O’Brien delivers a scathing autopsy of Britain’s systemic decay, where political indecision and bureaucratic bloat have turned national progress into a financial black hole. It is a sharp, necessary look at how institutional inertia is effectively bankrupting the country’s future.
安装我们的扩展，即时搜索任意视频内容
Why infrastructure in Britain spirals out of control | James O’Brien - The Whole Show本站添加:
It is 3 minutes, 4 minutes give or take after 10 and you are listening to I've checked James O'Brien on LBC and we return our attention now to a story that just enduringly fascinates me not necessarily for the best of reasons and it's probably going to involve a certain amount of indulgence of my inner Alan Partridge as well because I I well you'll find out why if you don't know already. Um, listen, if you've recently discovered this program or if you've been listening for for a while and you've never rung in, uh, it just occurred to me, we had so many first-time callers last week and yesterday, it it just occurred to me that, um, it might be worth me pointing out that this is going to be a conversation that you might well be qualified to contribute to in ways that I could only dream of because I know very little despite a a a fruitful career as a building site laborer. uh during the summer of 1988 in in South Yorkshire, an entire fortnight or actually there's some dispute over this.
It may only have been a week. No one can actually remember for certain, but it certainly felt like it felt like a year to me. But um I I'm going with a Fortnite. I've printed a Fortnite. Um I don't actually have a deep and abiding understanding of matters either construction based or infrastructure.
Uh, you know, I could help out building a downstairs toilet in Berg Wallace, but I couldn't necessarily um talk about massive infrastructure projects.
And then I do this weird thing. You know, I love cranes and bridges, right?
This is where the inner partridge begins fighting his way to the surface. I think of the reason why I love cranes and bridges is because they speak of mankind's or humankind's dominion over nature. There's something about a vioaduct. Actually, let's hop over from two of the sort of key locals of my childhood. Let's hop over from Doncaster towards Stockport. And that the vioaduct if you're driving into Manchester that the vioaduct that cuts across that route into Manchester, the railway vioaduct is absolutely extraordinary. And don't even get me started on aqueducts where you actually have a canal on a bridge at Sloan Square station. I don't know whether you're aware of this. There is a massive pipe that goes over the railway platforms. Now, now that I've mentioned it to you, the next time you find yourself in Sloan Square, you'll you'll see it. It's a river. It's a river that has been rerooed through a railway station uh which involves just running it through a massive pipe. So, uh all of these examples of humankind's dominion over it's not dominion over nature, is it? Because all it takes is a tidal wave or a massive storm and it can all come tumbling down. But it's it's humankind's engagement with refusal to be defined by the environment. We will overcome. We will prevail. We are human beings and we will prevail. We we will it makes me think of the herculean task which is of course a figure of speech for a reason when he he he um he redirected a river to go through the orgian stables. Do you remember he dug a river? He kind of redirected a river to go through the Audian stables where I live at the moment in in Brenford in West London.
The the the Grand Union Canal and the Brent River are sort of married to each other at points and it would have been a huge point of ingress for trade coming from all over the country heading towards the capital and they sort of co-opted stretches of the River Brent when they were building the Grand Union Canal. and you get to the gauging lock in Brenford which is designed to work out how much cargo you're carrying so that they can put a tariff on you. Do you know I intended to start the program by comparing the United Kingdom to other countries but of course I've just been reminded that we kind of invented this sort of thing in the modern world Fontaine DC in the modern world we we we kind of invented I know the Romans built aqueducts and stuff but industrial revolution and England and and and Britain go hand in hand absolutely hand in hand the Marple vioaduct is is is the vioaduct of which I speak it's a feat of extraordinary engineering. It's not necessarily one of the great wonders of the world, but it's a thing of enormous beauty. And we used to be really, really good at it. And some people still are.
They've probably built three airports in China since I came on air this morning.
You look sometimes at other countries and they have um deliveries and and projects and um successful uh engagements coming out their ears.
I I talk about Greece a lot and Greece has had a heck of a lot of problems over the years and relatively recently when it comes to economic bailouts and the like, but they have imposed in the years that I've been visiting an extraordinary network of absolutely state-of-the-art roads. They are, I grant you, toll roads, but they are nonetheless state-of-the-art and they they shave hours off journey times.
And then, well, I mean, I could throw a few more into the mix as well. There's an analysis of 5,000 mega projects by a construction group called Mace. I want to be involved in a mega project when I grow up. What's What's the difference between a big project and a mega project? Do we know what the definition of a mega project is? We used to use mega as a as an adjective when I was a kid. Did you do that? Did you Oh, did you see East Enders last night? It was mega. Oh, yeah. Mega. Oh, have you played Have you played Jet Set Willie on the Spectrum? Oh, it's mega. That was an adject. I didn't know it was a mega project. It takes an average of 12 and a half years to deliver one in the UK.
In the United States, it's 8.8 years.
And in Australia, it's 9.9. And do you know my patriotic heart beats so so strongly that I'm I'm I'm thinking already, oh, it's not as bad as I thought. It's not as bad as I thought.
It takes us 12 and a half years. It takes the Aussies 10. That's not so bad.
That's only 2 and 1/2 years. That's okay. You know, come on. Give us a It's not though, is it? It's just outrageous.
How can it take us two and a half years longer than the Aussies, many of whom have roots in this country anyway? So, it can't be a sort of genetic thing.
Then you got the the Americans 8.8. Do they have I mean, like massively uh inferior health and safety legislation.
It seems unlikely.
It seems unlikely. a mega project. If you want to build a mega project, phone the Americans or the Chinese or the Australians. Do not go anywhere near the UK.
There are currently slightly fewer, or there were when this article was published about a year ago. Slightly fewer than 500 active mega projects.
There is a proper definition of a mega project. Do you want to know what it is?
It's a it's it's a billion $1 billion.
So you just put your little finger in the corner of your mouth and do a Mike Meers impression. $1 billion.
Um, which has gone up by three times since 2010. So we've got about 500 mega projects in the UK at the moment, of which 52 are currently at a high risk of a prolonged pause with no clear plan for recovery, which is going to put up the overall average. The UK performs particularly pure poorly due to what they call a lack of clear strategic direction at the government level as well as bureaucratic consenting processes which have seen the average time taken to secure approval double between 2009 and 2019. Oh, don't tell me it's Osborne's razor again. Not another road of national decline that leaves back to the doorstep of George Osborne.
Surely not. Uh, and then if I start describing the mega projects, I go full partridge because I have to say things with a straight face like the jeweling of the A9 road in Scotland. That's a mega project, Keith. The jeweling of the A9 road in Scotland or the extension of the Berloo line in London. Uh, or the underground metro system in Bristol. Do you know what a giga project is? Do you do you know what a giga project is? So if a mega project is1 billion dollars, what's a giga project? Correct. 10 billion dollar. How many giga projects do you think there are at the moment?
18. Oh, there were a year ago. I haven't checked since. 18 giga projects. That means they're worth more than $10 billion. The lower temp's crossing and HS2 are giga projects and Britain is particularly slow at delivering them.
railway bridges. That's a thing that we kind of almost invented the Victorians.
George Stevenson I just m there's an extraordinary story about George Stevenson having a railway. I told you I was a anorak when it comes to this stuff. They found a bridge when they were developing somewhere in West London down near Paddington. Paddington I think in the Paddington basin and there was this bridge like come here this is really interesting right covered in bricks like a bridge a brick bridge you might call it a bridge of bricks right and when they were developing Paddington Basin they needed to get rid of this bridge or replace this bridge this is only within a 100year time frame 150ear time frame and they started dismantling the brick bridge and underneath the brick bridge do you know what they found.
They found a metal bridge. They found a Victorian metal bridge in almost pristine condition because it had been in a sense almost hermetically sealed by the bridge by by the brick casing that they' put on it.
And this bridge was actually designed by Ismbard Kingdom Brunell, one of the great fathers of our nation. And it didn't have any bolts in it. It slotted together like a jigsaw. His he was such an amazing designer that he he could work out all the tensions and the tors.
I just made that word up. He could make out and and the bridge would just sit as a as a sort of interlocking masterpiece of engineering and and vision. And the more I learned about it, the more amazed I was. So, um Brunell had this idea that or or or this was part of a a process. I think George Stevenson was involved. I could be wrong, but there it was essentially a railway line from Britain to America. You'd get on a train in London and it'd take you down to the the coast and and you'd get on a boat and you get off the boat and you get on another train. He was building all of it. He was building the bridges to take you down. What What port would it be?
Would it be Portsmouth? No. What would would probably be on the every shredded week? It' be on the west coast, wouldn't it? So anyway, it it might have been in Wales and and that was it. It was going to build bridges. I think quite a lot of it got built, but it went a bit bonkers um as ever. But that vision, that extraordinary vision and ambition and delivery at the bridge, I looked it up cuz I'm weird. I looked it up at the weekend. I found myself thinking about it as I often do in the way that some men apparently think about the Roman Empire on a regular basis. I often think about the lost bridges of Britain. And as far as I can tell, it's still in storage. So, there was talk at the time of of rebuilding it in the new developed Paddington Basin, but as far as I could tell on Google, um it's still in store.
It's disappeared again, this bridge.
That's quite toemic, isn't it? It's disappeared again. That's modern Britain. So, Victorian Britain, they were going to build a bridge to America.
Modern Britain, they found a Victorian bridge, they celebrated, they stuck it in storage, and they forgot about it.
They forgot about it. As far as I could tell from my research at the weekend, it was still there. Bristol probably for a port, wouldn't it? Bristol or Liverpool.
It's funny the things you respond to during my morning burlings. Some of my questions are rhetorical. You wouldn't know it from my inbox. And uh and some of them are not. And this is not rhetorical. So, you probably know that they're about to announce or or or today they will announce the latest disaster in the HS2 saga. And remember, you don't have to agree with this analysis, but it it is widely believed that the final figure will be roughly three times the original estimate, which was only set in 2011. It was set 15 years ago. I know what you're thinking. Oh, it's Osborne's razor again. But it wasn't like a hundred years ago or 50 years a 15 years ago. And that is only for the bit that has survived, the 100 miles connecting London and Birmingham. Um, it was supposed to go to Leeds and to Manchester and then fork off, if you pardon my French, into the eastern and western legs once it got north of Birmingham. Uh, but none of that's happening now. It's being scaled back a bunch of times. It's probably going to be announced by Heidi Alexander today that it is being scaled back or pushed back again. The timetable might see the first train run in about 2035 at the moment. They're going to announce that they'll probably slow it down, which is fine. Um because it was never about making the journeys shorter really. It was all about increasing the capacity.
Although you could be forgiven for not knowing that from the way it's been covered by many many many people. The thing that can't be disputed is the tripling give or take of the original cost. So there are two abiding stories here. Right?
Number one, it's taken three times. It's cost three times more than it should have done. Right. And number two, it's taken god knows how much longer than was originally estimated. Now, I'm a naive fool, as you know. I I can't quite believe that the answer to this question is they're all really bad at their jobs.
It's possible that that is the answer, but my experience of the construction industry is confined, as I've told you many times, to two weeks on a building site in North Yorkshire in 1988. Spoiler alert, I wasn't very good at it anyway.
So I I look at this, I think, who did the sums? Who did the calculations? Is it is it a modern malaise? No, it's not.
Because if it was Australia, it would be taking, you know, a fraction, a relatively big fraction, but a fraction nonetheless of the time. If it was other European countries that we used to look down our noses at, or some people did. I never really went in for that sort of thing, but I remember going on holiday to Spain as a child and being astonished by the state of the roads, like they were barely sort of tarmaced in places on quite big routes towards the Pyrenees and and and now continental Europe has, I would argue, a better record of delivering on infrastructure than we do. I would argue that because that's going to be part of the question that I'm about to ask you.
What's your favorite explanation for why HS2 has taken so much longer and cost so much more than it was supposed to?
What's your favorite explanation? What What is your explanation? That's what I mean by you knowing probably a lot more about this than I do. What? What? Why?
Why? Why here? Why so bad? Why here? Why now? Why here? Why now? Why here? Why now? It's almost a tune, isn't it, Keith? Um, I don't know. But I but I don't believe it can be. It can't be one answer, can it? You can't just go elf and safety. You can't just go everyone's really bad at that. I don't think you can until you tell me otherwise. They're just really bad at their jobs. Political leadership is obviously a huge part of it. And given that this dates back to 2011, we can confidently state that there wasn't any political leadership.
But we've had about 463 different governments since then, or all but one of them, Tory, and absolutely nothing has improved. Now it's Labour's turn to make announcements of it. Oh, it's going to take longer and it's going to cost more.
So what what is it? Could it even be corruption? Could that be a thing? Don't lie anybody because it's me that gets into trouble, not you. But you look now at people taking money off foreign billionaires and presidents in the United States of America lining their own nests and and you sort of think, well, maybe I am a bit of a sweet summer child sitting here thinking that corruption and kickbacks are just exceptions to the rule. I don't know, but I know that it is extraordinary that in the space of what is it 2026, 1927?
In the space of 150 years, we've probably gone from being the best in the world at building stuff to being among the worst. That's a little bit of tabloid exaggeration possibly at both ends of the time scale. More so probably at this end than that end because in the days of of Brunell, we probably were the best in the world, right?
And now we are going to be among comparable economies on delivery times and budgeting. We're probably going to be among the worst. Among the worst.
So just tell me why. And and the reason I began this morning by pointing out that you might not think of yourself as someone who rings into the program habitually or or or or naturally. And you're sitting there now going, "Oh, this is my this is actually my neck of the woods. This is do you know what this is? This is this is I actually know what I'm Yeah. Yeah. And but Oh, I don't ring RA. I I want to hear voices I haven't heard before. I want to hear answers I haven't heard before on this. I want to I want to get under the bonnet, if you like, of Britain, building in Britain today and just try to work out why it's such an absolute mess.
