This is LBC from Global, leading
Britain's conversation with James
O'Brien.
Good morning. It's 3 minutes after 10
and you are listening to James O'Brien
on LBC. A quick word of thanks to
everybody who stepped into the breach
while I was off on my travels. Lewis
Goodall keeping you company in the first
week and a and a verit a popie of
political figures in the second week. I
hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as
they did. Um, it's weird being away. I
say this to you every time I come back
from a from a break. But you you you
kind of remember that old Rabbi Burns
poem about seeing yourselves as as
others see you with some gift to gifty
gears to see ourselves as others see us.
And you you do a bit when you're away,
especially if you come off um the news
drip, the drip feed of news and and um
even more importantly perhaps social
media. The weirdest thing perhaps
was was the absence of whatever you want
to call it, Faradage, riots, civil
disorder, violence on the streets when
compared to the headlines. A couple of
threads that I have seen since I got
back actually counting heads at these
so-called protests on on both sides of
the divide. the the um uh uh the the the
mixture of massive racists and perfectly
ordinary people who like to spend their
spare time protesting outside buildings
full of refugees and the anti-racist
protesters. Someone actually goes to the
trouble counting them. And the reality
of these stories is a a a tiny fraction
of what the media coverage would
suggest. I'll share some of the numbers
with you shortly because it matters,
doesn't it? And and today's news
contains two stories that you might
consider to be quite important. The
first is that the UK has secured an
enormous contract to supply Norway with
warships. I think the figure I saw was
10 10 billion pounds. I'm not suggesting
for a minute that you've missed that.
But you could be forgiven for having
done so. It was leading the BBC's
coverage yesterday. I don't think it's
on a single front page this morning. And
then the other story that is I I think
significant is the one about the roll
out of 30 hours a week of free child
care to every parent in the country
earning less than £100,000 a year. These
are massive moments. These are really
really big moments. And yet I saw one
politician being interviewed this
morning on television and and was
actually asked, "Why are you talking
about free child care when people only
care about migrant hotels?" And you sort
of found yourself thinking, "Oh,
it's the tail that wags the dog, isn't
it? Everything now is driven by online
metrics. Everything is driven by click
counts." And what gets the biggest
reaction? It's as if the whole world has
turned into a radio phone in show. And
how many times have I told you that
getting calls is easy? Getting attention
is easy. Is there anybody old out there
feeling poorly? Um, would you like to
ring in and be a little bit racist on
the radio? It's really easy to get
calls. Um, but it doesn't guarantee that
they'll be interesting. So the news is
in a bit of a hole uh pretending that
problems are much bigger than they are
because the online reaction to these
stories and these problems is much
bigger than the real life reaction the
numbers as I say turning up outside
these buildings um are relatively tiny
and that of course leaves us you and me
in a in a tricky position because should
we be talking about this stuff at all?
Should we be are we falling into the
sort of trap of clickbait even as we
point out that that is what is happening
here? I and and the short answer to that
is I don't know. But rest assured that
we will be talking uh later in the
program about the roll out of free child
care for untold new numbers of parents.
And we will probably have a little look
at this big military contract as well.
But fears of mass unrest was one of the
headlines I saw when I got back. Um
there wasn't any. Warnings of civil
disorder was one of the headlines I saw
I think before I went away. And of
course, there wasn't any fears that the
hideous scenes of last summer would be
repeated, turning that woman, Lucy
Connley, into some sort of folk hero for
inciting actual pograms on British
streets. It just hasn't happened in the
way that they wanted it to happen.
Learned a word just before we went away.
Um, I never knew that the word you
should use, the correct verb to use when
you talk about cogs turning is mesh.
Cogs, they mesh and then they unmesh.
So, you've got two turning cogs and the
teeth aren't biting each other. They're
not meshing and then they mesh and
everything starts moving. It's as if
these cogs are worring furiously and
they never actually meshed. Thank God. I
mean, you know, we saw what can happen
when certain political and public
figures spread hideous racist lies all
over social media and the next thing you
know they're setting fire to buildings
full of entirely blameless and innocent
human beings. But they didn't mesh. The
cogs didn't mesh. So, you find yourself
thinking, "What? What's actually
happening here? Can we keep this up for
4 years? Are we really going to be doing
this until the next general election
pretending that a few weirdos on social
media speak for the entire nation? You
got entire political parties in hawk now
to billy bunch of numbers with a bulldog
avatar and and yet I I can't quite see
how it ends. Does it burn itself out?
And the only question you're left with
is what will be the next uh what will be
the next chapter? What will be the next
incarnation? What will happen next? You
have stories of course of people being
abused as they go about their lawful
business because they look a bit
foreign. There's one in the news at the
moment which we probably won't touch on
further because I think arrests have
been made. But the but the what's the
word you want? The empowerment of
bigotry is now almost a national
pastime. people in the British media who
would once have uh quite rightly held
their noses at the sight of some of the
uh words coming out of the mouths of
politicians are now going all in joining
in on it. And what they do and this is
what I want to talk about today.
They they they deploy the worst sort of
inverse snobbery. So what you get with
Times colonists or telegraph colonists,
they like to pretend that racism is a
workingclass enthusiasm. They use the
words workingass or sometimes even as a
synonym for racists. It's as if cable
street never happened. One of the books
I read on holiday um was set in the
1930s when Oswald Mosley was on the
march. And what everybody forgets, and
of course people like the owner of the
Daily Mail are desperate for you to
forget this because his granddad was one
of the best examples of it is that
Mosley's fascism was hugely popular
among upper and upper middle classes
right up to and including the
aristocracy and even members of the
royal family. This idea that racism is a
workingass enthusiasm is palpably
absurd. You bring a bit of a nin bevan
in who you could see as an almost an
antidote to Oswald Mosley. Then you're
left with that classic question of how
on earth do you persuade labor as in the
working man and woman of this country to
use their political freedom to keep
wealth in power? And one of the most
obvious answers throughout history is to
lie to them about the threat that's
being posed to them by foreigners. So
it's a posh process
institutional racism. It's a posh
process designed to dissuade people or
distract people from the real reasons
for their unhappiness or the inequality
that they suffer from by pretending that
it would be massively improved if you
could ship all those asylum seekers out
of the local holiday in. But what
happens next?
And the short answer to that question
when I got back from holiday was very
simply
flags.
