

It's not me. I have not called. Oh, it's a different one. Oh, well, there you go. Flip the neck, Nigel, honestly, if you can't. But that's great. And we're going to stay in Spain for the next caller because, I mean, this is my favourite thing about phone-in radio is when the name of a caller...

is the single first syllable of the place that they're calling from. I probably said that last time Ben in Benidorm called in, if indeed he has called in before, but I make no apology for it. Don in Doncaster. Hal in Halifax. Any others? Keith in Keithley. That works. And now Ben in Benidorm. Ben, what would you like to say? Sorry, I mean, I have called in before, as you doubtless...

Maybe you don't remember, but that actually makes me giggle every single time you say it. It's the Halifax advert from our child. It's the Halifax advert, isn't it? But can I just, I mean, look, a slight moment of light relief. But I have to say, and I'm probably being naive, and please excuse me if I am, but I just wish the craven response that Starmer has had to...

to Trump throughout his... Throughout? Full stop? Actually, throughout full stop, yeah. It just makes me feel quite ashamed to be British. And I know that we could say, well, look, we've got no choice. But do you know what, yeah? I'll speak to my mum earlier, right? And my mum was talking about... The fact that when my grandfather... My grandfather lost five brothers in the Second World War. My other grandfather came home from D-Day...

and died shortly afterwards, yeah, because he just got so poisoned by the stuff, right? Everyone took something on the chin, right, when they were fighting fascism. Everyone took something on the chin, right? Now, the fact that... If Starmer has a response, it will probably be reciprocal tariffs, right? That is not taking that much for us as a nation, right? What, we have to pay a little bit more for McDonald's or something? I mean, come on.

We're having a giraffe. It would be a lot more than that. It would be everything from, you know, oil-based products to technologies, services as well, not just goods. But I don't think we would... I don't think our retaliation would hurt him at all.

it would hurt him but it would at least restore some national pride would it not well brexit was supposed to restore national pride these meaningless emotional gestures don't necessarily deliver the oomph that we would want them to i prefer boycotting the world cup

Michael in the World Cup is not a bad idea, but again, I'm not sure that would give us any... So there was nothing today to stop? from saying, if you do it, we will do this. What he appeared to say, and this is where I think you're probably on the money, what he appeared to say was, even if you do it, we won't do this, which is, I think...

close to Craven, isn't it? Yes, and this is where it's upsetting simply because I think that so many of your relatives, my relatives, the nation's relatives have done an awful lot to fight the F word. And you're in Spain where they know a lot more about it than we do. Indeed, yeah. This is my thing that I think in Spain... in part because of that history, that relatively recent history as well.

People are genuinely scared. Aren't they, though? Because I often wonder about this. I used to subscribe to this school of thought, but Italy was, you know, under the jackboots of Mussolini, and they've never stopped flirting with fascism. in the post-war period. So I don't know that having a bit of a scare back in the day... I think what was different about Nazi Germany was actually the Holocaust. I don't think it was any of the other elements of Nazism.

that gave the country a cold bath in 45. I think it was realising what had come in under the cloak of Nazism and the hideousness of the Holocaust that turned generations... of Germans against repeating history. I don't know that I see Spain and Italy in quite the same space. Okay, so in Alicante, just outside the... The south of France, mate. The south of France is full of very, very right-wing people.

I agree, but in Alicante, just outside the Central Market, there's a monument, if you like, or a sculpture, which commemorates the fact that... that in that central market, Franco himself invited Italian and Nazi bombers to bomb that central market. Civilians, but he essentially invited people to bomb their unpopular... Invited...

foreign countries to bomb their own population, right? That sticks really hard with people on the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol. They remember, because this is within recent memory. There are still people alive today that can remember what it was like to have no market. People starved because of that. 300 people were killed on the day, but then other people died because there was no food around. So there is a strong memory of fascism in Spain.