That's my analysis. All right. I may be getting all sorts of things wrong. So, you're also welcome and encouraged to ring in and tell me to wind my neck and things aren't quite that bad. You might feel a bit protective, a bit loyal about your industry. All right, the Aussies do it quicker, but what you don't understand is ABCDE E. It's not the fault of the fellas in the hard hats down on the sites or the ladies in the hard hats down on the sites doing the shift. And it's probably not their boss's fault or even their boss's fault.
So, whose fault is it? Whose fault is it? 034560973.
Why does it cost so much more than they originally budgeted? That's the crucial bit and why does it take so much longer than they originally estimated. If they were building an extension on your house and they were bringing it in on the same parameters as HS2, you'd have Matt Allright singing your story from the sofa on the one show by the end of play on Tuesday, which is of course today. Uh 10:22 is the time. 034560973 is the number. What, why, and wherefore is the question.
>> James O'Brien on LBC. It is 24 minutes after 10. It is a question for the ages, but we're asking it today because they're about to announce yet more um increases in both uh budget and delivery for HS2. And I don't understand why this country at this time in history is so apparently poor. I want to use a slightly rude word, but I can't.
Building stuff. Building stuff. Why?
Jason is in Budley. H place I know well.
Jason, what have you got?
>> Hi, James. long time listener, first- time caller.
>> Welcome aboard.
>> Hopefully tick one box. So, I think perhaps a changing question would be >> Oh, everyone's a bloody critic.
Honestly, I've barely I've barely started, man.
>> No, the the the negativity comes from the budget being wrong in the first place. Yes, it does. If you if you kind of cast your mind back to what 2008 2009 when Department for Transport kind of got this this rolling, do you think they would have had a a positive answer from Treasury if they'd said 150 billion and it's going to take 30 years?
>> So to get to get it green lit, they have to tell porkies about the price.
>> Now whether it's whether it's cynical or naivity, you you could probably have an argument there, couldn't you? because I would imagine that the DFT folk aren't fully, you know, the higher levels aren't fully on on the detail, >> but it it was a political decision to get it through with with the Treasury.
The industry, I think, knew full well based on history and the likes of the Dockland's light rail and the Jubilee extension that it was likely to go over budget.
>> The extremity is is pretty pretty amazing, isn't it? Actually, from 30 to whatever it's going to be today.
>> Yes. three times.
>> Yeah. But but essentially it's that political decision earlier or the sponsor decision on smaller projects that they want to get the project through.
>> All right. Why would that be peculiar to this country?
>> So I I'm I'm not sure it is entirely.
Okay.
>> Do you work in the sector?
>> I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I manage a big team of project delivery managers. So >> did you have anything to do with the flood barriers?
>> Uh no, but I know I have a little story about that.
>> Go on then. You're in the You're on the Jason. You're on the right show.
>> I I know. Yeah. Well, interestingly, so I follow the industry a lot and obviously I live I live in Bley. I watched that project. I I remember when Boris came >> and this is again the political start of here. He came and went, "This is terrible. We're going to get it sorted."
>> The environment agency knew about the issue uh a long time before. Of >> course he did, >> but hadn't scoped it out, hadn't looked at all the constraints, and Boris announced it was going to be sorted.
Their original budget was 6 million. it had ballooned to 8 million before they even started on site because of the heritage constraints the the the utilities that >> I mean for people who don't know Bley there are proper heritage constraints it's a it's a beautiful Georgian market town and and the bridge that um essentially spans the river that needs the flood barriers is it's pretty much single lane isn't it really it's yeah so you know there was a lot going on there so so it's gone up by 2 million before they've even stuck a spade in the ground >> by the time they finished it was 10 and a off >> from six >> from six. Yeah. So, but had we taken the time the sorry Royal We the Environment Agency ones that took their time, they would have known about the constraints and designed them in and costed it properly before announcing the budget.
>> So, you've got a politician on the phone going, "Come on, come on, we want to get a press release out or a politician's people are on the phone. We've got to get a press release out and we've got to get it green lit." And then you've got someone else on the phone saying, "We can't afford that." So, all right, we'll just knock a naught off it. So there's a sort of weird conference of of of compromise going on and at the end of it you just get an entirely unrealistic quote.
>> Yep. Pretty much. Pretty much.
>> Yeah. And and it's not you project managers are often good at trying to cap that, but you know that's what I do in my team. We we've got costs that come in for it scope but we have that cynicism of picking it to to bits before we kind of you know embark on the project to make sure we're we're clear of the >> Yeah, fair enough. So, so but again that doesn't I mean answer the question of why it takes so much longer compared to other countries that will have similar political pressures and political tensions. But you you're not going to take a a broad and generalized stereotyping critique of your industry.
Saying you're all bad at it or you're all lazy or you're all a bit rubbish or you're all on the take because that that that obviously wouldn't be fair or true.
>> No. And comparing us to other countries is like comparing apples and pears.
>> Is it though?
>> It is. Yes. So from a project construction perspective, you know, we've got less space, we've got more heritage constraints, we have more um wildlife constraints as well because we have less wildlife. It's more important.
And then we have people >> we got more people in the way.
>> Nimbies.
>> So well is a is a great one, isn't it?
>> They were buying up everything, weren't they? They were buying up garden and they wanted to go through hills when they should have gone over them because people didn't want >> trains in their spoiling their view or making noise and and and that wouldn't apply if you were building a railway across the outback or or a part an underpop populated part of America, would it?
>> Exactly. Well, Spain, they've got one of the largest highspeed networks, but you look where it is and it connects uh big city to big city with not a lot in between.
>> Uh whereas we've got quite a lot in between.
>> Yeah. In America, >> places like Budley.
>> Yeah. Well, exactly. But America don't have the heritage that we have. That's a really interesting answer because you know people might be able to get a little bit dismissive with regards to some of the wildlife constraints and there was that famous case wasn't there of the bat tunnel um with HST which did seem to have swung too far in one way but the idea of blowing up >> you know Heritage blowing I'm trying to think what the nearest one to you is blowing up Whitley Court or something like that I mean and and and of course you've got the Seven Valley Railway on your doorstep which >> is a reminder of how things used to be done that Jason is a fascinating ing call and a perfect start to this conversation. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Oh, thank you very much. Do you follow are you following the um >> it's gone a bit niche this hasn't it this conversation but are you following the the the the big house that Stanley Baldwin used to live in you know just on the road between you and Haby >> Ribsford. Yeah. Yeah. That's a story isn't it?
>> It is. It is. And it's it's a challenge isn't it? Again the buyers on that um knew it was a heritage issue.
The planners didn't help with helping get a planning commission. Planning permission for something that was commercially viable.
>> Got it.
>> And now they're trying to sell it off into chunks for individual houses.
>> I think they I think they might have found a buyer from the hotel industry actually.
>> Oh, okay.
>> I could that could have been overtaken by events. But it's a good example of what you're describing because it's Stanley Baldwin's old house. So three-time prime minister, probably Beley's most famous son as opposed to Sir Roland Hill, who is Kiddaminister's most famous son. um and and it would make it doing it up or changing it or doing it on a small scale. It's not a mega project or a giga project, but there will be concerns that perhaps would be less acute in other countries.
I told you this was going to be fascinating. And if if I'm the only person that thinks so, well, that's fine by me. Here's Dominic Ellis with your headlines.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> It's 10:34. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Well, I I you know, I'm quite fond of a flowery language, don't you? I I like to think of conversations like this and Jason imbued just smashed it, didn't he? Absolutely nailed what I'm about to say. What you do is you assemble a tapestry of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data. It's one of my favorite mantras. But but in this job, occasionally a subject comes along where you you assemble a tapestry of anecdotes and at the end of it, you've got a much more um comforting blanket of understanding than you had before.
Albeit that it's a tapestry of anecdotes, fact-based evidence, evidential anecdotes, but none of them are going to necessarily completely account for the big question. It's lots of little answers. I I loved this from a man whose name I very nearly just said out loud despite him sending two messages subsequently saying, "Please don't say my name." So, that was close.
Uh, "Don't say my name, please, James."
He says, "I am an ecologist working on a large infrastructure project. We have environmental laws which often get blamed for holding up projects, but in reality, it's poor planning at senior levels. At the moment, this project is wanting to clear a whole lot of vegetation, and we've had to tell them they can't for a large majority of the space due to nesting birds. This could now delay the project by 6 months, and ecologists stroke wildlife laws will get the blame. In reality, they should have organized vegetation clearance for December when 99% of the birds aren't nesting and there would have been zero delays. You see what I mean about a tapestry of anecdotes? That's just really interesting. And some more good news. Uh well, if you're coming at this as I tend to from a sort of strangely patriotic position. Um I'm afraid, says Will, that the last caller wasn't quite accurate. For once, this is not a uniquely British phenomenon. It's a malaise across Europe. Uh, the Reichkes Museum renovation in Amsterdam, 5 years late, nearly twice its original budget.
The H Oh lordy, you've dropped this one on me. The Hamburg, wait there a second.
Elb Filimony, Elb Filimoney, Phil Filimone, Filillimmonic Orchestra, uh, Germany's iconic concert hall where the cost has increased by nearly 10fold.
And then in Finland, you have the Ulki Luoto 3 nuclear power plant which is coming in at the moment about a decade late. So that's quite comforting in a way if you were worrying about this being a peculiarly British disease.
Well, it is to me at least. Gareth's on Mercy Island. Gareth, what would you like to say?
>> Good morning, James. Great great show as always.
>> Very kind.
>> No, I was I was compelled to phone in and and um ironically I'm I'm currently driving to um to to a rail site as part of my job. Um so I've worked for the last >> 12 13 years uh for a company I won't name the company but >> where we've supply materials into the water rail industry um and in the last two years I have supplied the exact same order three times to the exact same HS2 site because each time the deliveries arrived they had lost it. No.
>> Yeah. Honestly, James, it's this is again I mean all >> how big is it physically without giving away too much of of identifying details in terms of you know >> monetary?
>> No, no, like double-decker buses or something like that. How big is it?
>> Oh, the the the site.
>> Yeah. No, the delivery the thing you dropped off.
>> Oh, sorry. Oh, it's a it's a a 43 tons of material each time.
>> 43 tons. It's it's it's an entire lorry that has to be unloaded on site with a with a crane.
>> Well, lose is a bit of a euphemism, isn't it?
>> No, no, no, no, no. It's it's I have had been in the industry so long, you sort of get to quite good working relationships with contract on site, >> of course.
>> And and I have physically had them ring me up and go, Gareth, I won't use the language they use, but Gareth, we have >> Thank you.
>> lost the order. Can you take and it's Can you take my company card details and can you do another 25 grand and can you send it out again?
>> We've lost it.
>> Lost it.
>> How do you think they can lose something so enormous, mate? because there's again being on these sites and sitting in >> it be put down somewhere over there and that he's gone off on another job >> and and and and another contractor's wanted to nick a little bit of it for his job and >> it's a bits got damaged and we've sent some to another site but we've not told anyone.
>> I mean to be honest I opened the program today by telling the story of a of a lost bridge. They managed to lose a bridge in Paddington Basin and Imbard Kingdom Brunell bridge that just built over it. So I mean anything can happen.
>> No, I mean I've I've I've sat genuinely I I've sat in meetings with 20 project managers, uh site managers, architects, estimators, and they there's at the end of the meeting, no one still knows what they're doing.
No one's any further ahead. It's just a massive confusion, James. and too big >> seems to be there seems to be more senior managers involved than anything else.
>> Yeah, tell me about it.
>> Um, so I just think my in in in the scheme of things, my drop in the ocean of 75 grand.
>> Yeah, of course.
>> But that's probably going to be multiplied hundreds of times by other companies.
And is there any surprise it's it's billions over budget because the wastage is phenomenal >> because no nobody's nobody's ass is on the line to to to coin a phrase. How's it got over the 15 years you've been doing it? Have things got better, worse, or stayed roughly the same?
>> Um probably probably slightly worse. I think um because I think larger projects are now scrutinized more as to where and what they're spending money on.
>> Yeah.
But in turn that then just makes things more complicated. Projects then take longer. Um you know we end up in situations where we we tender for something. It takes two years to get down the line and then >> so it is Yeah. So I mean you and Jason are listening to this and and tracking the story and following the budget and the and the um and the time scale and and and feeling supremely unsurprised by it.
>> Yeah. I mean I mean because what what again what what generally happens is for example you know project X is is tended for today. Yeah.
>> In two years time when it comes to fruition the price of everything has increased.
>> But because it's increased you've then got to go back to square one and start the tender process all over again.
>> God >> it's a nightmare. James it's an absolute minefield. Everything takes forever. And and do we do you have any way of comparing with other countries? Do do we know whether we suffer particularly on on this front or whether or not it is a sort of international malaise? I >> if I'm honest on that front, I haven't I've never done any work outside of the UK. So I I yeah, pass on that one.
>> Fair enough. Other people will be qualified of course to to to contribute those answers. Gary, thank you. Two calls there that have absolutely nailed the reason why I find this so interesting. And you must if you're not finding this interesting, that's on me.
It's not on Jason and Gareth. You don't care about why it takes so long and costs so much more than estimated to build massive infrastructure in this country. Then I I don't know that I can help really. Of course, it flipping matters.
All right, maybe you found my story about the lost bridge a bit dull. I'll give you that. That that was a that was that was quite niche, but the rest of it is hugely important because guess what?
That 100 billion pound bill, you're paying it. Neil's in Watford.
Neil, what do you reckon? Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
>> You're very welcome. You sound very businesslike.
>> Just just sat here waiting to go on get on.
>> Did you Did you just adjust your tie before you started talking then, Neil?
>> Not quite.