Flags to the left of me, flags to the
right of me. particularly interesting
new pastime for some members of the
British populace is to paint
roundabouts. I I'll say that again in
case you've missed it. So, you know the
sort of mini roundabouts that are like
pimples on the on the road, like big
pimples. What's the opposite of a
crater? Like a sort of what's the
opposite of concave? Convex.
Like an upturned dish, you know, like a
big upturned dish on a road. Not quite
big enough to be a roundabout, but too
big to be just a sort of crossroad. So
you've got a you've got a s So what you
do is you you find one of those and you
paint it white in the middle of the
night and then you paint a big red cross
through the middle of it. I saw one
which looked a little bit more like the
Danish flag than the flag of St. George.
Um but nonetheless that was presumably
the intention unless we've got a sort of
uh Danish nationalist cell operating
somewhere in in the southeast. But that
that's another so that's become a
popular pastime while I've been on
holiday. that and flags. Flags are going
up everywhere. We touched on this just
before we went away. And I told you that
the um the story is as old as the hills.
I wrote about this in my very first book
117 years ago, a book called How to Be
Right, which sadly is becoming more
relevant again as each day passes. And
it was it was about the pretense that
being ordered to take down a flag, a
particular flag, is somehow an assault
upon values. Almost always councils have
rules in, for example, communal areas
about what you can and can't put on the
walls. And in short, the rule is usually
nothing. You can't put anything on the
walls. There are also rules governing
what you can put up by way of signage if
it were, for example, to pose a threat
to traffic or to impinge upon
visibility. But all of those concerns
aside, how emotional does a flag make
you feel?
I don't think it's right to sneer at
people or or or or to snigger because
for example the Ukrainian flag carries
enormous heft at the moment as does of
course the Palestinian flag as the
unconscionable murder of countless
civilians and killing of journalists in
um in Gaza continues. The Palestinian
flag carries enormous power for many
people. The Israeli flag carries
enormous power. So to say that flags to
to imbue flags with power is somehow
wrong is clearly arrogant. You might
think it's silly, but I bet there's a
flag that you would have an emotional
reaction to. So here's a question no
one's asked you yet. And it may be
because you think the answers are
obvious or the answers are
straightforward.
Why are they doing it? 034560973
to to personalize it for a moment. Why
have I returned from holiday to find I
mean listen my evidence is mostly
photographic I have to tell you I
haven't encountered that many actual
flags but I got mates who have they've
sent me pictures and there's one outside
Gregs on Chisik High Road which is um
the sort of next town along from where I
live in West London and I just want to
know why. I want to know why you think
people are doing this and I want you to
be as honest as you can. I'll give you
one warning. Well, one of my holiday
covers last week, Emily Thornbury got
into terrible trouble for posting online
without any comment at all a picture of
someone's front yard, which if memory
serves, contained a transit van, a white
transit van, and a flag of St. George
dangling from a window. That's all she
did. But it was argued, I think fairly,
that she was casting some sort of
judgment on these people. And you're not
allowed to do that in Brexit. Britain,
you're not allowed to say, "Do you know
what? I'd rather my neighbors didn't
hang a sort of massive piece of tatty
nylon out of their spare bedroom window
and leave it there as it got battered
and and and sullied by the elements.
You're not allowed to do that cuz people
will pretend that you're being
unpatriotic or that you're assaulting
their values." And that is important to
remember because I don't want you to get
into any trouble. But I do want you to
think about this question. Why are they
doing it? Or or of course, why are you
doing it?
Can we find the positives? 034560973.
I've got one story.
It happened on my street a few years
ago, my old house, and I think it was
football related, but one of my
neighbors put a flag of St. George, and
another neighbor actually had a Chelsea
flag, which
followed a similar fate actually, but
we'll think we'll focus on the flag of
St. George. And they they put it over
their balcony. It was a block of flats
next to the house where I lived and I
didn't really give it a second thought
particularly because I think it was in
the middle of the Europe Euros or or
possibly even a World Cup. I forget you
forgive me. And and they never took it
down and you you you stop noticing it.
You do that, right? So you stop noticing
things. If you're a man, um you never
notice things that have been left at the
bottom of the stairs, for example, for
you to take upstairs. But if you are
human and something has been part of
your backdrop, the backdrop of your
daily life indefinitely,
you stop noticing it. And I did stop
noticing it until an estate agent came
around and sort of winced when they saw
it. And by that point, it had been there
for about 18 months since the end of the
football tournament. I presume the
people living in the flat had actually
forgotten about it because they it had
become invisible to them as well. And by
now, it was a sort of it wasn't even
gray. It was sort of brown. It was a
brown flag with a red cross through the
middle of it. One bit had sort of come
loose on the end. So, it wasn't hanging
true. It was dangling off a balcony on a
block of flats. And I I I mean, it might
still be there now, actually. I can't
even remember. And that's the problem
with this stuff. It's not really
adorning or improving your natural
environment. It's not an act of It's not
an act of community.
So, what is it an act of? Why is it
being done? What is the point being
made? 034560973
is the number that you need. What why
are people putting flags up all over the
place? And crucially, and I want every
answer available to this question, how
do they make you feel? How do they make
you feel? 034560973.
You can answer one or both of those
questions. Why are people doing it? Why
are you doing it? And how do they make
Are they making you feel the way that
the people hanging them up want you to
feel? Do we know how the people hanging
them up want you to feel? Why are they
doing it? And how do they make you feel?
Get the numbers now. You will get
through.
>> James O'Brien on LBC.
>> 2 minutes after 10. Because you know if
you just take these two stories,
the story about child care being rolled
out now for every family in the country
that is not in receipt or every parent
in the country who is not in receipt of
£100,000 a year income or more. and this
important international report on the
successful securing of a massive
contract um for British factories, jobs
being safeguarded well into the 2030s as
Norway orders 10 billion pounds worth of
kit from British manufacturers. you do
find and there's another story actually
about the leader of the Conservative
party possibly having being a little bit
economical with the actuality when she
claimed that she was offered a place at
a prestigious US college when she was
just 16 years old and yet um you could
be forgiven for thinking that the only
story in town remained the 4% of
migrants to this country who come in
dingies across the English Channel. I'll
say that again because facts matter. 4%
um or indeed this sort of
swelling hugely inflated and exaggerated
swelling of of public behavior. The most
latest incarnation of which is flags. So
why why James is in Wsworth? James, what
would you like to say?