I mean, long may it continue, by the way. No, of course. And yet in this country, when Maduro was kidnapped by Donald Trump, we had various far-right characters and hard-right characters on social media calling for Trump to do the same. To Keir Starmer, and we've had political figures in this country calling on Trump to impose tariffs on the United Kingdom, albeit that these are the economic weapons in... the US arsenal as opposed to actual weapons. The point stands, patriotism.

often the last refuge of a scoundrel. And the kind of people who scream about it loudest while defending the plethora of tatty flags on lampposts up and down the country are the people who would sell us out in a heartbeat to whatever they are.

aggressive fascistic regime with us and its sights looked like, in this case, the United States of America. Ben, I'm cracking on only because I'm late for the news and Amelia Cox is here now with your headlines. 12.34 is the time. Simon Marks on standby. In fact, Simon Marks might be a contender for the thing that I'm about to mention to you. I'm doing a podcast tomorrow. I'm doing Tim Lioroos.

Guess who's coming to dinner podcast? You know Tim from Classic FM. I need to come up with five people that I would invite to my fantasy dinner party. And I'm struggling. So I might ask for a little bit of help with that before one o'clock today. I've got Brian Clough, David Bowie, Jane Austen, JD Salinger. And I went for Joan of Arc because I didn't think there were enough women there. But I'm going off that a bit because I don't know anything about it really.

Except that she wasn't married to Noah. Simon Marks is in Washington, D.C. And, oh, I don't know, Simon. Do I need to ask you a question? Shall I just put a penny in the slot and see what happened? Well, I have to say, James, I woke up... here what about an hour ago uh and read that the prime minister thinks that a calm discussion with president trump is the way out of the particular thicket in which we all now find ourselves and that he wants

to search for a this is a quote a solution rooted in partnership facts and mutual respect now can we just break that down i mean partnership Donald Trump demonstrably has absolutely no interest in. I mean I think we can all agree that after 364 days of this partnership is definitely not something he gives a fig about facts well I mean I don't even need to

deal with that. Obviously, this is not an administration in any way rooted in facts. In fact, they are so now rooted in what they used to call during the first term alternative facts that as we see repeatedly at the white house briefing and saw as recently as last week if you don't accept their alternative version of the facts. You are accused of being a radical left propagandist who shouldn't even be in the room pretending to be a journalist. That's how far that's gone. And mutual respect.

I mean, where's the mutual respect in a US-UK relationship that has seen a partial trade deal that has gone completely off the rails in the months since it was... hailed by the Prime Minister as a breakthrough, a national security strategy that makes it, I cannot emphasize this enough, official government policy here in the United States to help Nigel Farage win.

the keys to number 10, a situation where five European citizens, two of them from Britain, were sanctioned within the last month by the United States government for trumped up charges. of restricting the freedom of speech of Americans and American companies. A situation in which Elon Musk, within the last few days, has accused the British Prime Minister of fascism. A situation in which...

Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion, a defamation lawsuit where in reality, in the real world, the BBC ought to be suing him for defamation and a situation where... the last year we've all basically been told we've got to suck it up Ukraine's going to have to give away massive parts of its territory to the Russians and just that's just the way the world is because Donald Trump wants to get his hands on rare earths minerals.

both sides of that Ukraine Russia border that's before we get to Venezuela and the purloining of Venezuelan oil that is taking place so we're going to do this based on partnership facts and mutual respect Mature alliances. Tell me how that's going to work. And mature alliances, Simon. Mature alliances. It's just laughable.

Could he have done anything else? I'm tempting you into analysis now, but you've written an excellent piece for the LBC website. You don't address this question, but I'm just bigging up your powers of analysis more generally. Could he have done anything else? Well, I think there's all sorts of things that could have been done. I mean, as I say on that on that website piece, I mean, have we called the US Ambassador Warren Stevens to the Foreign Office for a carpeting? I don't think so.

Why have we not done that? Traditionally, we absolutely would do that when other governments engaged in this kind of brutish behaviour. Have we announced that we are now permanently and irrevocably going to close Britain's... supermarket doors to American beef and chlorinated chicken and other inferior agricultural products that Donald Trump insists we need to accept as part of a trade agreement. Have we told them that the king and the queen and the prince

of Wales and the Princess of Wales are not coming to America. We're cancelling the visits. The King and the Queen don't need to travel to the United States to celebrate America's 250th birthday after all of this. And the Prince and Princess of Wales similarly are not going to attend.