>> Not quite. Carry on. What do you want to say?
>> I was saying about infrastructure and cost overruns. It's because it's I believe because we don't plan long term.
>> Yeah.
>> For correct putting things correctly in place. I mean you gave the uh example of Ismbbar Kingdom Brunell's bridge fitting together as a jigsaw puzzle.
>> Yeah.
>> Infrastructure is much the same. I mean I think renewables is is a case and point. Yes, we want wind farms. We want solar panels. We want to get rid of uh fossilbased fuels, but we've got to do it in a logical way, which means you've got to put the infrastructure in place first. So what's the point of building a wind farm that you can't connect to the grid? It means you're paying.
>> Does that does that happen though or is that just an extreme example?
>> No, I don't think it's an extreme example. If you look at uh the national grid and the accounts and we're spending in excess of 1 billion pounds every year to energy producers not to produce electricity because we can't use it, which then means we've got to turn the car >> because they put the cart before the horse.
>> That's right. We then have to turn the gas gas gas fast uh uh power stations on which means we all pay much more money than we need to.
>> So we've got a lot of building work going on in the building at the moment.
Right.
>> The building I'm currently in and they're they're doing an incredible job and they're very patient with some of my very geeky questions particularly the lift engineers. Um, but they've just knocked down a wall, a temporary wall.
And on the other side of it, I noticed that they've already put up some of the new branding, >> some of the new, uh, artwork, you know, the graphics, >> and and the building work hasn't finished. And I found myself thinking, I bet they have to do that again.
Literally, this is 48 minutes ago. As I was walking towards the studio, I just remember thinking, I bet they have to do that again because that's gone up a bit soon, I reckon.
>> It's beautiful. and and but it's going to get dirty or it's going to get chipped or they're going to be carrying a massive air conditioning unit past and the bit of the plaster's going to they're gonna that's what you're talking about on a tiny scale.
>> That's what you're talking about.
Somebody somewhere should probably have said, "Let's not put that artwork up.
Let's do that last. When everything else is finished, we'll put up all the fancy graphics."
>> Yeah. I mean, >> because they might have to pay for it twice.
>> I think a quick case in point is is the Shhatland Islands.
>> Go on.
>> The wind farms bring I think >> you're obsessed with bloody wind farms.
Neil, give me something else. Give me some give me some other content.
>> I It's a question of your previous things about you just mentioned it. You know, clearing vegetation do it in March.
>> Why not have got the cart before the horse before the cart and done it in December?
>> But is this not what project managers are supposed to do? Or are they too atomized? Is that that they in charge of their little bit? Look, my job is to get the posters on the wall, mate. I don't care about people carrying air conditioning units part.
>> You said it, you said it correctly. It's a lack of joined up thinking. Everybody wants to do their own little bit and there's no overall top level political control saying look we have to have consensus on certain infrastructure projects between all parties. Let's agree to that and let's get on with it rather than things changing every time there's a general election.
>> Yeah, that can't help. I mean I I albeit that the last few have delivered the same party that was in before. It's it's a slightly different favored government.
And of course don't forget I mean everybody's messaging me about their own favorite projects. The Cole what is it the Cole Valley vioaduct out out um Auxbridge way absolutely beautiful bit of engineering which is HS2 related. And then of course at the other end of the scale you got how much did we spend on that bridge the garden bridge that Boris Johnson was going to build across the rivers that millions of pounds spent on that including a fat slice of public money without a single brick being laid without a single can I say sod without a single sod being turned seriously. Um so what we don't know is is how peculiarly or how peculiar to Britain it may be albeit that there are some considerations in this country that simply apply in ways that they wouldn't in other countries. It's not a question of choice. It it is not a question of choice to be living in a country that is absolutely dripping with heritage, history and tradition. So you want to build and of course which is a relatively small land mass for the for the population which of course is a consequence in large part of all the industrial and commercial success that we were having 150 years ago when we were building all this stuff.
10:47 is the time. James O'Brien on LBC.
>> Be a terror. A terror project. Bigger than giga. That's an agreeable little rhyme. Bigger than that's almost like a rap, isn't it? I'm bigger than giga. Um, bigger than terror. Terabyte. It's a ter is in computers. You go from gigabyte to terabyte. So if a mega project is a billion and a and and and a giga project is 10 billion. What the heck is a 100 billion? It's a terror project. Telling me it's a terror. Am I right? No. uh or a PA project. That doesn't sound as big as giga, does it? A terror doesn't sound bigger than giga. What about an ex x? Is it an exabyte? It's about 1,024 pabytes.
Peter pabytes. Anyway, it I mean, they're now hoping it comes in for less than 200 billion. That's HS2. And I've now got a much clearer picture of why this happens. And some of the some of the answers are actually quite obvious.
There's room for unobvious ones as well.
Um and and then I I look at China and Japan and I see these time scales being absolutely nailed and I suspect it's to do with the pyramid structure. Oh, there's something else that was built by human hands um in ways that are almost hard to impossible to understand or believe in the modern world. But if you've got a pyramid structure where people are absolutely terrified of getting something wrong, I I don't mean like bullying in the workplace or anything like that, but everything we've heard so far just suggests that oh, we've lost a delivery. No, no one no heads are going to roll. No one's going to be particularly worried. Oh, that's a shame. Let's buy another one. So, where does the buck stop is what I'm asking.
And then we come back to the last chat's point about changing governments because of course it's changing ministers as well. even within the same government, the buck stops. With whom does the buck stop on this stuff? And the answer appears to be nobody. So Heidi Alexander will get a kicking today for things she's had next to nothing to do with next to nothing to do with.
When does the buck stop? So how does it work? If we know, someone listening might be able to answer this. How does it work in places like China and Japan?
Uh I I I mean I don't think that health and safety would be necessarily uh much much worse, particularly not in Japan, but what is it? Is it is it a different approach to the workplace? Or think about the system of honor that is often in place in Japanese structures and Japanese culture. If someone loses a delivery on a Japanese mega project, somebody is going to be absolutely mortified with with with I don't know.
I'm just thinking out loud and inviting you to do the same. David is in Sherwood Forest. David, what would you like to say?
>> Um, hello. Um, I think a lot of the problems that particularly with HS2 is due to a loss of knowledge caused by privatization of British rail.
>> Okay.
Now um if you think back over the last say of the 20th century um the beginning of the 20th century the railway line was built from old oak common to banry and it was finished round about 1911.
>> Yes.
>> Then you had uh obviously a break in the first war. There were bits and bobs.
>> I'm conscious of the time. It's 10. It's 10:53 and we've only just got to the 20s.
>> I'm loving it. you carry on.
>> Then during the 1930s um when there was some uh government funds available, I mean the Great Western Railway, they built things like the F bypass, the Westbypass and so on and did a lot of infrastructure works around Taton. Okay. And if it hadn't been for the war, uh, a doorish bypass would have been built. And then obviously there was the war. And then in the 1950s, uh, early 1950s, British Rail built the Wood Tunnel, the tunnel through the Pennites.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, during the uh 60s um, they built the Hair Castle Deviation, which included another tunnel. During the 70s there was tunneling under Liverpool. And in the 80s there was the Selby deviation railway built which basically apart from the signaling and depth of ballast and so on is a highspeed railway.
>> Yeah.
>> Now all of those were designed in house by British Rail and then built by external contractors very often.
But all of those >> the buck would stop the buck would stop with British Rail effectively.
>> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And um all of that knowledge was lost with privatization.
Everything was fragmented so much that um you know nothing could get done in the same way as it was.
>> There's also a decline in specialism under your analysis. I think this is part of what you're driving at, isn't it? So so who you're hiring to do this?
Well, they were building a power station last year. Whereas if it is all under the umbrella of British rail, then the people at the top of the tree work exclusively and and eternally on railway infrastructure.
>> That's correct. That's correct. I mean, you just mentioned about uh power there.
>> Um I can't remember how many years it is exactly now to get a power input from the grid to a railway substation for electrification scheme, but you're taking years Back in the 1950s, British Rail made a decision in 1956 to change from a 1500vt DC overhead system to a 25,000 volt AC overhead system and everything. Well, the first trains run in passenger service 3 years later.
>> Wow.
>> It'd be possible to do that now.
>> Can't conceive of it being done now.
We'd still be talking about it after 20 years with the budget going through the roof and people still standing on the platform waiting for the train to turn up. Are you an amateur enthusiast or did you work in the sector yourself? David, >> I wor I worked in Mr. Trail for 30 odd years.
>> I thought I thought you might have done.
So again, like all my callers today, you you are the least surprised people in the country when you hear announcements like the one we're going to hear today about hundred billion pounds and and massively over schedule as well.
I mean you're talking about someone uh being responsible took the whole of the East Coast mainline electrification scheme.
>> Yes.
>> There's a single guy a project director called Don Heath who was responsible for delivering that scheme.
>> Whereas who went wrong who is who is the king was it really and and that was known within the industry even if it wasn't necessarily known to the public and there's nobody on that particular hook for HS2. There's nobody to whom we turn and say, "Well, you fluffed this one up, didn't you, pal?"
>> Well, there wasn't, but they they've brought in now uh uh the guy who was responsible for finishing off um what's now the Elizabeth line.
>> Yes. Yeah, you were. But that's I mean, actually, would the Elizabeth line count as quite a successful project?
>> Yes. Now, I mean, obviously it was delayed, but uh um >> but uh but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> We can we can Yeah. It's not as big obviously as HSU. David, you're a gentleman and a scholar uh a scholar of the railways actually and that's what a wonderful thing that is to be honest. I I could have carried on. You you missed out Dr. Being David, but that's got nothing to do with infrastructure, has it?
>> Um no, not really. No, I'm just pointing out.
>> No, but some of actually um what's often not realized and is overlooked is that Beach did a lot to restructure the railways internally.
>> Okay.
>> And so having something like the uh the a centralized BR projects organization um that didn't really exist before uh Being.
>> Okay. God, you do know your stuff. You should write a book. Have you written a book?
>> No.
>> You should write Why do you say it like that? any any old any old sausage can write a book these days. I've written three.
I' I'd read it, David, and I'd stick a quote I'd write a quote for the cover for you as well. If you were to put put pen to paper to record your knowledge and understanding of this because it is such a such a I mean it's such a huge part of British heritage, the railways.
It's such a huge part and you know now it's become not a laughing stock of course, but when we look at stories like HS2, it's become almost a white elephant in some ways and it shouldn't be. I've got a much better understanding of it now than I did before. Um, if I told you that I had a full switchboard and I have got an appetite to carry on with this conversation, what would you say? I'm just trying to spot. I'm just trying to look at my colleagues. Yeah. All right.
I grant you it's a little bit niche, but it's not niche, is it? It's 100 bit.
It's your money, Keith. This is where your taxes go. Eleanor, how can you not care more about all of this? But I I I concede that there is an announcement coming um which might give us an opportunity to return to some of this territory. And it is not necessarily the kind of radio that explains why our listening figures are currently breaking all the records that this industry has ever seen. It's coming up to 11:00. Choo choo.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> It is 3 minutes after 11 and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC where we move on um now to to to new territory. Although I might still read out a couple of the messages that have come in with regard to the last question. Um particularly projects that actually have gone quite well. People have got favorites. Are you familiar with the full kirk wheel? Have you ever come across the full kirk wheel? Full kirk wheel is incredible. It's about 25 years old now. It used to be there used to be 11 locks, canal locks linking two canals together. So to get from one canal to the other, you'd go up or down 11 locks. And they replaced it with a wheel. You think I'm making this up, but you'll Google it and you'll have a look at it yourself and you'll and that's in Scotland.
So, you drive your boat, if that's correct term, you sail your canal boat into a sort of um trough as it were, like a lock, but it's it's it's like a mobile lock and then the gate closes behind you as it would on a normal lock and then it rotates and takes you down to the next canal. I mean, it's an absolute masterpiece. We can do it. I don't know whether that was over budget or whether it was um uh on schedule. Uh Annill has sent me a lovely message. She says, "My husband Graeme has just told me that the Trans Penine upgrade is being run in-house by Network Rail and is on target and on budget, but it never gets the publicity." And uh and Anne's husband Graeme was a train driver back in the day. And of course, it doesn't get the publicity. you bring it in bang on time, you're going to get a fraction of the front pages that you're going to get if it is 10 years over budget and and 10 years over schedule and twice the original budget.
Right, pause. Should we do an etcher sketch? I I sometimes I feel that when we move from one topic to the next, we must do an etcher sketch. We must etch a sketch our minds. Do you remember the etcher sketch? You remember the etcher sketch when you do a nice drawing with twiddle your knobs? So, is that is that where you started, Keith? Is that how your career began? twiddling the knobs on your extra sketch and then deciding that's what you wanted to do for the rest for the rest of your adult life.
And look at him now twiddling knobs on the biggest show in town. Um, so when you've twiddled your knobs on your etcher sketch, do you remember you you tap the back and you give it a shake and then it's completely clear again. And sometimes I feel when we move from one topic to another, we should we should do a bit of etches sketch shaking and indeed tapping. It's the etches tappers and shunters club for those at the back.
Um because this is completely different and I find it equally fascinating but for completely different reasons.
The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales could go up from 10 to as high as 14. Um and remember none of this is certain. It is a consideration that the government is currently making.
In Scotland, if you are under 12, you cannot be charged with criminal offenses.
A UN report has recommended increasing the age of criminal responsibility to 14. It's on David Lamby's desk. Um, it is part of the uh consideration process that gave us news yesterday of a possibility that parents would be jailed if they repeatedly stopped their children from breaking the law.
I uh I don't know about that. I nearly did that on the show yesterday, but I couldn't quite I couldn't see a clear way into it because every case would be so different.
And many parents whose children have committed crimes, even children who are quotes out of control, end quotes, bring misery and heartache to their parents.