>> Welcome back from the holiday mate. I'll
take it. It was Greece again. Was it?
>> I'm so transparent, aren't I? It's
pathetic. I've been doing this too long.
James, what's on your mind?
>> Well, I've been listening for too long.
Um, basically, um, yeah, I was just
saying to your colleague, this to me is
just territory marking. For full
disclosure, there's a little pun. Um,
it's, um, I'm a white working-class Brit
grown up in London my entire life. Quite
a large mixed friend group. I also have
a partner who is visibly brown from the
Philippines and works for the NHS. If
you can put two and two together, you'll
understand why I'm quite angry this
morning.
>> Yes, of course. This is for people who
don't know, this is a reference to the
story I alluded to earlier, which I
don't think we're going to talk about
cuz I don't know if charges have been
brought, but but but some fairly hideous
footage popped up on on social media
involving a Filipino healthcare worker.
So, yeah, of course you are. Carry on.
>> Yeah. Um, so yeah, for me it's territory
marking. We know where the rhetoric is
coming from. It's been stirred up by
these weird news channels that aren't
actually news channels. It's been
stirred up by, you know, the pound shop
Enoch Pal. Um, it's even been stirred up
by quite a lot of unfortunately very
very mainstream uh media people who just
don't seem to want to push back against
this stupidity. I mean, I'm all for
hanging a flag. I don't care. I'm proud
to be where I'm from. I think it's, you
know, it's a matter of luck rather than
anything else. I've done nothing really
to contribute to the success of this
country. But it's, you know, I mean,
apart from being wonderful, of course.
Um, but the but the reality is is these
people are territory marketing. If it's
all about flags and it's all about
niceness, why are people spray painting
on Chinese takeaways? Why are they
writing racist graffiti? You know, why
are people saying send them back? This
isn't about pride in your country.
>> Can we be sure it's the same people? I
It was in York that the Chinese takeaway
and it was rather splendidly cleaned up
by a fellow who who um works in the
area, doesn't he? And and turned up.
>> It was a really poignant message that
actually about I've been doing this for
10 years. We work really hard. that came
up this morning to my restaurant to my
takeaway and it was covered in a a kind
of badly drawn flag of St. George and
some some racist abuse. You see it I
mean and I'm not being the devil's
advocate but you are 100% certain that
this is of a piece that this is that
these are just different levels of the
same sentiments.
>> It's all strings on the same web as far
as I'm concerned. It's um I'm sure there
are certainly people out there and I and
and if they're listening, fair enough.
You might just want to show some pride
in your country. However, when you march
alongside the people who are screaming
send them back or threatening violence
or trying to create pograms, I mean,
there were people allegedly trying to
break into another hotel again a few
days ago. I mean, how far do we have to
go before
concerned parents realize that actually
what we're sliding into is fascism? And
I and I use that word because it's it's
partly out of fear because I think we
are living in a society and in a system
where our current government um and I
voted for K star. Well, I actually voted
for my local Labor and Prosina Alan
Khan. But we are we are living in a
society where our government are not
being radical enough to tackle the
problems that workingclass people face.
Now it is being exploited much like it
was exploited in the 1920s and 1930s
with the rise of fascism. The only
reason people sway towards the politics
of hatred is because they are
unsuccessful. They are struggling and
they are not surviving. Things need to
be done to help poor people in this
country. Otherwise they are so easily
manipulated into othering. And we've
seen it time and time again. So, a flag
is a V sign in in in some contexts, not
in all of them because, you know, we we
all know someone who's got a flag pole
in their back garden and they actually
have a a relationship with it and they
like flying in. It makes them think of
nice things. But the this latest
outburst, this latest craze, if you
like, of of sticking them up all over
the shop and almost wanting a negative
response, wanting someone to tell you to
take them down so you can accuse them of
something. And that's where the the
marking of territory argument comes in.
>> Absolutely. I watched a video yesterday
of a guy who's quite well known on
YouTube and there's a lot of podcasts
for Tommy 10 names. And he was standing
there, a lot of your listeners will
probably have seen this video and I'm
sure someone could send you a link. He's
standing next to a police officer and
he's going, "Shake my hand." And the
police officer is saying, "No, I'm not
shaking your hand. This is outrageous.
Why won't you shake my hand? You're
woke." And he's screaming abuse at the
police. And it's like, you're doing it a
for attention. And a lot of these people
are just doing it for clicks and likes
and Tik Tok streams and and revenue, but
they're doing it so they can turn and
say, "He won't shake my hand. He's with
the wokes. He's with this. He's with the
He's with the uh Economic World Forum or
whatever they call it." You know, this
is part of the agenda. And it's these
people are absolutely bonkers. But
they're doing it to drive a griff.
They're doing it to drive clicks.
They're doing it to drive avenue uh
advertising revenue. And the people that
are being brought along are people like
Lucy Connley who should have known
better, but they will get arrested and
then they'll all turn around and then
they'll say, "Are the systems against
me?"
>> And and the one thing that really
settled with me while I was on holiday
was that this is no longer confined to
the sort of Billy Bunch of numbers with
the bulldog avatar. You got Daily
Telegraph columnists and and even
editors now who are not just sort of
tolerating it, but actively stoking it
and joining in. Uh do you want the good
news or the bad news?
>> Bad news first.
Bad news is I think you might have
killed the phone in dead. I I mean
hopefully someone's going to ring in and
disagree with you, but you've covered an
awful You've clearly been thinking about
it long before I asked the question this
morning. Cuz the good news is that's one
of the best calls I can remember. That's
one of the best calls I've taken this
week, James.
It's coming up to 10:27. You're
listening to the Double James show on
LBC. But there it is, a marking of
territory. And of course, what happens
now, and I think this is why James was
keen to establish his his class
credentials um at the beginning of the
call, is is you get accused, oh, you're
you're what? Unpatriotic. You can't talk
about immigration in this country
without being called a racist. Well,
hang on. What have what have St.
George's flags got to do with
immigration?
Unless it is a statement, an implicit
statement, a marking of territory, as
James suggests. I haven't got much um
argument with any of that. From where
I'm sitting, it seems to make perfect
sense. Unless, of course, we're missing
something. Unless there's some there's
some emotional heft involved. You step
back from the lamp post upon which
you've just hung some Chinese-made
bunting depicting the flag of St.