the FIFA World Cup and absolutely are not going to stick around for July the 4th. Have we told them that? Have we told them that we've put their majesties through enough of all of this with... absolutely no return for the investment that's been made and critically I think James have we made any representations to them about whether the UK is now going to limit intelligence sharing which

leaves us legally in the frame for any of the erratic behaviour that Donald Trump commits on the world stage at a time when in that extraordinary letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister. attacking him, you know, for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, even though, of course, the Norwegian Prime Minister and government has nothing to do with the Nobel Peace Prize. He says... I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant.

but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. A man who within the last 10 days has said... I don't need international law, I will be guided by my own morality. Are we okay? continuing to be part of the Five Eyes Partnership and sharing intelligence with this US government. So Donald Trump can then use that intelligence and be guided by his own morality in the decisions that he makes.

on the world stage. I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg, but it seems to me to say nothing. about any of those issues will leave the American president waking up here in Washington DC this morning actually waking up in Mar-a-Lago this morning down in Florida because it's a holiday here today

I think it will leave him once again sensing the unmistakable aroma of weakness emanating from No. 10 Downing Street. But not from Brussels, and Starmer was a signatory to the altogether more robust joint response yesterday.

and now to the question i've asked you in various different contexts about seven million times this year alone as you say tomorrow the first anniversary of this administration is any of this concerning or motivating Republicans in America, his facilitators, his supporters, his base. Yeah, we definitely saw some moves over the weekend. I think it was really notable that Congressman Mike McCall, who is a Republican, very, very steeped in international affairs, one of the thinkers.

in the Republican Party about foreign affairs, appeared on ABC yesterday and said that he believed that the president needed to understand that were he to engage in military action to try and seize Greenland, that was tantamount to declaring war on NATO. He argued absolutely correctly, as the Danish government argues, that the 1951 treaty that was signed between the United States United States and Denmark allows President Trump to do whatever he wants to do.

in greenland and the danes keep saying to him you don't need to own it you can come here and we can have a conversation and that treaty allows you to build as many military bases on greenland soil as you want you know we can talk about everything

everything within the framework of that 1951 treaty and congressman mccall was basically saying not just to the television audience but i think to the republican make america great again faithful this is crazy he said you know To buy Greenland, it's got to be a willing seller. willing buyer arrangement and there's absolutely no willing seller out there that he could identify. So why not just do what we know we can do, which is use that 1951 treaty to expand America's footprint.

in Greenland and stop all of the nonsense. But as you were saying at the beginning of the hour... The nonsense is all about territorial expansion. And it's all about when he spins that globe of the world, he sees that massive stars and stripes right on the top of it. And he looks at it and he says.

I did that. Yeah, I think you've not been wrong about March, if indeed anything lately, up to and including the concerns you were among the first to express about the likelihood of the midterms even going ahead. But we haven't got time to get into that now because... Well, we've got to get into this. A billion bucks to join Donald Trump's, what is it, just a kind of UN light? A pound shop United Nations? Or a billion dollar shop United Nations?

Yeah, I think it's not a pound shop, United Nations. I mean, it is evident from the reporting that was published over the weekend by Bloomberg that this Board of Peace, we all have to understand, is not simply about Gaza. When it was first mooted, this was going to be the governing administrative function that was going to oversee Gaza post-conflict.

In Donald Trump's mind and the minds of the people that are pushing this, particularly Jared Kushner, his own son-in-law and businessman, in Donald Trump's mind, this is the vehicle that is going to become... the alternative for the United Nations Security Council. And so he's reaching out to all of these countries, asking them to come and join, pay a billion dollars. He will be the chairman of this Board of Peace. He will uniquely decide who gets to sit round the table and who doesn't.

He will be the chairman by the way in perpetuity. not when he if he leaves office not when he leaves office he moves on and the next american president becomes the chairman of the board of peace this is his baby he controls all the cash and they evidently see this as as a vehicle that is going to leech authority away from the United Nations Security Council and become an alternative to it. So to the extent that the Prime Minister did something right today...

Turning around and saying we're having nothing to do with this is absolutely the right move because all of the reporting this weekend presented this almost in kind of like Dr. Evil terms in reference to what he plans. do with this vehicle. Huge questions in this for Sir Tony Blair, who I see over the weekend was referring questions about the Board of Peace.

to the White House I mean I think he's got to ask some serious questions himself about whether he actually really truly wants to be part of this given what appears to be worldwide eternal ambitions for an institution that Donald Trump personally intends to control. Oh, boy. This might be one of your finest hours, actually. I wish they wouldn't keep giving us so much material. I really, I mean, I really, really do.

But Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin tells us, will be sitting on this panel if he wants to. I mean, at what point do we just throw our hands up in the air and give up attempts to make sense of it all and tie it all together? You clearly are... Well, I've been on for three hours. You've only just got up. So I'm allowed to be a bit more beleaguered than you are at this point in proceeding. Well, I mean, let me just offer this thought.

Tomorrow, for reasons that are absolutely incomprehensible to me, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is going to be addressing Parliament, Mike Johnson. He's in London. And I know this is all part of our celebration of America's 250 years and, you know, hashtag greater together, which is the hashtag the British Embassy here is using to describe the eternal.

partnership, the special relationship that exists across the Atlantic. Mike Johnson is second in line for the presidency after Vice President J.D. Vance, so he's an important guy. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives...

10 days ago, only 10 days ago, was asked about reports that Marco Rubio had told a closed-door session of Republican lawmakers that Donald Trump was now much more interested in the idea of buying Greenland than in necessarily using gunboats to try and seize it by force.

Mike Johnson was asked about that after he emerged from the meeting. Was it true that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said america wanted to buy greenland and johnson's response was yeah i i heard him say something about that he did say that the president was now thinking of you know trying to buy it um but but it was all said with a smile on his face and It all felt like it was a bit of a joke. That was where the man second in line to the American presidency behind J.D. Vance was.

10 to 12 days ago. And now we've come all the way to the point where the entire transatlantic relationship is on the brink of collapse over his own president's behaviour. they should be asking him behind the scenes some really tough questions if they truly think that they can resolve all of this based on partnership, facts and mutual respect.

um and mature alliances uh final question how much is the us hurting itself potentially i mean you've given us most of the jigsaw pieces that we need here but just pop them together for us would you well i mean you know i consume a lot of british products here in the united states as you would imagine and i certainly went out shopping this weekend and stocked up ahead of price rises i mean i think if i was an american in the mood for a decent single malt from scotland

or a Land Rover, or if I was one of the millions of Americans who are now injecting themselves with Danish-made Ozempic, 100% made in Denmark. And again... huge leverage there, by the way. You know, were I engaged in the use of a Zempick, I think I'd be pretty concerned. I think I'd be getting out there and stocking up as rapidly as possible. Because remember, despite what Donald Trump says... the tariffs

get passed on to American consumers in the form of price rises. So all of those British cars, British made cars that we export to the United States that were supposedly, you know, going to be at the heart of that. All of those are about to be jacked up by 10%. on February the 1st, 25% on June the 1st. And so, yes, I mean, for Americans out there all over the country, whether they realise it or not, prices once again are going to come under pressure as a direct result of...

their own president's extraordinary actions. Simon, thank you. And I mean it. I really do. I always mean it. But on days like this, I mean it even more than I do on days not like this, although it feels like there aren't many days not like this these days. Go on, unwrap that. It is 12.53 and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC on a day of extraordinary moments and moment singular as well. But we have some time, thank goodness.

to speak to one of my favorite people, indeed, Dame Carol Homden, who is the CEO of Coram, a charity, a children's charity that has its roots in the foundling hospital that many of you will know from the work of Jackie Wilson, and many of you may have visited. the museum in Fitzrovia. But Carol is here to remind us about the importance of adoption and crucially today.

Carol, or should that be Dame Carol, you're calling upon the government to make sure that adopted children and their families are given the support that they need. A parliamentary event taking place to mark the centenary of the Adoption of Children Act. briefly because we are short of time what happened before that act came in to people like me it was the wild west

So there was no real legal platform for children's welfare and rights. And so there may have been successful informal arrangements, but equally children were exposed to risk. And so 1926, after much debate, Parliament actually introduced the first legal process for the rights and responsibilities for a child to be able to be transferred and so to provide them the stability and permanence they need for life. Wow.