The idea that they're not doing enough to stop it. And then you have the idea of two houses on the same street, both containing a repeat offender child. one set of parents is absolutely irresponsible and part of the problem and the other set is tearing their hair out on a day. Do they both deserve to go to jail? Do you see what I mean about it being a tricky one? So, we may get on to it if you can think of a better way into it than I've managed to. But um the the idea of a criminal age of responsibility and and I I think I'm going to do this really simple.
So if you're nine in this country and you murder someone, you cannot be charged with a crime or convicted.
Similarly, if you're nine and you go into uh what's the shop you think of now when if you were going in to buy sweets?
Is there a shop that you think think of to buy sweets? It was Walworth when I was a kid or WH Smith. That's kind of go Smiths at the station. You go into Smiths at the station and you nick a Tony's Chocolon bar. You can't if you're nine be charged. I tell you what, I wish I'd known this when I was nine. I lived in constant terror of being arrested on my shoplifting. It's a joke. It's a joke. I honestly can't say anything in this country anymore without being um in Scotland it it it's 12. So you would be unable to be charged in Scotland if you committed a a serious crime even at the age of 11 years and 364 days.
And it it is a reminder of complete arbitrariness, isn't it?
It's completely arbitrary. It's like age of consent, which in in dim and distant times and some American states today, the age of consent is like eye wateringly low uh in in ways that modern society recognizes as being entirely inappropriate.
And and yet in some ways criminal responsibility is identical. You know, you know some 10-year-olds, right, who have what you might call an emotional age of 48.
You could imagine them sitting at home with their slippers on smoking a pipe and watching one man and his dog and they're 10. And then you know 54 year olds who have an emotional age of about nine. Some of them present radio shows.
But so do do you see what I mean about it being completely arbitrary? like like like the age of consent for sex is that you know some 16 year olds who are incredibly mature and uh and ready for relationships and some 16 year olds some 55 year olds who aren't you know so it it is one of those things where whatever society is becomes relevant becomes clear you need society to make these decisions my uh youngest in a politics A level at the moment good luck to anybody else in the same situation um A levels wise, but that thatcher quote came up last night at dinner, the one about there being no such thing as society and it was slightly misrepresented at the time. I think it was an interview with woman's own and the point she was making was very different from the point that her critics hung around her neck, but it was still a slightly callous um uh intervention because but the point she was saying is that society doesn't decide what the age of consent is. People do. There is no such thing as society. She said there are just people and individuals. And yet it's almost the opposite of believing that something can be greater than the sum of its parts. So society decides when it is legal for you to have sex.
And society or government decides, a democratically mandated government decides at what age you should face charges for stealing or hurting somebody else.
It was eight before 196. What's the number that makes you bulk during this introduction? What what's the number now that makes you bulk that? So I say it was eight and you go, "Oh, that's not right." And then I say they're thinking of raising it to 14 and you go oh well that's not right ei does a seven can a seveny old really understand and then of course you have to recognize the dangers of generalizing. So you have to say can the average sevenyear-old really understand the relationship between actions and consequences? If if a seveny old hits a a a friend over the head with a brick, does that seveny old bear the same sort of responsibility as a 17y old?
You don't need to have a degree in physics to know what happens when you hit somebody over the head with a brick.
But if you do it when you're seven, you don't face any real legal jeopardy consequences. I mean, I'm sure social services would get involved, but you do it when you're 17, you're going to jail. You're going to a youth offenders institute.
So, I I just want to know why you think it should be the age that you think it should be. It's that I think is the question that really interests me. If you did commit crimes when you were, let's say, under the age of, let's say, 12, because that's what it is in Scotland at the moment. So, you committed crimes before you were 12.
Hand on heart, did you understand what you were doing?
034560973.
Hand on heart, did you understand what you were doing? Okay, that's that's one way into this. For most of us who are not juvenile criminals, I think the way into this is really really simple.
At what age do you think a human being should become criminally responsible? So at what age should a human being who hurts someone or steals something be punished by law in this country? What age would you pick? And this is another opportunity. Actually I talked in the last hour about how I was hoping to tempt on people that had real expertise but haven't necessarily rung the program before. And goodness me did we hit the jackpot. But this this is the opposite really. The only qualification you need to contribute to this is is a is is is thoughtfulness.
and perhaps some experiences to come at question one but not question two.
Question two is thoughtfulness. What how how do we pick the oh how do we pick the age as a quotes society and how do we pick the age? What what are the criteria that we're bringing to play here? Do you understand what you are doing?
Well, of course you understand what you're doing. Otherwise, you wouldn't try to hide it. So, if a six-year-old commits a crime and tries to hide the evidence, they know what they've done is wrong.
Go back to when is Kingdom Brunell was building bridges and that six-year-old would probably have got deported to Australia for nicking a loaf of bread from a from a market stall in Preston.
So, you know, it it's just an absolutely fascinating question. Again, as with the HS2, what happens in other countries?
Can we can we learn from them? But but I think the question I really want first up is what age do you think it should be and why? Now the why could be an exercise in intellect and philosophy or it could be a very personal experience or memory criminal responsibility. The age at which you face punishment for your actions.
What should that age be?
And why do you pick that relatively random or certainly close to arbitrary number and and don't forget if you if you were a a child criminal, you're I've got a horrible feeling that the people who were child criminals are going to be stricter on this than the than the bleeding heart liberals who think that you were probably more a victim of circumstance than um than responsible for your own action. It's it's a curious thing. It's like burglars are often the most uh hangman flog them of uh of citizens when it comes to how burglars should be treated. It's it's a weird one, but if if you were a a juvenile criminal 034560973 If you were a juvenile criminal, how responsible do you think you were then for your actions compared to how responsible the law would find you to be now?
So there's the personal and then there's the political because the other question is what what do you think the age should be and why? Because I I could probably go for 16 personally.
That feels immediately very high, doesn't it? So what age would you go for and why? Uh it's 11:16. Hit the numbers now. You will get through.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> 15 minutes after 11 is the time. and and you know it's funny isn't it that sometimes we think that we've got the answer to a question when we really haven't. So quite a few people citing the James Bulier case. Um the boys that murdered James Bulier were 10 years old at the time. Uh so over the age of criminal responsibility and and they were punished I mean essentially as adults would have been um and and people think that's a sort of slam dunk. But if they'd been nine they wouldn't have been. And if we change it if they had happened in Scotland today they wouldn't have been. But Fabio makes what I think is the most interesting point about that case. Um, and that is that it it it didn't have to be that way, a hideous crime. But were those 10 year olds really as responsible for their actions as they would have been had 10 more years passed? Um, and Fabio says, "I'm studying law at the moment." And this was actually in one of our recent units.
There's the James Bulier case here where two 10-year-olds were charged as adults even though they were so young. And then in Norway there was a similar case um Silky Redard uh I think that's how you pronounce her name. It's spelled s i l j e. And the older boys who killed her um were completely reintegrated into their society and even their school without prison being involved at all.
And and the mother of the murdered girl of of the killed girl was supportive of the process. I I which I I you mean criy I don't think as Fabio says I don't know that we would be able to be so um openminded about it but of course the emotional response is to punish but when you look at the data everything says that being lenient until a certain age is going to be better for everybody involved except those craving vengeance which most of us if not all of us would in those sort of circumstances. So where would you put the age of criminal responsibility and crucially I think why why that number why that age because it's bonkers when you stop to think about how completely arbitrary it is.
China is in woking which is geographically challenging but um in terms of nmanllete absolutely correct China what would you like to say >> um good morning I've never spoken to you before I've spoken to some colleagues of yours >> this is the big time now China >> thank you very much I think you're wrong >> what about I haven't said anything yet >> uh about age appropriate versus right versus wrong versus the age of a child so whether the child is 10 or 12 or 14 >> yes I'm a retired appropriate adult and so I dealt with children who were brought into custody who had who had allegedly created a misdemeanor and some of those offenses are very serious and I covered two custody suites within an area. my youngest child I dealt with and 90% of the children I dealt with in custody were male and this child was 12 and mom held down three jobs and she was trying to make ends meet and this child was a recurring child and he was constantly coming to my attention when I was on duty and I said to him age 12 I said why do you repeat this offense and he had the drug dealer's telephone number written on his forehand and his response to me was it's a lifestyle choice. He was 12.
The the uh age for committing a crime must remain at the age of 10 because at 10 years old, you know, right from wrong. And I spent a very long time doing this job and I had to retire which I didn't want to do.
>> Right.
>> Please, for goodness sake, take some sense in what you're saying today, James. I'm asking I'm asking questions which you're answering with with with one compelling example to which there will be plenty of of counterex examples as well.
>> The responsibility >> what if that what if that 12-year-old was being forced to do what he did and what if he was just repeating something he'd heard on a I don't know a radio show about lifestyle choices because he was trying to wind up the middle class woman in front of him. There'd be a million different reasons about how that boy could have ended up where he ended up. Why on earth would you treat him as if he was 25?
>> First of all, I might not might not be a middle-class lady, James. So, so um secondly, because I' I'd met the child.
>> Well, hang on. I I I think that given the context given the context of this conversation, I'm perfectly entitled to jump to conclusions about you.
>> So, why would you treat him like a 25y old?
>> Well, you don't. There is a whole procedure with dealing with children when you when you when you bring them into the team >> in terms of criminal responsibility.
There'd be there'd be next to there'd be next to no difference at all. I listen you may be right. Um I can't I can't be wrong because I haven't actually offered up an opinion yet. I wondered whether 16 might be a more realistic age at which to impose these sort of responsibilities because 16 is the age at which society bestows privileges and advantages. So there's a sort of uh there's almost a a dissonance to the idea of being old enough to be punished but not old enough to be rewarded. Um I'm sorry you had to retire. Pamela's in York. Pamela, what do you think?
>> Hello James.
It's hard to put a number on for me, but I >> Well, it's impossible, isn't it? I think. But we're going to try. We're gonna try.
I I think you have to give a child um chance to be a child to learn um to understand the consequences of the criminal action. So I think that that yes, you might be able like you say a child that pinches the sweets knows that they're doing wrong but they don't understand yet why it's wrong. Um so I think round round about 12 I also think that by doing that say um the law about um parents being criminally responsible.
>> Yes.
>> It would give parents that little bit extra time and and concentration to ensure that they get the child safely as as positively to the age. without this is this is this is like two massive spinning plates cuz listening to the last caller >> um who had very nice things to say about the mother and nothing nice to say about the child that mother would now be held responsible for the recidivism of of the 12-year-old boy. So and that feels very unfair doesn't it? I mean it was like this mythical parent who would do more if only they were more frightened of punishment. I think we all believe they exist but we'd probably struggle to find one. we'd probably struggle to find one.
>> I I I think it's kind of it does it doesn't always um make that kind of difference. I think that if if if you are a parent that genuinely struggles, then then you're going to genuinely struggle. I think that we live in a society where we do have some parents that um have a negative impact on the children. And I I don't see why a child's life should be blighted even further.
>> Um >> no. So 12 10 feels very young, >> but it would but it would of course if it rose to 12 then and god forbid anything similar ever happens again then a latter day James Bulger murder would would would see the people responsible for it avoid criminal responsibility and and that might be intellectually the correct thing to do but emotionally it's very hard to swallow. Um, yeah, I agree.
But we we tend to act as as we all do, most of us emotionally. And of course, if any child of mine was was harmed by by another child, I would think very diff differently. But it's kind of if you think back to um the case of Mary Bell >> um who who was with another girl >> who was equally culpable really morally for for what happened to those children but was wasn't prosecuted to the full extent of the law because she was deemed not as clever.
>> Is that right? I I I don't remember the full details of the Mary Bell case but I know that Derek Bentley went to the gallows, didn't he? because he was above the age that Christopher his accomplice who who I think fired the gun I think who actually fired the gun his accomplice didn't go to um the gallows because he was underage. So that that's what I mean about it being arbitrary.
Society has to stick the number somewhere doesn't it? So why why why is it puberty? What's made you opt for 12?
I I I think that that when when a child hits puberty, I think that >> it's unfortunate that that they would then be able then they would become criminal criminally responsible.
>> It would be different for every child.
It would involve medical tests, wasn't it? I mean, there was a kid at my prep school, Pamela. I can see him in front of me now as if it were yesterday running towards me on the rugby pitch.
He hit puberty at about 10 and a half.
He was twice he was twice the size of all of us by the time we got into the six form. All we ever did on the rugby pitch, we shout, "Throw it to him. Throw it to him. Get him the ball and he'd plow through the opposition like a hot knife through butter." So I mean again it would be bit weird if he were being held to the same but you'd have to because it has to be a number, doesn't it? It has to be a number.
>> Yes. So I think therefore as as if they could if they could research it, which I'm absolutely sure they would, as close to kind of hitting that >> Yeah. that point as as it's possible because um again you you know the other thing as well is that that um as Mrs. O'Brien will will absolutely know is that a child from 1 to seven is very much the receptacle of of what is put in that child's head and the neuropathways and the that how everything is built up.
So saying that well well I had a tough time um at that age and applying that to all children doesn't work. It's completely unfair.
>> I mean you think of the most terrible crimes ever committed by children and ask yourself whether those crimes would have been committed if they'd been brought up in functional, loving, happy, healthy homes. And most people would answer, I don't think they would have been.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
>> But that applies to adults as well. And and we have to put the number somewhere.
What a great call, Pamela. Thank you so much. Um, and do you know the lad I'm talking about? I won't embarrass you by tell him by telling you his name, but I was staying in a a beautiful hotel in Worisha um earlier this year and his lovely wife was was um on reception and she she recognized me said, "You're not going to believe who I'm married to and and this lad that I was at school with um back in the early 1980s who who I'm happy to say I've now caught him up in terms of maturity and and physical development. But when I was 11, he looked about 18. Uh 29 minutes after 11 is the time. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. What's the number you would choose? Because it's going to be arbitrary. And why would you choose it?