George. And you find yourself feeling a
a warm swell. You've spent the whole
morning picking up litter and helping
little old ladies cross the road. You
finished your shift at the homeless
shelter, looking after uh British
servicemen who don't have a place to
call home at the moment. you've done
your your month's worth of unpaid
voluntary community work and and finish
working in the local charity shop and
and as part of the same process of
public spirit and community feeling,
you're now going to go and hand some
Chinese-made bunting on a on a lampost
on your local high street. So that that
could be it. I don't know. I'm I'm not
necessarily being sarcastic. Uh Darren
is in Chashan. Darren, what would you
like to say?
>> James, good morning to you. Welcome back
from holiday.
>> Thank you. Carry on. I'm a first- time
caller, but I listen to your program all
the time. I would just like to say that
I remain totally perplexed by these
flags. I say I'm in Chzant in
Harshshire, and they've gone up over the
I think the last weekend
>> all along the road where all the clothes
to where I live.
>> And I think it's to do with the Marriott
Hotel or what used to be the Marriott
Hotel in Chzant, which is now hosting or
housing the um
>> those seeking asylum and the economic
migrants.
>> And and what it is, I think it's it's
saying, you know, you're not welcome.
I'm a person of color. I like flags. We
had a street party here for the king's
coronation. Flags were were displayed
the Union Jack and George.
>> Well, there's no mystery on that day why
those flags are being put up, is there?
There's no there's no phone in there.
Why have they put flags up on my street?
Cuz they're crowning the king, you
plump.
>> Exactly. But the point I want to make is
that even when there was the World Cup
in 2014, 2018, 2022 and the Euros, these
flags were never put on the street
furniture as they are as they are now.
>> So, I think it's overt racism. um
without actually saying inverball you're
not welcome here.
>> And is that how you feel?
>> Um potentially I could be walking to my
local Tesco and someone could think I'm
an economic migrant and spit at me or
kick me or abuse me, you know,
>> and I'm actually a local solister
>> and and that is a more acute possibility
now than it was 5 10 or 15 years ago.
>> Absolutely.
>> And the flags are part of that process.
>> And and obviously, you know, as a as a
solicitor, you'll recognize other people
might feel something completely
different. um uh when they look at it
but that's what you feel it's what James
feels it's what many people feel is it
what we are intended to feel you we are
staking our claim we are marking our
territory we are telling people who do
not look like us that they are not
welcome I hope not but if you um don't
like that analysis then you need to
explain your thinking on 034560973
Dominic Ellis is here now with your
headlines
>> James O'Brien on LBC
>> 32 two is the time. So, do we need to
separate people putting up flags from
all the people being arrested at these
so-called um protests outside buildings
where asylum seekers are being
accommodated? Um, a phenomenon, a
statistic that makes up roughly 4% of
immigration into this country, but which
you could be forgiven for thinking was
the only story in town. Um uh not of
course the 10 billion pound deal that
we've signed to build uh anti-ubmarine
warships for Norway. Something that will
strengthen NATO's northern flank and is
part of a double country. The two
countries plan for joint operations in
Northern Europe. A story that once I
think would have dominated the news
agenda. I don't know. It certainly would
have received perhaps a little bit more
attention than it than it is currently
receiving. Angela Raina's housing
arrangements. I've tried and tried and
tried to get my head around what it is
she is supposed to have done wrong and I
can't currently tell you. Uh I think a
house she doesn't own is designated as
her main residence for one reason and a
house that she does own is
no I've lost it. It's gone again. But
anyway, it's very important and she's
been very very naughty and it has
absolutely nothing to do with the fact
that she's a working-class woman because
um anyone would be treated in exactly
the same fashion if they were found to,
for example, have accidentally bought
seven flats and forgotten to alert the
parliamentary authorities. Back to the
flags, why why are they being hung up
and what is your response to them? Jack
Jim is in Hawkley in Essics. Jim, what
>> Good morning, James. Um, you may you may
call me James if you prefer to use that
rather than Jim. I'm quite happy with
either just to keep your set complete.
Um, but um,
>> that's we're going double echo chamber.
So, you can only come on the show if
you're actually called James today.
Never mind your politics. Carry on. Jim
James. Jimmy.
>> My my observation is that one of the
circumstances where flags are used
commonly is during wartime.
And during wartime it's necessary to
have an enemy. And I think that a
combination of media coverage etc has
led us to the point that our enemy has
been well and truly established which
reminds me a little of the Lawrence
Reese book if I could refer to that.
>> Yes. Um, so I think I I think that it's
essentially a country which is
demonstrating its opposition to a
particular enemy and doing it in a very
visual way by using the national flag.
>> And the enemy is
>> uh the enemy I need to hardly say who
the enemy is. The enemy is the the group
of people who are coming into the
country across the channel basically. I
are we sure that it doesn't go further
than that? Because the the marking of
territory and the hanging of flags in
areas that don't have any asylum hotels,
it see it strikes many people as as
running a bit deeper. Some some of the
um incidents that are being covered
almost feels reluctantly by some corners
of the media are showing NHS workers
being abused in public, for example.
That's got nothing to do with small
boats.
I I think that the the current
circumstances
have have moved the needle hugely. I
think that had we not had the problem um
if that's the correct term to use of the
the people coming across the channel.
>> Yes,
>> I don't think we would have reached this
same um behavior pattern at this point
in time
>> and and because that becomes a sort of
pivot point. I wonder how many people
listening are thinking that I'm I'm
wrong when I say that figure of 4% when
I talk about the the the statistical
relevance of that particular mode of
coming here in the absence of any safe
routes. People laboring under the
illusion that the um problem and like
Jim I put that in quotes is infinitely
larger than the um than the reality. And
who is to blame for that? I mean
obviously some of the political figures
like Balinok and Farage and Honest Bob
Genrich and the rest of them although
the Labour government isn't doing much
to to challenge this particular
narrative. There's a superb piece in the
Wall Street Journal not a newspaper that
I um read every day I have to be honest
but sometimes to go back to that Rabbi
Burns poem about seeing yourselves as
others see you and how valuable and
important that can be. There's a superb
piece in the Wall Street Journal that um
it just drops so many simple truths into
the conversation that you wonder why
nobody in the UK media is doing the same
thing. The Tories
lost control. I'll read it to you
actually because it's it's really
important. It it's all down to Brexit.