We've come a long way, but not clearly far enough. 45% increase in the number of children waiting to be adopted in England over just the past three years. 3,000 waiting to be matched with an adoptive family. Some, in fact, roughly half of that waiting. 18 months or more, and the number of adoptive families is decreasing. Do we know why the second bit is true? Well, there's a multiplicity of reasons, of course.

individual and systemic but we are looking at demographic changes so perhaps fewer people in the traditional age range for becoming parents and then being in a squeezed middle with child care costs and also pressures of support with older members of their family housing costs cost of living crisis but within all this there are things we can do to help to convey the fact that there are children waiting who need their love and support that agencies like quorum actually will stand by

those adaptive families and to call on government to restore the adoption register and to make sure that those families can depend upon timely and consistent access to the services they need. changes your job according to who's in downing street i i mean i don't want to tempt you into indiscretions and you wouldn't follow me anyway if i tried to but i mean Should we be pleased with how Keir Starmer's government is addressing these issues so far, or is there plenty of room for improvement?

I think we should be pleased that successive governments have actually recognised the key responsibilities that any government has to children who depend upon the support of the state. But I would point out that it is important to learn from the evidence of what works and not to make the developments of those services subject to political vagary or time.

And so I think that the minister is very concerned and rightly so that we have sufficiency across all placement types, not only adoption, but fostering and kinship care. And we would absolutely support. that. But unless we can place our very most vulnerable children who the court has decided to need adoption, unless we can do that, we are letting down the most vulnerable in society. And that has to be state. backed doesn't it you can't they can't

We can't leave it to organizations, charities like yours, agencies like yours, because this has to be something that is baked into the structure of society, really. The support that these families need is measurably and massively different from... almost any other family imaginable. Yes, that's absolutely right. We need to remember that today, unlike perhaps earlier generations, adoption is a service for children who have been removed into the care of the state.

for their own protection. They have had the toughest start in life. This is not like the 1920s and 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s when unmarried women felt pressured to give up their babies. but probably would have been able to care for them very successfully if they'd had welfare support. This now is a collective duty to our most vulnerable children, and we need all parts of our system, schools, mental health. services, other medical and social support structures to stand with them in addition.

to the work that is given which is specific to adoption support words are funny aren't they carol because i hear that phrase a lot that the most vulnerable but literally these children are the most vulnerable in our population in our in our society i think imagine for example being removed into care and being drug addicted at that point

uh having had experiences in utero that may lead you to have fetal alcohol syndrome for example those bring really into mind for any parent listening or any carer listening uh what those consequences might But I mustn't end without saying that the vast majority of children who are adopted go on.

to live and thrive in their families, that the breakdown rate of adoption is extraordinarily low in comparison with other cases, and that in the main... despite all the challenges that can occur for individual families which I absolutely respect, adopted children bring joy to the families that adopt them.

Indeed, they do. I've got a couple, as you know, a couple of godsons to prove it. Carol, thank you. People want to find out more about this? Is there somewhere that we should be sending them? I know that the centenary of the Adoption Act is being marked at Adoption Story. But if people want to find out more about the work that Quorum does, where should they go? To quorum.org.uk. And it could be you that changes a child's life today. It really could. Thank you, Carol. Dame Carol Omden.

12.59 is the time. A lot of people suggesting Stuart Lee should have made my fantasy dinner party list. So I'm delighted to tell you Stuart's joining us on Wednesday on air. So there you go. I don't need to invite him to my fantasy dinner party. Joan of Arc, your place is safe.

for the time being that's it for now you can listen back on our free global player or the LBC app where you can stay up to date on the top stories and opinions you can put your news categories in the order you want you can pause and rewind live radio and listen to a range of podcasts including

James O'Brien Daily, the best bits from my LBC show every day. Download the official LBC app for free from your app store now. Tom Swarbrick will be with you at four on LBC, but now it's time for Sheila Fogarty. Who else is on your list? Jane Austen. Oh, yeah. J.D. Salinger. Yes. Brian Clough. Best opening to a book ever. Yes, Brian Clough. No, not for me. And David Bowie. That's good. I'd replace Brian Clough with Shankly.

Yeah, right. Audrey Hepburn. You're bringing footballification into everything. Audrey Hepburn. I don't know about Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc's the weak link at the moment. Oh, I think she'd be fascinating. Well, that's what I thought as well. And then people pointed out that she might have been a bit kind of eccentric. So what? Exactly. And also how better to find out more about her than sit down with her and get Brian Clough to interview her. Exactly.

I love it. It's a game you could play forever, that game, isn't it? It's Tim from Classic FM's podcast I'm doing tomorrow. It's wonderful. It is a lovely one. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Another great film as well.