And what if you are that 12y old or that 10year-old? What how would you explain the difference between your understanding of wrongdoing when you were a child and your understanding of wrongdoing now? That's a biggie. I wonder if anyone fancies stepping up to that particular plate.
How would you articulate that difference in what you understood then and what you understand now? Cuz I don't know that I can do that.
Dominic Ellis is here now with your headlines.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> I actually just checked because I I thought it might be worth doing so whether or not the Daily Mail reported this story and if they did, whether they turned it into some sort of charter for yobs. Do you know what I mean? that sensibility that oh the all the all the yobbs all the delinquents are celebrating today because David Lamb is thinking of raising the and I didn't even I I didn't imagine it good news for little terrors the age of criminality may rise child terrorways could be handed a license to wreak havoc it was warned last night as Labour opened the door to I mean where do they find the people you've just heard we're only half an hour into this conversation but it's been informative illuminating intelligent nuance Um, but no, in the land of the Daily Mail, child tearways could be handled a license to wreak havoc. It was warned last night. I'm just trying to find out who warned that and which uh what number Ton Street they currently live on. Um, but I can't I can't be bothered because I want to listen to you. Mike's in Royston. Mike, what made you pick up the phone?
>> Good morning, James. It's about um age of criminal um uh responsibility. I I I'll be honest with you, I don't think there should be an age. It should be individualized. Now, when I was 12, I was a horrible little scrot and I used to go around nicking bikes until I got caught. Now, I used to do horrible little things. Well, and big things >> and um and I knew exactly what I was doing. Um so, I should have been well was I I went through the courts, but there's other 12y old clue. So where can you put an age of criminal responsibility that should be individualized to the one person now? I mean you say a 10year-old can put a brick over somebody's head and know or not know exactly what they're doing. So where do you draw the line?
>> Well, hang on. I'm asking the questions.
You're supposed to be answering them.
>> I thought I'd turn it around.
>> Well, I'm glad you have because I I don't know. And and Corpsey points out in a message, there's a difference between understanding something that is wrong and how wrong something is. So So when you were 12, were you crystal clear about >> I knew exactly what I was doing.
>> Yeah. But were you crystal clear about what the ramifications would be? How much the person whose bicycle you'd stolen would be hurt by that theft? The empathy element that that perhaps you've developed later in life. I didn't understand the consequences of the people I was actually >> then you shouldn't be as criminally responsible as a 20 year old then should you >> then but I still under crime >> I know so it's such a difficult question um as you saying someone who's 40 years old don't know what they're doing so how can they be held criminally responsible for a crime >> why why did you change how did you change if indeed you have I hope you're not out every night in Royston hoovering all the bicycles, >> the school, the the courts actually scared the be Jesus out of me and >> so it worked. I mean the justice system worked as it were.
>> It absolutely worked for me. It worked spot on. Yes.
>> And that was it. You I mean you just decided to to to Can you remember the moment? Can you I mean when you decided right that's it. I'm not getting into trouble again. And and >> yeah, I can remember exactly uh when the police come around to me door and took me away. And what role had your parents played in your life up to this point?
>> They were good. My parents were loving.
They were um we didn't have a a pot to scratching sort of thing, but it it was um there's food on the table.
It it was loving, you know, it used to be a loving.
>> You just went off the old proverbial rails really. Absolutely. They got they got you back on them. But um but as I say, that that was a a point made by No Hostages about empathy. people developing an ability to understand the full impact of of what they have done.
And there's another element to it, of course, which is about 10% of adult prisoners meet the criteria for intellectual disability. Um, which is a a brutal phrase, but better than the ones that would have been used when I was a younger man. About 25% may have ADHD. Um, broader neurode divergence figures could run as high as 50%. So the idea that intellectual and developmental um uh issues can be done assigned by age. When you're 14, you achieve a certain status or a certain point. They put it better than I do. Chronological age and de developmental age don't always match.
So that's part of it as well. Mike, lovely stuff. Thank you. Uh Peter is in Stockholm. Peter, what would you like to say?
>> Hello, James. Lovely to speak with you again.
So in sort of in mystery hour fashion my qualifications here is I have a law degree from UPS university.
>> Okay.
>> And when we discussed this I remember it was like almost 20 years ago when I was a student.
>> Uh this the the the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden is 15 years old and it didn't raise any kind of uh discussion which we used to have in other topics. Um this is something that was sort of a given in Swedish society and just recently our center right government has proposed to lower the age to 13. Um and so I have a few things I would like to say about this. I find it very interesting. So if you look at the uh UN convention on the rights of the child, they say that the age should be no lower than 14. Um and the reason that they say that and the reason it's 15 currently in Sweden is that you look at uh you think of the child as um below the age of 15 as lacking sufficient maturity, sufficient ability to think about consequences of their actions. And I think you can also couple this with what science says. You have uh preffrontal cortex maturity which is the part of the brain that helps you to manage impulse control, long-term planning and decision- making. And uh the science says that that part of the brain doesn't fully mature until you reach the age of your mid20s.
>> 25. Yeah. I nearly interrupted you there to show off how clever I am, but I waited for you. I waited for you to get there yourself. So I mean you would have to following brain elasticity. You'd be looking at 25 as being the age of criminal responsibility.
>> Yes. And I just want to bring up why they are talking about lowering it to 13. It's it's we have a very uh troubling development in Sweden where you have uh gang criminal gangs recruiting children below the age of 15 because they tell them that you won't go to prison and you won't suffer any consequence.
>> We have it here as well. So the young the younger as they're called will carry the knife or or carry the the contraband on behalf of the older the elder.
>> And this is very troubling. Of course, I understand kind of where the government is coming from, but I I think one part of the debate that's been pre held in Sweden when this topic has come up is that do you really want to put uh a young child in the company of other criminals maybe older than themselves uh and kind of go down a path where they've uh they might end up worse coming out of this uh you know incarceration than they were when they went in. So I think that is really something to to consider. And also I just a distinction I want to make. You know the age of criminal responsibility is 15. It doesn't mean that at least in Sweden that you can't commit a crime unless you're uh over the age of 15. It just means that you won't be uh the the consequences won't be prison or any fine but social services will get in contact. So police investigation will happen even if you are below the age of 15 and uh the appropriate and suitable uh plans will put be put in place. Now you can of course debate whether you know social services are capable of the if they have the means to properly you know help that child who has uh committed the crime but I I think it's it's it's important to say that it's not that there are no consequences and you can just commit crimes willingly. No, that's no that that's important. And I mean and then I mean in the case of uh you may know how to pronounce her name better than I do of Silja Redigard in Norway where the where the age of responsibility is also 15. Her killers were five and six I think.
>> They didn't just go back to normal life the next day. But they could have been 13 and 14 and and they still wouldn't have been criminally responsible. But they had a lifetime of psychological evaluation and and therapy that Norwegian law did not allow the punishment of minors under the age of 15. But you could still be found responsible for a crime.
>> Exactly. And it's the same in Sweden.
>> Yeah. I Well, I mean, I don't know whether we should be more like Scandinavia as I believe we should be in so many areas of life or whether we should still be quite Roman or Anglo-Saxon in our outlook because if it was your child, you you'd probably be in favor of the death penalty for 5year-olds.
Um although I have to say the mother of this little girl in Norway was an absolute model of of of of compassion and understanding. Um it's a horrible horrible story that I only read about relatively recently in it while reading up on um the James Bulger case. There's a piece in the Guardian called the Norway Town that forgave and forgot its child killers. If you want to find out more about that story yourself um 11:42 is the time. It can go up to 30 for um for for for your sort of brain finishing its development. You stop growing. Could be as you could be as old as 30. I don't think anyone would argue that the age of criminal responsibility should be sort of 27 28 29. So why 13 14 15? Because it's got to be somewhere otherwise you'd be prosecuting 5y olds for crimes which again perhaps some people could live with. Peter, thank you very much. Uh Colleen is in Cambridge. Colleen, what would you like to say?
>> Hi, James. Thank you for having me.
>> So, um, there's so much to say about this subject. It's really important. So, to start off with, I think it should be 18. Wow.
>> Um, you know, 18 is where we're allowed to vote. It's you're not allowed to own an air gun until you're 18. Um, you can get married with your parents consent at 16, but you know, 18 seems to be the age. And and that's not to say that that young people who commit dangerous or or violent offenses shouldn't be incarcerated, but I think that they should be incarcerated in caring environments where they're looked after.
I mean, obviously, some children shouldn't be in society because they they don't have the mechanisms or the control capacity to to behave in the way that we would expect them to. I think that we should reintroduce the Dolly Incapac rule >> which was introduced in so it's um it was introduced in 1215 under the Magna Carta >> um in in England.
>> What's it called?
>> The Dolly Inca packs rule.
>> Okay.
>> And and what it mean and and at that time in 1215 they they it was only it was it was any children aged 14 and up.
So under 14, even in 1215, under 14 year olds were considered to be children and not in capable of making a criminal decision. But in 1968, they um they wrote they they lowered that age to 10 from over a 800y year period. It was under 14.
>> I mentioned the the change in ' 68 in my introduction, but I didn't know it went back as far as >> as as far as it's Latin, is it Dolly Incapac? Not not um >> so what it means is that um translate it. It cost my parents a fortune for me to know a few Latin words. The least you could do is let me let me uh No, I can't. So, it's incapac.
>> Yeah.
>> And Dolly would be like sorrow or harm.
So, it would mean you're incapable of causing harm.
>> Well, so yes, but in as the law progressed over the centuries and and up and after 1968 until 1998, yes, >> um any child would be assessed uh under the Dolly Incapac rule. It was an individual assessment. So they would be taken to psychologists probably on either side of the defense and prosecution and it would be determined whether or not that individual child was aware of what they had done. And if they were if if they were deemed aware then um they would be prosecuted and if they weren't then they would be taken into care and and social services and all the other kind of mechanisms.
>> Do we know why it was ch what happened in 1968? Do we know? But what what I'm not sure about 1968, but what happened in 1998 was it was removed because of the James Bulger murder >> and those two boys were deemed they it was because it was such a sensational story and the world hated those two boys that they they removed the Dolly and Capac rule so that they didn't have to assess them individually because it might have been found that the abuse they suffered as children might have contributed to their behavior on that day.
98 a political decision to to >> Yeah, absolutely.
>> What's your interest in? You don't sound like a that you've just stumbled into this subject as a consequence of today's program. Colleen, >> well, I I used to be a criminologist. I retired last year. Um, and for years I kind of was interested in this subject.
I used to I wrote with a colleague um something called when is a child not a child? Whacknack we called it. And um >> and looked at other countries as well.
So you had um your guest from from Sweden talking about Finland and you know so 18 would be the the age and if by the age of 18 I'm not averse to the idea of you know kind of child life sentence you know that maybe at the age of 18 they might be deemed absolutely irredeemable and maybe they need a bit longer in prison or somewhere else. But as your last caller said, you know that I spent some time in Hunterkum Young Offensive Institute um years and years ago interviewing boys and that was in 1999, a long time ago, but they were magnificent boys. They really really were. They were all so interesting and and they they all said this was the terror coming to prison the first time, >> right?
>> And now it's happened. I'm I'm I'm the king of the castle, you know. I can I can do and they were learning new tricks just like your last caller said. So the thing I was frightened of has happened and I'm still here so I ain't changing my ways anytime soon.
>> Absolutely.
>> Yeah. I wonder I mean and of course recidivism rates would support that idea. Um would it be very rude of me to ask what the short answer is to the question of when as a child not a child or or would you simply tell me to go and read your book?
>> Oh, it's not a book but um I think I think it's 18. I think it's 18 is when we've deemed you know that might change over the years but at the moment 18 I know that >> but it's like I didn't mean the number.
I meant the sort of question of consciousness or that idea of It was interesting, wasn't it? The lad who rang in insisting that he deserved the full force of the law when he was 12 because he knew exactly what he was doing. But then I simply asked him, did you understand how upset the person whose bike you stole would have been? And he said, no, I didn't. So at 18, for example, you would have a clearer idea of the consequences and the impacts and you probably developed a bit more empathy if you're capable of empathy.
and that that just it's a helpful age in many ways, but it is way older than most people listening to this would be comfortable with.
>> Yeah. But I think that short sharp shot treatment doesn't work. It might work for one or two people, but in the long run, I think care and um helpful caring environments might be a bit more useful.
And those bulge boys, you know, if I'm talking to you one day, not on the radio, there's a really interesting story about those two boys and and how they came about doing what they did.
I've heard some elements of never ever told that story.
>> No, I've heard some elements of that and and I think you're right. I think they were caught up in a >> um I I'm not suggesting that it's easy to muster up sympathy for for for them, but they were caught up in a an extraordinary media political moment where no interest whatsoever was um shown in explanation. And you know how often on this program we talk about the importance of explanation without excuse to explain something without excusing it. Um but it it was it was never going to happen such was the um the heat of the moment understandably and but not necessarily inevitably because then you go back to the to the Norwegian example.