After Brexit, the UK government of then
Conservative Prime Minister Boris
Johnson embarked on a new migration
experiment. It slammed the door on
European immigration only to open it to
the rest of the world. The idea was to
goose a sluggish economy by attracting
the planet's best and brightest people.
The Tories, despite repeatedly promising
lower overall immigration levels, soon
lost control of the system they
designed. You can start making a list if
you want of the Tory politicians who
will never ever ever, including, I
presume, the ones that were sitting in
this chair last week, um, refer to this
simple and irrefutable reality. They
designed, triggering the biggest influx
of legal migration the country has ever
seen. In just one job field, care aids
who look after the infirmal elderly. One
government forecast assumed some 6,000
migrants a year would come to work. In
the space of four years, 679,900
carers and their families arrived.
That's the government's own figures.
That is, and I mean, lest anyone be
under any illusions about where the line
between racism and reality lies, that is
a ridiculous and unsustainable political
failure. If you were expecting 6,000
people and you got 700,000,
then you have boobed, you have goofed,
you have ered, I personally would blame
the politicians responsible for any
negative impact of that reality rather
than the poor people who've come here.
But that is what I Cooper is trying to
fix today. She is trying to fix a mess,
an anomaly, an obvious error inflicted
upon this country by Boris Johnson and
his colleagues, by successive Tory
governments. She is trying to fix it.
What is the right-wing media doing?
Well, you don't need me to tell you. And
why are people hanging flags? Thank you,
Jim. Chris is in Hamill. Chris, what
>> Hi, James. Um, I want to say that I
think that the councils when they're
taking the flags down have made a
massive mistake.
>> Um,
>> they're not doing a very good job.
>> Well, that is good. Now, I wouldn't
usually support them going up or down or
this or that.
>> Where where are they taking them down?
because most of the things I've been
sent already including someone who's
been in touch with his own council
explaining why they're staying up.
>> Well, that's good then because I you
hear things in the news and you see
things about the flags coming down say
on the same day but maybe perhaps other
flags say Palestinian flags have been up
there for a week.
>> No, but in terms of what you've what
you've witnessed and experienced.
Well, even if I haven't witnessed or
experienced it, the fact that I've heard
that means that I'm now part of a
growing undercurrent of people who
probably think that do you know what
they should be left up there because
>> but they are being but they are being
left up there.
>> Well, that's good. And and that is good.
And I think that even whether it's true
or not, the narrative about them coming
down has really annoyed people who
generally wouldn't care,
>> right?
>> To the point because, how can I put it?
This is England. If you want to put up
an England flag, there's nothing wrong
with that and they shouldn't be. The
fact that it's been
>> unless it's unless it's in an area where
you're not allowed to put any flags.
Well, that that would
>> I mean I know they they've taken one
down because the rope um which had been
strung across a road was so strong that
if a high vehicle had gone into it, it
could have caused a hideous accident. So
those are the ones that had generally
been taken down. And the the historic
examples of this are almost always
communal areas where you're not allowed
to hang anything at all and then the
Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail gets
hold of it and they pretend that it's an
assault upon the English flag. And and
respectfully, I think they're aiming for
people like you, aren't they, when they
print those misinformations
>> cuz you you've just said you're getting
it you're getting it from the news. You
got no evidence that it's true, but
you're definitely certain that you're
cross. And to quote you, this is
England.
>> Yeah. It's not so much I'm cross. It's a
matter of the fact that if you want to
put up a flag in England, you should be
able to put up the Union flag or the St.
George's Cross. And even though it's a
bit annoying,
>> where should you be? Where should you be
able to put it?
>> I would suggest when they're on things
like the the street uh on the uh
>> But what if you live on that street and
you don't like them?
>> Well, to be fair, I live around the
corner from Khloe Kelly uh the the
fantastic England lioness and her
family's house has had them up.
>> Yeah, but there's no there's no mystery
about why those flags are up. That's not
the flags that we're talking about
today. We established in the we
established in the first call that the
that this is nothing to do with support
for example at the moment for the
English rugby team. So what I mean I'm
just intrigued by this sort of blanket
right that you think people have to put
these flags up because to quote you
again this is England. What if I don't
want them on my street?
>> I say a little bit cheeky
cheeky. It's a little bit naughty maybe,
but I can understand it at the moment
because there does seem to be an
undercurrent of saying it's wrong to put
up a flag. And it's almost like if you
>> can if you just have a little crack at
the question I've asked you. What about
my rights not to have them on my street?
I'm not going to tell you you can't put
them up in your garden or in your
sitting room window or wherever else you
might want to or on your car bonnet or
whatever it may be. But what what if I
don't want my local roundabout to be
painted or I don't want flags on my
street? What what what what what happens
to my rights in a public space?
>> Well, this is England and so if you go
around and you see a flag in England and
it's the English flag, you might just
have to realize that, okay, fair enough.
It's where I live,
>> right? So, absolutely everywhere, all
the time.
>> No limit, no point in which you go,
that's that's a bit much now.
>> Yeah. If people have the money and time
to do it at the moment, I think it's
just proving the point that you won't
tell us we can't do it.
>> Yeah. at some point they'll get bored,
you know, and it'll go back to normal
just before, you know, the football
tournament and things like that. But I
think it's got to the point where you
said we can't do it and now we're
definitely going to do
>> and there will be some examples of where
people have been told to take them down.
But it's interesting that you're basing
it on your news reports rather than the
evidence of your own eyes and ears
because that is of course what the news
reports are designed to do. I think
you're sort of a bit more right than
perhaps you realize. It is absolutely
designed uh and done in the hope that
people will be told to take it down so
that then people can get cross and
complain. Just briefly on this question
of marking territory, how do you respond
to that analysis? It's a it's a marking
of I think you agree, don't you?
>> Because because this is England,
>> and if you're not English, just suck it
up, snowflake.
It can be seen as as that, but I'd
suggest it's going to be a small flash
in the pan just because people were told
they couldn't do it. They're proving
that they can. And
>> so they are marking that they're marking
their territory. And the message it
sends to people who are not English is
not a very nice message.