I just wonder whether Mary Bell was something to do with the 68 thing, whether Mary Bell, who was the sort of um although it's it's um oddly in in her case, it's the name of the killer that has been remembered through the ages and I know people know the names of of Jamie Bulier's killers, but we can have a conversation without saying them. So, that's a social change. That's a social shift, but I think the timing is probably mine to explain. And so the 89 one would have been prompted by um the 98 one would have been prompted by the Bulger case and the 68 probably by the Mary Bell case. Oh, it's 11:49.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> Some of these conversations always return to the to to to similar territory as as Emma points out. It's rehabilitation versus retribution. And it's not binary. you know, some systems, as we've heard in Scandinavia, perhaps it's going to be 100% rehabilitation, and in other systems, it's close to 100% retribution. Um, the correct way forward, I nobody can say for certain, but when you're talking about children, you probably want to lean a lot more towards rehabilitation than you do retribution.
um until you come up against a really hideous example of children doing hideous hideous things in which case the temptation to throw rehabilitation out the window and go all in on retribution can be close to irresistible but other countries manage why can't we and what should that age be because it's all very well me saying when children do terrible things how do you define child and in many ways Colleen was right albeit that 18 may stick in your craw as being far too old or or at least 17 is far too old to be to be not held criminally accountable. What what what word would you use? You know, technically, legally, a child, not when it comes to criminal responsibility. At the moment, um at the moment, it's 10 could be as high as 14 under plans being considered by the government. So, where would you put it and why? Joe's in Colchester. Joe, what would you like to say?
>> Hi, James. Um yeah, I mean it's difficult to follow those last couple of callers really and the points that you've just made really do echo what I was going to what I want to say. Um it's more it's less about what age and it is more about how we deal with the crime in terms of like you say um rehabilitation versus retribution because we need to get go in a direction where we are we are treating um we are we are treating crimes as uh something we need to re rehabilitate. We need to focus far more heavily on that. Um, and when it comes to responsibility, it's not as simple as a number. Um, it's going to be to do with mental capacity. Um, and and and the the background and up upbringing that people have had, the lessons that they've learned in life.
>> I mean, when you put it when you put it like that, it is actually obvious, isn't it, in some ways. But you know and I know that if a if a if a if a child was killed by a child tomorrow, >> the the newspapers, some newspapers would be portraying that killer, that child as as the devil incarnate. And anybody coming forward as you do or as Colleen does or as some of my other callers do with evidence-based compassionate arguments for rehabilitation versus retribution would be on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Um being accused of of of being an enemy of the people or of being a defense. So, you know, it would take enormous political courage to do what I suspect many people know would be right, but they're frightened of doing it because there's so much that's wrong with this country. They're frightened of getting attacked by psychopaths on Fleet Street.
>> 100%. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, that's >> because it's here already. Daily Mail today. Good news for little terrors.
Child tearways could be handed a license to wreak havoc. So, automatically they're demonizing children that currently don't even exist as a reason to resist even the the the question of thinking about it. The problem, Joe, is that you'd need a big system in place to individually assess everybody, wouldn't you?
Yeah. Uh well, yeah. I mean, but I think that's already happening. People are, you know, when you commit a crime, people's mental capacity, people's understanding of um how how aware they were of the retribution of the, you know, the repercussions of their actions were are already being assessed and already being used in court. Um, so you know, I think that we we just need to look at look if if you've got somebody that has reached an adult age who may be well into adult life and seem to be void of any empathy and compassion, then it's far more difficult in those circumstances to simply just to simply rehabilitate them and and maybe, you know, in in certain circumstances people need to be kept off our streets.
>> Well, yes. Exactly. Yeah. on a different on a different tip as as Colleen pointed out and and you know that that normally would be chalked up as mental illness but it's a little bit more complicated than that as you allow. What's your interest in the side? You just like me and an interested observer or have you had personal investment in any of these issues mate?
>> No, just just as an interested observer.
I mean, there's a great I've always been interested in the way we deal with crime and punishment versus Scandinavian countries and how they deal with it and and uh and you know, you know, war on crime and simply um handing out harsher sentences all the time is something we've we've always been drawn towards and politicians are because it because of the feeling that anger that is created by hearing about a crime, especially a serious crime where where children are affected or vulnerable people are affected.
you know, they they they they they play it becomes evidence and facts.
>> Yeah. And and of course, if if a business model of our media is to make people as furious as possible, regardless of the subject matter, then when something comes along that is absolutely horrifying, they they are in in relative clover. I remember when baby P died in in um in South London and the the the the the call for retribution was so loud that they ended up sacking the head of social services and she came back with a an almost cast iron case for unfair dismissal and and took took the local authority for millions or hundreds of thousands of pounds. I forget the exact details but but it is exactly what what Joe describes. that sort of understandable baying for metaphorical blood after real blood has been spilled and the age for many people won't matter at all. But I think that my callers this hour have done a pretty good job of reminding us why indeed it should matter, why age should matter. Um I mentioned ADHD a moment ago because of the high incidents it has among the prison population. I I I it's becoming one of my favorite subjects, not least because I'm sad to report my prediction has come true and it is now becoming a target or people with ADHD are now becoming a target for precisely the sort of people that um create an environment where fear and fury is a very profitable business model. And I want to work out why.
>> James O'Brien on LBC. minutes after 12 is the time that there was a story I think I told you um at the time that it broke my heart. I found it really really sad and it was um Britain's with blue badges. It was people with blue badges um disabled badges being sort of harassed, threatened and even filmed by strangers who think they are faking disability. And and it's funny because I have two headlines in front of me uh both from the last couple of months. one from April of this year and one from May of this year. And you can't help wondering whether the people responsible for the first headline are aware that they are also responsible for the people described in the in the second headline. So here's a story from the Daily Telegraph in May of this year.
Can councils hand out blue badges for ADHD.
People with neurode divergent conditions are taking advantage of rule changes introduced in 2019 that allow those with hidden disabilities, which is in quotes, um, for some reason, to apply for the parking permits for the first time. Um, I don't think they've got any numbers actually involved in the the figures for people specifically with ADHD, but it doesn't matter because they've got a headline out of it. Councils hand out blue badges for ADHD.
Um, and then this headline uh from April of this year in the Guardian newspaper, people assume we're grifters. Disabled Britons report rise in abuse over blue badges.
And there are days when I sit here and wonder whether I'm I mean really does anybody need me to point out that headlines like the first one will cause events like the ones described in the second um in the second headline. It's it's it's absolutely extraordinary to me that we are demonizing disabled people and causing the kind of abuse and attacks described in the in the Guardian article. Um, and I don't get it. So, here is the question. Why why is this happening?
Because listen, there's not the only council hands out blue badges for ADHD is just one story. Children incentivized to get ADHD and autism diagnosis, say experts. Um, dyslexic people allowed to jump airport cues. That's the Telegraph coming for dyslexic people. Middle classes drive surge in ADHD prescriptions. Um, that's the Times. The Times and the Telegraph seem to have a bit of a cottage industry going with this stuff. Here's the Telegraph. Junior doctors claim they have ADHD to avoid night shifts. And the evidence for this is um that the number of doctors with diagnosis has gone up. Um it's more than doubled since the pandemic. Where they get the evidence that doctors are faking it in order to avoid night shifts um is a question for the ages.
And I this is going to sound a bit odd, right?
But every time I see a new section of society getting targeted, my heart sinks a bit because it always involves either identifying or even perhaps sometimes like inventing problematic people or people doing wrong and then taking your enormous paintbrush and taring absolutely everybody else with exactly the same brush. I know you think I bring Brexit into everything, but this is actually a really interesting observation, even though I say so myself. I I am always always mindful of the first time I heard somebody on the program say to me, "Oh, she said I didn't mean you." We were talking about Brexit and the obvious racism that that delivered it and the number of people who voted to leave the European Union because they wanted to get rid of all the Polish nurses and the Romanian lorry drivers and and the um French vets and Spanish builders or whatever it was. all of them. They just didn't like the foreigners being here because they had been told by um the Daily Mail and others, Daily Mail in human form. Um they had been told that these people were a threat. And you could find always someone who was a threat just as you can find an asylum seeker who is a rapist. But the determination to jump from that hideousness to the idea that all asylum seekers are are are rapists or potential rapists or that all Polish lorry drivers are um benefits chiefs. Do you see what I mean? You find one example of a problematic person and you immediately leap to punish everybody. So I don't mean you. is almost like a mantra for this program because of the number of people that rang us and said, "My mother-in-law voted to leave the European Union to get all the immigrants out." And I said to her, "Mom, I am an immigrant. I am Polish." And she said, "Oh, I don't mean you. Oh, I don't mean you. People assume we're grifters.
Disabled Britain report rise in abuse over blue badges. Badge holders and carers report being harassed, filmed, and threatened by strangers who think they are faking disability. Oh, I don't mean you.
I don't mean you. ADHD, sharp elbowed patients able to jump long NHS waiting list with a private diagnosis. Some people's ADHD is is such that they arguably not even in full control of their own existence. Oh, I don't mean you. I don't mean you. And we talked about this yesterday with Farage doing very well in the polls at the moment. He has to find another section of society to attack and pretend that they are all awful. I mean, he did it with Romanians not long ago. He did it with European Union citizens. He's been doing it with Muslims for years. He's flirted with anti-Semitic conspiracies since his school days, praising Hitler and and and calling for his contemporaries to be put into gas chambers. according to his contemporaries.
Um, actually, we've got another story about, yeah, you're never going to believe it, but his latest account of how he paid for one of the many houses that he's bought, being given since being given 5 million quid by a Thai based billionaire appears to be falling apart already. Um, we may have time to go on to that a little later in the program. But people like that and people like the editor of the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph or the Times these days, sadly, because they're at it, they're up to their ears in this stuff as well.
They're just constantly looking for a section of society. Say, "Oh, look at you. Yeah, you don't deserve you." Yeah.
So, come here. Get the mob behind you.
Point at someone. Let's attack them.
Now, I first started in this job. It was single mothers. Society's changed quite a lot. You'll still find some dinosaur who thinks they've got the right to uh leap to all manner of conclusions about um a shared parenting scenario or a single mother doing a brilliant job of raising their child. Used to happen a lot. But now of course marriage is in decline. Uh more and more couples split up that the incidence of single parenthood increases just becomes slightly destigmatized. So they move on to someone else. They look for someone else. Who's it going to be? And I have found some of the phonins that we've had about ADHD to be incredibly moving.
There is something about the idea of taking your little boy along for a diagnosis because he's having a terrible, terrible time at school and just hearing so many bells ring in the back of your brain. So many bells ringing in the back of your brain that you realize that you were like that all along. They just didn't have a name for it when you were a kid. It's it's extraordinary really to reflect upon dyslexia as a condition that we now understand in ways that we didn't. The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph and the Times would, if they were treating dyslexia in 1990, like they're treating ADHD in 2026, they'd be writing articles about how doctors are faking dyslexia or um because the numbers have increased because the number of diagnoses have increased exponentially. They are inviting people to believe that that that almost everybody is lying. All of these new diagnoses are fake. Oh, I don't mean you. You've got a real diagnosis.
You've got a real diagnosis. Yeah. I don't mean you. I mean all the other ones. The ones I'm reading about in the Daily Telegraph, the doctors that are trying to get off night shifts, that that the parents that are being sharp elbow, the middle classes who are driving a surge in in NHS prescriptions.
What if we have just reached a point in our history where we see something and recognize it and name it like like we did with dyslexia.
you were just thick in my day. I I can't get past this observation. Only occurred to me relatively recently, but you remember the lads at school. I went to an all boy school, so forgive um the the casual sexism that you may have detected in incorrectly in the last observation. I remember the lads at school who were um who were who were ridiculed for their lack of intellectual rigor, for for their lack of intelligence in some ways. And and in fact, one of them um I'm back in touch with on Facebook and he remembers a single teacher when we were eight years old who was a bit of a visionary who was a bit ahead of the curve on dyslexia and actually took this lad under his wing and and and and spoke to his parents and explained he's very very bright. He's just he's just got dyslexia.
If we'd heard the word before and now if you went back to that school there'd be a significant percentage of boys who had and girls actually because it takes girls now who had dyslexia. No one would say oh wow there's been a massive increase in the number of dyslexia diagnosis pull the other one. No one does that.
Right.
No one does that.
But we're doing it with ADHD and we're doing it with other neurode divergences.
Almost every day I see a story that effectively invites people to believe that they're being conned that that everybody else is is on the on the make is swinging the lead is um is is is having a laugh and it leads to the story that I I touched on at the time but I think we were rather overtaken by events. It it leads to disabled people who use blue badges to go about their daily lives being harassed, questioned, and even assaulted as anti-benefits rhetoric becomes more mainstream in the UK. Um, I I hate the fact that I'm being proved right about this, just as everything else that stems from the kind of politics that Nigel Farage represents. I said that disabled people were going to start being demonized and and I said the people who would be most at risk are the people who are not most obviously disabled. I took a call 10 years ago from somebody with a lung condition that meant they could walk fairly well and fairly easily for about 50 yards. So they would get out of their car at a supermarket and once in a blue moon while they were walking into the supermarket, someone would point out that they seemed perfectly capable of walking. And you find yourself thinking, I mean, you have to be quite horrible to frame that thought in your own head privately. You see somebody getting out of a car with a blue badge and you see them heading towards the supermarket and you think, "God, they're faking it." So that's that's quite a nasty impulse already that you have as a human.
But then they're going to articulate it.
They feel emboldened in our current society. They feel emboldened to accuse people of conning because that's what happens when your media model is to find one in a million doing something wrong and pretend that that means a million are a problem. Most obviously with immigration, but as I said to you about 6 months ago, that spotlight's going to shift. They're going to have to find other people to demonize and abuse. And it's going to be disabled people in general and or um neurode divergence in particular and even within neurode divergence uh ADHD seems to be a cottage industry as I said for at least three newspapers the times the telegraph and the Daily Mail all attempting to introduce ADHD into headlines designed to make you angry and to make you um cross that people are faking it, making it up, doing something.
And I want you to tell me why it works.
That's all.
I want you to tell me why it works.
There's nothing difficult about predicting it, I don't think. Although I wish more people would have a go. It might make them look to their own behavior sometimes as well. I I want you to tell me why it works. Why is ADHD being so successfully turned into the latest sort of tabloid terror campaign? 034560973.
Why does it work is what I want to know.
The other thing I want to know is whether you have suffered any form of of blue badge abuse and and what what you think has caused it. So when you hear of disabled Britain's reporting a rise in abuse, um you find yourself thinking that that that's such a horrible mark of our country. Listen, hey, don't get me wrong, there'll be some people using blue badges who shouldn't be. But here's your choice, right? You either accept that and move on or you accuse everybody using one of being part of the problem or everybody who's not, you know, immediately and visibly disabled, you accuse them of being. It's like every other area of life.
You you you see a problem, you have a choice. Do you respond to that problem as if it is a self-contained problem or do you pretend that it's evidence of a million other problems going on? So that that's how you end up leaving the European Union by voting to get rid of all the foreigners but not the ones you actually know. And it's how you end up thinking, oh, there's far too much ADHD diagnosis going. Oh, well, look, obviously my niece has it. I don't mean her.
or you find a story or you know someone who you think is swinging the lead and therefore you conclude that the entire benefits bill is bogus. I don't I've never understood I don't know I've ever asked you before.
Why does it work so well? I I can understand a fear of the unknown, the othering of the person who looks different. Um, I've never really understood homophobia to be honest with you. But I think you need to know your religious history to understand the um the the historic application of homophobia. You you need to understand why some congregations uh were repulsed by the idea of people in their flock not procreating, not having children. So um homophobia has a sort of weird um rationale to it almost. And then of course there is the fear of of your own sexuality. I think an awful lot of homophobia is driven by feelings that we have been taught to be ashamed of in society. And then if you find yourself having those feelings, you are you hate yourself for having those feelings and you project that hate onto people who've actually been lucky enough or have the confidence to come out sexually. So you can get your head around that. But remember in in in Nemo's poem, the fascist, the Nazis always go after the disabled.
And and the way that you can target the disabled is by pretending that they're not disabled at all. It's a big step, isn't it? From targeting foreigners to targeting disabled people. Even if you're a massive racist, you're probably unlikely to ring me up and tell me that the reason why you support this legislation is because there are too many people in wheelchairs behind the tills at sainsburries to actually target the disabled. So, how do they get you to target the disabled?
They tell you that they're not really disabled at all.
And ADHD is a wonderful wedge for that process.
And what is the purpose of most media in this country? It is to stop us from recognizing why life is unfair.
You've got to blame somebody else for the fact that you don't have as big a slice of the pie as you think you deserve. Do not go after the pie makers.
Do not go after the pie owners. Do not go after the pie architects. Go after that person over there with a with a smaller slice than you or even perhaps a bigger slice, but still a pathetically small slice in the context of the pie manufacturers.
So why do you want to buy a television station? Why do you want to buy a politician? Why do you want to buy a newspaper? Because I've got to get the plebs angry with someone else.
Otherwise, history has taught us from the French Revolution right through to the Occupy Wall Street movement, if they're not angry with the foreigners, they're going to get angry with me, the super rich, the mega wealthy, the oligarch, and now it's disabled people. Now it's ADHD. Why does it work? And and what are the real life consequences for for genuinely disabled people? you you are you are on the receiving end of this rhetoric. So we've done it a lot with racism. We nearly did it today actually with NHS nurses reporting I mean hideous rises in racism. But listen, if you got a politician sitting in the House of Commons who can say that there's too many black faces on television without getting any punishment whatsoever from her employers, then who's going to tell someone marching into a hospital ward and complaining about there being too many black nurses there that they're doing something wrong? This is the land that Nigel built and it's moving away from foreigners or from ethnic minorities who aren't foreign at all.
It's moving to disabled people just like I told you that it would. Why does it work? 034560973.
Why does it work?
And crucially, what's it like to be on the sharp end of Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, and Times reports designed to make the rest of us think that people with disabilities, particularly invisible disabilities, are all on the make, are all swinging the lead. It's 12:22.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
4 minutes after 12 is the time. I I've got some breaking news for you which um well I know it will affect some people listening to this program very deeply and it is um relevant to a subject an issue an event that we have um done our very very best to both cover properly and properly commemorate. But the Met Police has revealed it's preparing to hand over evidence on up to 57 individuals and 20 organizations suspected of criminal offenses related to the Grenfell fire. Still gets me that story.
including misconduct in public office and and these cases are expected to be with the CPS by the end of September with charging decisions to be made by the 10th anniversary of the tragedy which is of course the 14th of June next year. Um and and the reason I I find myself becoming uncharacteristically emotional is because of the number of people I've spoken to who didn't think this day would ever dawn who and and we we await further detail. We we we await further knowledge of what this list of potential offenses would include. I know the top of that list will be corporate manslaughter for many of the people that I've had the privilege of speaking to since that dreadful event of uh of 2017, but that there it is. Um more on this in a moment with Joe Draper, but 57 individuals and 20 organizations now suspected of criminal offenses. um which as I say is a day that many many people bererieved by the events of that dreadful night uh didn't think would ever dawn. Um 25 after 12 is the time.
Back to the demonization of disability in general and ADHD in particular.
Scott's in West Ming. Scott, what would you like to say?
>> Yeah, hi James. Um thanks for um letting me talk. Um, I got diagnosed with ADHD in my early 40s and you know I I the is the joke of people with ADHD are very good at hiding things. We mask all the time.
>> Um, so people didn't see the struggle I was going through. So I've become very good at hiding the the problematic parts of ADHD. I was also dyslexic as well which didn't help at school. So I got the he's a problem child. He's a bit sick. And I still get it from friends cuz I know it'll wind me up.
>> Yeah. But it's I've had to find coping mechanisms through therapy, through support from my family and my wife to there to be a good functional human. Um the diagnosis really made me realize that I was struggling and masking a lot of the time and people don't see that. People say, you know, F1's a bit ADHD. It's that kind of joke people keep saying nowadays. Oh, I I like to swap hobbies all the time. Oh, I lose my attention span. No, we're not going to be bored. They don't see the the psychological impact ADHD does have.
The burnout, the insecurities, the constant having to reinvent yourself to fit in and then trying not to fit in because you want to be yourself. It's a >> It's almost being an analog person in a digital world. You don't quite fit in, but you're having to try to be. And >> I think people see like me, Scott, as at work and out with friends or with my family. They don't see the inside of it.
So, >> and they also think, well, I've got problems, too. Why why why why am I not getting any special help? You you've described your problems and and whether they're real or not, I I mean, isn't the point that say they're real, why why don't I get So, there's jealousy involved immediately when somebody is perceived as getting support for something that they don't understand.
>> Exactly. I think there's there's also the there's the you said it earlier on, you know, people who get ADHD get a lot of benefits now. It seems to be that demonization that it's very easy to get support if you have a diagnosis. When I got my diagnosis, the the therapist said to me, even though you don't need it cuz you and I have always worked my whole life, he said, "If you want to get some support, apply for PIP or get a blue badge if you get anxious, no parking, try these things. FYI, they're probably going to say no." And when I went through the process, the feedback I got, it was more of an interest of, okay, if I do need therapy, could I get help via PIP? You know, if I do get anxious, get into a train station to get to work.
Could parking near help me out a little bit.
>> I was technically disabled until I wanted something, till I wanted some support.
>> So, so I mean, the the the things that the Times and the Telegraph and the Daily Mail are saying that people like you are hoovering up like it's going out of fashion are almost impossible to secure anyway. But the demonization is already done.
>> Exactly.
>> And it's not going to be it's not going to be the person with the wi-i without the blue badge that's on the sharp end of this. You've got your crosses to bear as you've described, but somebody who has managed to get a blue badge but is not immediately visibly disabled is going to be on the sharp end of of whatever feelings it is these characters are whipping up.
>> Exactly. And I feel there's this the I guess I guess lack of time education where people realizing that a disability doesn't mean someone's in a wheelchair.
That kind of you must you must not be able to walk to be able to get a blue badge. You must you know you can't work.
And >> where where does it come from? It would never cross my mind. I listen anybody who's using a blue badge illegally is obviously a scumbag.
>> Definitely. But I'd never have the mindset to accuse somebody else of being I mean I it's an extraordinary sense of entitlement, isn't it? To to march up to somebody in a car park and accuse them of misrepresenting their disability when for all you know they might they might only have one lung.
They might only be able to walk 50 yards or they might be crippled with agriphobia or obsessive compulsive disorder or really extreme ADHD. Where does it come from? That belief that uh because it's growing. It's very sort of modern Britany, modern Britain. That idea that I will I will film you or I will march up to you and accuse you of something. Where do when did we become those people?
>> I think it's always been in one way, shape, form or another. I think it's more >> maybe with social media and with like well talking about this all the time. It gives someone a hook to get on to and one know in if you're if you're an immigrant that'll be something they can hook on to. If you say you've got disability that's something they can hook on to. There seems to be a I think you said it earlier on. If I haven't got it, why should you have it?
>> Yeah. Yeah. You're getting you're getting something. I'm unhappy with what I've got and you're getting something I'm not getting. Therefore, I am unhappy with you. Maybe it is just that simple.
Scott, thank you. And and good luck, mate. Um, a lot of people describing your description as very very resonant, describing that that's exactly what you what what you've said is exactly what they have lived and continue to live.
Um, 12 is the time. Dominic Ellis has your headlines.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> 33 is the time. Um, I I nearly nicked this one, Michael, and passed it off as my own, but credit where credit is due.
How long before honest Bob Genrich films himself chasing blue badge holders around a car park? James asks, "Michael, as we track the movement of the the sort of what would you call it, the laser gun of hatred, moving briefly away from uh ethnic minorities or foreignb born um residents of this country and moving instead to the disabled. We'll get back to that shortly. But let joy be unconfined." Simon Marx is here. I I always feel a strange disturbance in the force, Simon, when I haven't spoken to you for a while. But similarly, um, it it there's a little bit of groundhog day to the first thing that we're going to talk about. When is a ceasefire not a ceasefire? When they carry on bombing.
Uh, but when is an attack not an attack when it gets called off at the last minute? And that's what happened yesterday.
>> Yes. When is an attack that had never been previously disclosed to the American public or to the wider world, not an attack when it gets called off at the last minute. I mean that James is exactly what President Trump did yesterday raising a whole raft of questions. The sudden posting of his uh uh claim on Truth Social uh that the leaders of Saudi Arabia Qatar and the UAE had placed the arm on him and said please don't go ahead with the planned attack that he says he was about to unleash on Iran over uh the course of the next few hours today. uh raises enormous questions about uh the president's own capacity uh to try and find an off-ramp from this conflict and not only find an off-ramp uh an off-ramp but exploit it properly so that he can actually bring the conflict to an end with the really detailed boring timeconsuming negotiations that is going to require. But it also raises a raft of other questions. I mean, this war on Iran, we now know, was green lit by the president because the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said to the Americans, I'm going to attack Iran uh in the early hours of uh March the 1st. Uh and uh whether you're with me or not, I'm going in. And the Americans then, and this is in the Secretary of State's telling, uh the Americans then said, well, they were going to go in with the Israelis because they were concerned that if the Israelis launched an a strike on Iran on their own, uh reprisals for that set of air strikes would inevitably target US military assets in the region. And they thought that if we're going to do this, we better do it properly. So they went in because it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was putting the arm on President Trump. Now uh multiple weeks later, it's the Saudis, theQataris, and the Emiratis who are putting the arm on President Trump and saying, "No, no, no, no. Still your military. Do not send them in again. We think the negotiation track is showing signs of progress." He remains itching in the traps to unleash the military. He said in that truth social posting, he's told the man he calls the secretary of war, Pete Hgsth, uh to be locked and loaded and ready uh to go in if uh the negotiations once again fall apart. But you know, in any other era, with any other American president, questions would be being asked about who is actually the commanderin-chief here. Is it Benjamin Netanyahu? Is it Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman? Is it the leaders of uh the United Arab Emirates?
and Qatar. Who is in charge here? And what is the outlook for a conflict that by the day is becoming increasingly unpopular with the American public? 64% of the public now in the New York Times Sienna College poll that was published yesterday disapprove of President Trump's decision to go to war. Never mind disapprove of the the actual carrying out of this. They disapprove of his initial decision to go to war and that's a staggering number.
>> Indeed it is. Forgive me. Should we be speaking quite so confidently about this actually being true that it is the leaders of Qatar? So that right because he could have just been making because he's sitting there desperately trying to save face >> and this is what he's come up with today.
>> I mean that could be the >> Well, it's a classic Yeah, it's a classic taco move, right? It's a classic Trump always chickens out move. Although given that he hadn't announced his plan to launch the attack, I mean, >> he he'd intimated that, you know, that they were they were going to go in hotter and heavier than ever before against the Iranians, but he hadn't set a specific time limit for it. So certainly odd that suddenly we were reading tomorrow night's planned attack.
I mean, who knew there was an attack tomorrow night planned? Unless, of course, there's a WhatsApp group somewhere and a journalist here in Washington, you know, buried in the corner of it observing communications between administration officials, which we also should not rule out on the basis of past form. Uh but what that truth social posting demonstrated is that he's not the master of his own destiny, which is an extraordinary thing to concede, but also that he is definitely still desperate to bring this to an end, but flailing around in his efforts to try and do so. on on that on that point about not knowing what's true and what isn't true. Um the media in the states has reported US intelligence leaks that Iran has got or maintained about 70% of its missiles, 75% of its rocket launchers. So Donald Trump then has to come out and say fake news. That's that that that's not true. And they and the average punter or the average observer or the average journalist or there's nothing average about you, Simon. Um just has to toss a coin. I mean, you're probably going to trust the intelligence leaks more than you're going to trust the president of the United States of America.