>> No, I don't I don't think that's true. I
I think for the people who aren't
English, who maybe don't like it for,
you know, for any number of reasons,
they do live in England and they will
see it. So, you know, sometimes. So at
the moment it's a flash point, you know,
it's a hot topic. So it will go away.
>> I wonder it is tend I mean what happens?
Do they take them down again? How does
it go away? You don't want them taken
down, but you think it's going to go
away as a there's a little mystery um to
to wrestle with as we head towards the
next hiatus. It's definitely going to go
away, but you definitely shouldn't be
allowed to take them down. Riddle me
that.
>> It's 10:48. It's I mean the cultivation
of grievance is probably the only growth
industry in this country today, isn't
it? With well with the exception of that
rather spended10 billion pound deal to
build anti submarine warships for the
Norwegian government. the cultivation of
grievance,
you know, whether it's the the so-called
manosphere, teaching men that women have
got all the power and that women are the
problem and women should be subjugated
or or hated or teaching people that all
their problems are because of foreigners
or because of immigration, the
cultivation of grievance. So, a council
takes down some flags and somehow it
gets translated into an assault upon
your values or even more proof that you
can't say you're English anymore in this
country without getting arrested. I
mean, it's almost always nonsense, but
it's not always nonsense. There are
always little nuggets of truth. I told
you my favorite ever story about
Winterville. I even found the name of
the poor soul who worked for Birmingham
City Council and came up with a really
good money-saving idea when he said to
his colleagues, "Hey, look, there's
loads of festivals around the end of the
year and the beginning of the year, and
at the moment, we we take down the
lights and then we put them up again,
and we got to pay people to do that. Why
don't we just leave the lights up from,
I don't know, the end of October until
the end of January. So, we cover a
couple of religious festivals, Christmas
and New Year's."
And and they did it. But of course they
couldn't call them Christmas lights
because they were up in October and they
couldn't call them New Year's lights
because they were up in in December and
they couldn't so they just called it
winter. It's the winter festivities and
it includes all of these other things.
But of course, by the time it had been
put through the mangle of the right-wing
media, which incredibly was probably not
as bad then as it is now in some ways,
by the time it had been put through the
mangle of of right-wing media, it was an
assault upon Christian values.
I tell you something about the people
who claim that they are defending
Christian values or even the rather hard
to define Judeo-Christian values that
they like to talk about. As soon as a
bishop comes out to condemn racist
policies or racist rhetoric, they
they'll be telling actual Christian
leaders, they'll be telling actual
bishops to keep their beaks out of
politics. Uh, as sure as night follows
day, people who claim they defend
Christian values have absolutely no time
whatsoever for Christian values. Um,
especially when they're espoused by
actual Christian bishops. But they even
they joined in Archbishop of Birmingham.
It was in my old manner. It's where I
grew up. And it was my dad's old paper
that led the line on some of this stuff.
although thankfully it wasn't under his
by line and the Archbishop of Birmingham
was joining in the condemnation of
Birmingham City Council for somehow
undermining or diluting the importance
of Christmas because some poor fella in
the planning department decided to save
a few quid by leaving the lights up for
two or three months instead of taking
them down again and putting them up
again and taking them down again and
putting them up again and getting a bill
from a contractor every time they did.
That's how it happens. So the your man
in um in Hamwell a moment ago is kind of
on the money. It's outrageous. They're
taking down our flags. Why are they
taking down our flags? Well, you're not
really supposed to put them up on road
furniture. You don't own it. You can't
really put flags on things you don't
Well, the Palestinian flags are up there
in quite a lot of trouble some people
are in at the moment for uh supporting
the Palestinian cause in some ways. It's
not exactly double standards. It's just
don't put flags up on things you don't
own. And yet here we are everywhere you
go. Flags to the left of me, flags to
the right of me, flags outside Gregs on
Chisik Iro. Why are they being put up
and how do they make you feel? Ila is in
Islington. Ila, what would you like to
say?
>> Uh, hi James. Uh, it's nice to have you
back on air.
>> Thank you. Nice to be back.
>> So, my neighbors have recently put one
up. Um, they've never put one up before
when England was playing the football,
right?
>> Uh, they've never been very patriotic
before, but all of a sudden they are
right. And I am as me and the other
neighbors are all aware the reasons why
what's feeling that sort of you know
this is our country we putting up our
flag all of these rhetoric. Um, to be
honest, as a black moving woman, it
makes me feel very uncomfortable because
I know why they've done it, right? There
is a tension in the air, not just in my
neighborhood right now because of them,
but also the whole country, like the
whole country is so depressing at this
moment. And I can't help but wonder, you
know, this is nothing about saving the
women, saving the children of the
country. It's, you know, our country's
being invaded. This is actually, if I'm
going to be honest, right,
>> a fear and hatred towards Islam and
anyone that's brown and black, right,
they actually, these people, because
I've done my research on this, feel like
their country's been invaded. They say
things like, "We've got young men of
fighting age. They we've been invaded,
right?" So, it it's like mass hysteria
is going on. They actually believe
they've been invaded by brown black
Muslims that's going to come and take
over this country. It makes no sense at
all.
>> Well, I think there's a name for it,
isn't there? Don't Don't I don't know if
it lands here, but in the States, I
think they call it the great replacement
theory, a conspiracy theory designed,
make sure I get this right, that that
politicians will make sure they stay in
power by filling the country up with
people who weren't born here because
they'll vote for a left-wing party
rather than a right-wing party for
reasons that no one's ever managed to
fully explain. And damn the
demographics. Whatever you do, don't
actually count anything. Don't look at
numbers. Don't don't measure the reality
that you're describing. Just feel the
fear. Feel the fear and feel the anger.
So the flag then becomes
what? A a line of defense. A line in the
sand. We are this and you are that and
never the twain shall meet.
>> Yes. And to be honest again there is a
bit of a jealousy that's actually thrown
in there as well. Right. They come over
here. They've been given hotels, phones,
iPhones, laptops, you know, they get
weekly money. We don't have any of these
things.
>> None of which is true.
>> None of which is true. I mean, I saw an
article on the Daily Mail this morning
that literally said these migrants are
being given brand new uh town houses
while the local population, you know,
are living in um temporary
accommodations. That is not true either.
>> Well, there'll be again there's always a
little carnel of truth in it. If you if
you are, you know, if your family is
here, then you will have options that
someone who's just arrived here from
elsewhere does not have. You you'll have
a roof over your head. You'll have
somewhere you can go. You'll have people
you can stay with. And if you are, you
know, arrived here and your application
has been approved because you were
chased out of Afghanistan by the
Taliban, then you have no other option.
So, councils will have to prioritize one
over the other. But they do so according
to a fixed set of rules that apply
equally to everybody. It's um
in the hands of irresponsible
journalists and politicians, it can look
very different from what it is to
people.
>> Can I just add I work as a counselor and
I work with some of these refugees. Um,
you know, they say, "Where are the
women? Where are the children? Why is it
only young men of fighting age?" That's
not true. There are women. There's a lot
of them and children families. But they
separate the men from the women and the
children, right? These people are
actually fleeing war. And British
people, English people, I'll say they
don't realize how lucky they are to have
the opportunities they have.
>> They don't feel very lucky. They don't
feel very lucky. And also, you know,
fighting age is working age. And and so,
you know, change the record and the
argument becomes the opposite of what it
is when they say fighting. They're not
coming over here to get well, they are
desperate to work. In other countries in
Europe, they're allowed to work while
their applications are processed. And
per capita, more applications than than
we get. Even in Ireland, even Ireland
does more than we do per capita in this
kind of space. But again, nobody
actually knows the facts or knows the
truth. Where do you derive your
certainty that your neighbors want you
to be intimidated by the flag that
they're flying?
>> Why they're flying it all of a sudden?
>> Why now?
>> Exactly. Why all of
>> Could be the Rugby World. Could be the
Women's Rugby World Cup, Laya. Maybe
they're massive women's rugby fans.
>> No, it's not. It's they they've never
put it up in the women's rugby club or
the England football team or any other
time. It's all of a sudden the England
flag has went up. So, you know, again,
right, I'm a Muslim person and I
wouldn't, you know, I I support the
whole Palestinian cause, but I wouldn't
put up the flag outside my door knowing,
you know, that it's going to cause
tension or make other other people feel
uncomfortable. We know what's going on
across the globe. This has become like a
global movement. It's fashion to be
racist at the moment. So, it's about
being aware of your surroundings, of
your neighbors, your community, and not
sort of, you know, putting fuel to the
fire and making everyone feel
uncomfortable around you.
>> Do you know that it is widely believed,
and I know this is a little bit boring
because some clever clogs does it every
single St. George's Day. That it's it's
reckoned that St. George probably grew
up in the area known as Palestine and
was martyed there for his Christian
faith in about 303 AD. So maybe um the
way to get all these flags taken down is
to tell all the people putting them up
that they are demonstrating massive
solidarity with the Palestinian cause
just they haven't got the history to
realize it.
>> I think that would be the way forward.
>> It's 10:58. Stuart in Gates Head.
Stuart, what would you like to say?
>> How are you, James? You all right?
>> I'm grand. What's on your mind?
>> Uh what's on my mind? Why do people put
flags up? I think we've got a very angry
uh disengaged
population.
Um I think we've had about.5% better off
than the crash in 2008.
>> We've had a field in we've had success.
>> I don't know where where does that
number come from? I don't know. I'm not
I'm just interested.
>> It's from it's from the government
manufacturing. It's from the the the the
um the operational manufacturing
strategy that's on the government
website. So in in a specific area of
industrial production and manufacturing
that sounds about right. I mean I can't
think of many big big factories that
have opened recently. Although we've got
the 10 billion pound warship deal to
celebrate
>> and and let's let's celebrate it. But
I'm trying to I'm trying to understand
why people are putting flags up. I sort
of help out at these mans club and stuff
like that and you find that people can't
live that they've had oppressive kind of
uh living kind of a structure to live in
and the media tells them you've got to
have everything to be happy. They
haven't got the money to spend that on
the things that make them happy.
>> But this is true of everybody. This
isn't going to be more true for white
people or English people or brown people
or black people.
>> I think it's a tipping point. I really
do think it's a tipping point.
>> Does it not involve a tipping point?
>> Does Does it not involve a belief that
some of the misfortunes you describe are
the fault of some of the people?
>> No, no, it's just it's just the icing on
the cake. It's the scapegoat. It's
happened all through history. That's
what I mean. It's just it's a scapegoat,
but it's an easy to understand
scapegoat. The average here's another
stat for you. The average reading age,
you probably know this, you're a clever
guy, in this country is 9 9 to 11 years
old.
>> The average reading age of the average
adult.
>> Yeah. 9 to 11. So, if you keep it
simple, keep it keep it not not like
what you were doing, dissecting it with
with intelligence. Keep it simple. You
can get everybody get anybody to do
anything. and come in here to eat your
biscuits and and I'm going to go out and
paint a roundabout. And in a way, your
your portrayal is quite poignant, isn't
it? You I mean, I'm not suggesting
anyone should lie awake at night
worrying about these people necessarily,
but if you are so impotent that you
think
>> painting a painting a roundabout in the
middle of the night is a
>> is a viable and important use of your
time, there's something quite tragic
about that.
>> I would also suggest are you actually
working when you can paint in the middle
of in the middle of the night? Are they
actually contributing to society? Are
you just an angry person looking for
somewhere to vent your anger?
>> Uh, I've just noticed something. I've
got this terrible habit when Irish
people ring me of of lapsing into I
start using the word grand.
>> Yeah, it is a lovely word, but it's not
one you hear often except from the lips
of an Irishman or woman. And I've just
noticed now with your lovely accent,
I've just said I three times. I never
say I. I've never said I in my life.
Right.
I am I am man doing exactly that. Um
I've also got that story just in case
anyone thought I made it up. A reformled
council would you believe has started to
remove flags and bunting displaying the
St. George's Cross and the Union flag
after concerns were raised that they
would cause accidents. So as I said to I
think it was Chris in Hamill, there will
be some examples of this happening.
Durham County Council issued a statement
inevitably perhaps on Elon Musk's
hideous platform on Friday saying that
while the council understand and respect
the community's desire to express
national pride, celebration or
remembrance, it is important to ensure
such expressions do not compromise
public safety. So a a farist outfit, a
reform-ledd council uh left claimed it
had been left with no choice but to
remove bunting. And we took a caller
earlier who who is angry that they're
taking down these things because it is
perceived as some sort of assault upon
their values. They're doing it um in
short
to reduce the likelihood of serious road
traffic accidents.