Well, you almost don't even have to toss a coin because a couple of weeks before, three weeks I think before those reports were published here, uh we learned that in classified briefings on Capitol Hill, senior figures from the Department of Defense had told lawmakers uh that Iran still had at its disposal thousands of ballistic missiles and drones capable of posing a significant threat.
to the US and allied militaries, partner militaries, uh, in the region. And those leaks, it is presumed, came from lawmakers on Capitol Hill who had actually heard the classified briefings and wanted to make it clear that the story that was being told by the administration behind closed doors on Capitol Hill was totally at odds with the claims that have been made relentlessly by President Trump and Pete Hgse about the Iranian military being obliterated. They've got no more missile launchers left. That according to the latest reporting is absolutely untrue.
They've got no anti-aircraft capacity.
You know, they were a military completely on its knees. That is not what lawmakers were told last month, and it's not what these uh new uh claims that have been published here over the last few days are maintaining. And and of course you then have that that you've talked to us before about the the late night truth social brain dumps where perhaps we get closer to the truth of what's going on in his adult um noggin than we do at any other time. And I'm going to get this verbatim because otherwise people won't believe it actually happened. If Iran surrenders, admits their navy is gone and resting at the bottom of the sea, and their air force is no longer with us, and if their entire military walks out of Tehran, weapons dropped and hands held high, each shouting, "I surrender. I surrender while wildly waving the representative white flag and admit their defeat to the great power and force of the magnificent USA. The failing New York Times, the China Street Journal, which is what he calls the Wall Street Journal, corrupt and now irrelevant CNN, and all other members of the fake news media will headline that Iran had a masterful and brilliant victory over the United States of America. It wasn't even close. Um, we've speculated plenty on his mental state. um then we don't need to speculate again, but that was actually written in public by the president of the United States of America. Which brings us to again the tension between the the sort of unhinged, deranged spoutings and then the hideously uh corrupt probably actions because we're now looking at an almost $2 billion fund being set up quite possibly to reward people who committed crimes on January the 6, 2021.
>> Yeah. I want to make one tiny point about the press because I think it's important. Uh it goes beyond what he did on Truth Social. On Air Force One on his way back from China, he directly accused David Sanger of the New York Times, the dean of the diplomatic foreign policy press corps in this city, a man with unparalleled experience of covering successive pre successive presidential administrations. He accused him of treason for daring to question how things were actually going in Iran.
That's a another staggering Rubicon crossed on this fund. 1.776 billion.
Uh and that number is of course not coincidental. 1776.
This is the 250th year of America's independence from the UK. I think a lot of British journalists have missed that because they've all gone with the 1.8 billion headline. But that's why we pay you the big bucks, Simon.
>> $1.776 billion being set aside to compensate, according to acting attorney general Todd Blanch, man who's never uh been Senate approved to be Attorney General. uh it's going to be paid to victims uh of lawfare uh that were on the receiving end of what they claim were unfair investigations and prosecutions by the Biden administration. All of this the the way this played out is that as we've discussed before Donald Trump launched a ludicrous $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for leaking he claimed his tax records to the media. The judge in the case was about to throw it out, was saying to President Trump, you can't sue the government that you are leading for $10 billion because that's double dealing. And you know, the idea that the arm is being placed on the Department of Justice to settle a lawsuit from which you, the president of the United States, would personally gain is ludicrous. I'm going to chuck this out. So knowing that this case was going to be dismissed or at least assuming that it was what the president decided to do was to say right if I'm not going to get any money I'm going to make sure that all my mates do.
So he's ordered the creation of this fund which will face legal challenges uh which uh the administr the the department of justice says the Trump family will not personally benefit from it. They're simply going to receive an apology from the IRS. But the idea is that all of those guys that were jailed for leading a violent, deadly insurrection on Capitol Hill on President Trump's behalf on January the 6th, 2021, they may all be in line for payouts from this. Uh all sorts of individuals who claim they were the victims of lawfare, whatever that is, uh are in line to be paid out from this.
And this is an opportunity uh that the president is seizing to take public money, funnel it to his supporters, many of them prominent political backers of his. And to do that, $1.776 billion dollars at a time when Americans going to uh petrol station 4 courts all over the country today are struggling to keep their cars, their trucks, and ve and farm vehicles uh filled with fuel because of the soaring prices at the pumps directly resulting from his war on Iran.
>> On we go. Um very briefly, if you would, Simon Paul's been in touch. He goes, "Ask Simon about Thomas Massie.
It's a huge night tonight in Kentucky.
Uh we don't often dwell on Republican party primary elections in Kentucky, but Congressman Paul Ma Thomas Massie uh of Kentucky, a persistent thorn in Donald Trump's side, considered a traitor uh could by tomorrow morning have essentially been deselected by Republicans in Kentucky on the orders of President Donald Trump. This is a fresh test of Donald Trump's grip over the Republican party. Last weekend, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana became the first sitting senator of either party to be defenistrated by his own party and that was on Donald Trump's orders. So huge juice being exercised by Donald Trump over the weekend in getting rid of Bill Cassidy. Now he wants to see Kentucky Republicans doing exactly the same with Thomas Massie, a man who is relentlessly focused to the great irritation of the White House on getting to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein affair.
>> Indeed, which um everybody on Trump's side was deeply focused on not long ago, but we are where we are. Simon Marks, brilliant stuff as always. 12:47 is the time. breaking news in Britain that I shared with you a moment ago with regards to uh possible criminal charges arising from the Ganfeld Tower tragedy.
I will have more on that for you with Joe Draper after this.
>> James O'Brien on LBC >> is 10 to1 and um the our friends at Granfell United have issued a statement in response to that update from the Metropolitan Police that I I shared with you a moment ago and about which we will discover more shortly. and and um just in case you're not fully across the story or or the development or the aftermath because it has not necessarily received the sort of coverage you might expect. Um the reason why well I'll read you one paragraph from their statement if I have time I'll read it all before the end of the program. For our community this is not news we meet with celebration.
We meet it with caution, grief and determination. We have waited almost a decade for accountability. No family should have to wait over 10 years for justice for their loved ones, if it comes at all. So, while for people hoping to see justice, today is is is a good news day, as that statement makes crystal clear, it is far too premature to be to be talking about vindication or even um celebration. Joseph Draper is outside New Scotland Yard where this announcement has been made. Um, what have we learned and who did we learn it from?
>> Well, James, you're absolutely right. I think a bittersweet moment given uh those delays to to this investigation, the delays to getting to this point. But today, uh, the Metropolitan Police really describing the most significant moment in their almost 9-year investigation now into the causes of that dreadful fire at an apartment block. of course killed 72 people, left 70 people injured. Uh the Metropolitan Police today finally uh giving a date really by which charging decisions uh will be made uh that that they say they are ready to hand over an evidence file to the CPS. They'll hand that over by the end of September this year uh with the CPS uh committing really to making charging decisions uh by the 10th anniversary of the tragedy. So that would be June 14th uh uh 2027. So next year. So could be up to 12 months still before we see any movement on this. But nevertheless uh this is the first time they've really committed to a a date for charging decisions. So a significant moment. Uh the police they say are uh looking into 57 individuals, 20 organizations uh suspected of a range of criminal offenses. Uh those numbers may still change, but these potential offenses are incredibly serious. They include corporate manslaughter, uh gross negligence manslaughter, fraud, per uh per perverting the course of justice, and also uh interestingly misconduct in public office as well. So, incredibly serious charges, but of course, as you've been saying, James, this is not the first time we've had updates on this investigation. Uh, it's not the first time the Metropolitan Police has told us to expect charging decisions by certain dates. Previously, I think they've said 2021. Uh, then it was the end of 2026.
Now, we know it won't come until potentially next year. That of course has had a huge impact as we've been hearing on the families of the berieved uh having to to deal with those delays.
I've been speaking to the officer in overall command of the investigation, Gary Monre uh Monife, sorry, and he did acknowledge the impact of those delays on the families, James. Uh but he told me he was now confident of that date.
And this is what he's been telling me where before we've tried to give an indication of how long their investigation is going to take. And we know that's important for families and for the ber the survivors and the residents to do that. It's always been very difficult to plan an investigation that is of such a scale and magnitude of exactly when the investigation will finish. Now we're nearing the point where we're ready to provide files to the CPS. Then we are much more confident and much more aware of what exactly will constitute those files and what's still to come. So we are confident in that date and the CPS are confident that if we provide those files by that date that they will be able to take the charging decisions before the 10 year anniversary.
And James, the Metropolitan Police at Payes today to to really describe just how complex and huge this investigation has been, the largest in its history, costing uh they told us around £150 million uh to date. So a huge investigation they say affected by delays from COVID at the 19 p the co9 pandemic. Also a public inquiry as well into the Grenfell tragedy. But finally, you know, this really is a significant moment uh for the families of those affected.
>> Yes. But be it. You've put in all the necessary caveats for no cause for celebration and we've been very close to this territory before, but um but this is a welcome development. There we go.
Um, Joseph Draper, LBC's reporter, outside New Scotland, Jard, with news of um, CPS charging decisions uh, being expected now by the 10th anniversary of the Grimfell Tower tragedy on the 14th of June next year. Um, quick text then time for one more call, I think. Um, and I'll use the text to set up the call if I may. This is from Joseph, another Joseph. I'm a bit behind, James, but I'm I'm I'm dressing that the day my wife I'm dreading the day my wife gets targeted for her blue badge. Yes. On a good day, she can walk to the store door, but what they don't see is that when she does that, she will always take a trolley, and when she gets home, she'll dump the shopping in the fridge or on the on the worktops and have to sleep for an hour or two. And if she gets scared to leave the house because of all this, then that would be just wrong. Um, I've had quite a few messages like that, but I want to find time to listen to Elizabeth who's in Maidston.
Elizabeth, what made you pick up the phone?
>> Hello, James. First time caller. It's nice to speak to you. Um, it's a shame about the conversation we're about to have, however.
>> Yes, absolutely.
>> So, just to start, I am an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means that sometimes I am able to walk. However, most of the time I do use a wheelchair.
Unfortunately, I have been targeted multiple multiple times particularly by men who are older >> when I am getting out of the car.
>> It will often be me getting out of the car, setting up my wheelchair, but in that time they find it necessary to walk up to me and confront me about my use of the blue badge bay. I >> What do they say? Can you remember any any any specifics or >> Yes. Yes. I remember one particular gentleman um and this really startled me and I was in front of my it was my daughter was next to me and she was eight just to get a bit of context. So very young and as a young carer >> I was it still shakes me up to this day. Sure it does. Um, so he tried to convince me that I didn't need to use a blue badge bay and that I looked able enough to get out of the car. However, when I explained that I was actually setting up my wheelchair, he looked very sheepish and turned away and shouted across >> shouted across the road at me that I was still undeserving.
on a similar frame. I've had letters on my windshield quite exploitive and swearing at me and quite frankly it makes me scared to go outside if I'm not with a carer or with my husband.
>> Of course it does. I'm so sorry that you're going through this. Is it is it I mean is is it an accelerating issue, do you think, or is it just a steady hum of hatred that you've encountered over the years?
>> It's always been there. It's always been subtle at at the moment. It's been the most extreme I've ever seen it.
>> Well, people are almost being encouraged to do it, I think, by some of the by some of the stories that we've discussed and talked about. I I I mean, you may not want to expend the emotional energy on this question, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, but what do you think possesses a person like that to come up to you in that fashion? Well, I mean, it's behavior that for so many of us is utterly unthinkable.
What is going on in the minds of of the people who do it, do you think?
>> Quite often it's gendered >> from my personal experience.
>> Yeah.
>> Um as a woman in her 30s who >> I've been told if it weren't for the wheelchair, you'd look normal.
>> Yeah.
>> By a teacher um when I was a teenager.
>> Um >> a male teacher.
>> A male teacher. Yes. Um there's a sense of entitlement of everyone deserves to park here and so why do you >> you're getting something they're not you're getting something they're not allowed and they don't like it and then you're right probably with some sort of misogyny thrown into the mix as well in your case but not in the case of of of men having similar exper I'm so sorry what a horrible story and and there it is. I mean, the absolute proof of the pudding, if you like, that when you run stories about blue badges in a in an irresponsible way, because as with every other area of life, there will indeed be fraud, then you paint targets on the backs of people like Elizabeth. But you crack on Daily Mail, Times, Telegraph.
I'm sure your mothers are proud. If you made or missed even any of today's show, you can listen back on our free Global Player app or the LBC app, where you can also stay up to date with all the latest news, videos, and opinions. You can listen to a range of podcasts including James O'Brien Daily, the best bits from this show every day. So do download the official LBC app for free from your app store. Now coming up at 4 on LBC, it's Tom Swarbick, but now it's Sheila Fogerty.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
相关推荐
BREAKING: Judge Kathleen Issues Emergency Arrest Warrant After Trump Defies Order
Frontora
2K views•2026-05-29
8 Hidden Things About Mackenzie Shirilla Netflix's 'The Crash' Didn't Show You
MarvelousVideos
2K views•2026-05-28
MP Garnett Genuis warns Canada’s MAiD system has ‘gone too far’
WesternStandard
187 views•2026-05-28
THE STREISAND EFFECT AT BARBARA STREISAND’S HOUSE! - First Amendment Audit
KULTNEWS
1K views•2026-05-30
Trump Impeachment STORM IGNITES as 29 Judges Vote for Conviction!!
DanielBriefDaily
2K views•2026-06-02
EBK Jaaybo Won’t Be Going To Trial?! | Criminal Lawyer Reacts
floridadefenseteam
404 views•2026-05-29
OFFICE HOURS: The Theft of Black Brilliance... AI and Intellectual Property (w/ Lisa E. Davis)
marclamonthillnetwork
2K views•2026-05-29
सुप्रीम कोर्ट में 5 जजों का शपथग्रहण समारोह #supremecourt #judges #oathceremony #shorts #ytshorts
Bharat24Liv
4K views•2026-06-02