Damn with that sort of thing.
>> Minutes after 11. I tell you what is
quite interesting. Having a glance at
applicants for Idiots's Corner this
morning. When you explain the reality of
some of these uh provocative stories and
you explain it with the benefit of
knowledge, facts, and understanding,
people get quite cross with you. People
feel that you're taking something away
from them. It's quite I think that's
really interesting. The culture, the the
cultivation of grievance
is I there's a reason why it's a a
lucrative business. It's a a reason why
certain online platforms are full of it
now. People like it. People like being
given something to complain about. I
suppose it's a bit hypocritical for a
radio phone in host to start pointing
out how much people enjoy being angered
or being enraged because it's it's often
what we do. But if you're doing it based
on lies rather than doing it based on
truth, you're playing with fire. I
suppose mostly these people won't be
around to to to see the consequences
when it comes to what happens outside
some of these hotels. You you are
literally playing with fire. Um, but as
ever, the right-wing politicians and
pundits will not be witnessing those
sort of scenes on their streets. I want
to move into completely different
territory now, and I want to return to a
topic I find enduringly fascinating.
It's not a million miles away from what
our friend in Gates Head was saying a
moment ago. Oh, go on then. I'll give
you a quick idiot's corner. Someone
called Matthew's been in touch to say he
wasn't Irish, you clown. So, when I was
explaining to um what was the name of
the lad in Gates Head? I was explaining
to him that when I speak to Irish
callers, um, I sometimes catch myself
saying grand. And then I was talking to
a Jordi. Can I say Jordi if it's Gates
Head? I don't want to start a war. I
caught myself saying I, which is of
course a much more popular phrase in the
Northeast than it is in the rest of the
country. But for Matthew, who's
listening to the same radio program that
you're listening to, um, I was actually
telling Stuart in Gates Head that I
thought he was Irish. Oh, idiots corner.
It's been empty for two weeks, but my
goodness me, there's a a flurry of
applicants this morning. Um, none of
whom I hope will have much to say about
the next story. This comes around a lot
now. In fact, it comes around so often
that we need to get a better grip on it
and the government is trying to. Bridget
Phillipsson, the education secretary,
addressing the um age of anxiety in the
Sunday Times yesterday, a poll showing
that the stress felt particularly by 16
or 17 year olds is
well, it's it's reaching catastrophic
proportions and it's very much of a
piece with another story today about
trying to enhance attendance.
If you miss, and I'm I'm saying this now
because the schools go back this week,
don't they? Judging by the uh bus this
morning, the schools went back this
morning. I hate that. It's the one bad
thing is I can't get a seat on the tube
once the schools have gone back. Anyway,
if you miss a day this week, if you miss
a day in the first week of school, this
was in the newspapers yesterday,
it massively um
increases the likelihood of you missing
quite a lot of school in the in the
coming term or year. And this absolutely
fascinates me. I think of it as a as a
as like a hump that first week. What
parents struggle with is the tension
between
loving support, sometimes even quite
robust support
and creating in the mind of your child
the reality that they don't have to go.
Most of us didn't have that as children
and we were not dealing I know that in
many ways they've got a much better life
than we have got. Um but in other ways
it's much much harder to be a young
person today than it was when we were
young. most obviously social media and
the pandemic, the consequences of which
I don't think we'll fully understand for
generations, if ever. But I I I just I
never know how to explain the difference
because I don't really know what the
difference is. So, here are two children
this morning, right, at 7:00, 7:30 this
morning. Let's let's paint a picture.
All right? And they've got ready for
school.
They didn't have great attendance last
year, but you've had a great summer and
they've got ready for school this
morning
and they want to go and you've talked
about it during the holidays and they
want to go and the clock is ticking
around 8:00 10 8 and they're ready to
go. They're not skyvers.
They're not swinging the lead. They're
not taking a mickey. They want to go to
school. They may even now have a better
understanding of what's at stake than
they did when they were 12 or 13. They
know that if they have poor attendance
as 16 and 17 year olds, then they are
jeopardizing elements of their future,
educational underachievement, um a
higher likelihood of lower life
satisfaction, more likely to feel that
they lack purpose in life. God forbid
they could even end up painting
roundabouts and hanging flags off
lamposts. But that child gets to 8 when
they're supposed to leave the house and
they phone you up cuz you're already at
work or they tell you because you're
still at home that they can't do it. I
can't do it, Mom.
I can't do it, Mom.
And now the other child, which for the
sake of argument we will call James
O'Brien, aged 14. Luckily, I was at
boarding school where it's almost
impossible to play truent, although I
did on occasion manage it. And I just
didn't like it. Particularly if it was,
for example, double maths first thing
and I would do anything to get out of
school. When I was weekly boarding,
which meant that you came home for the
weekend, uh I I I did on occasion make a
bowl full of I hope you're not eating at
the moment. I would I made a bowl on at
least two occasions of fake vomit which
I sort of strew over the kitchen floor
and told my mom I'd been sick. I wasn't
a bad student. I, you know, I'm good at
exams and stuff. I just had levels of
boredom that were almost indescribable
and I was desperate not to go to school.
So I faked an illness.
That's not anxiety, but it is certainly
not a reasonable
cause for not going to school.
And there is a temptation for my
generation, I think there is a
temptation for almost every generation
above the one that we're talking about
to think that they're doing what we
perhaps sometimes did or what our mates
sometimes did, which is to play hookie
or to play truin or to sky school
because it was boring.
And I want you to tell me how to tell
the difference.
Because having lost months of schooling
during COVID lockdowns, having been
exposed to a extraordinary
levels of online pornography, having
endured access to social media that is
unprecedented for our species
and some of the nastiness and and
hideousness that goes along and goes on
on there would would make your hair curl
even if you had 50 years on the clock as
opposed of 15.
33% of girls surveyed said that they
suffered from anxiety. Nearly 70% of
girls said that anxiety had led them to
skip school. I don't like the verb in
this story that the Sunday chimes chose
to but but I don't know which one you
would use. Skip makes it sound like what
I'm describing, right? Skipping school
sounds like like a jolly jape. Sounds
like a you know a wizard we skipping
school. We Let's go scrumping. Shall we
go scrumping for apples? We're skipping
school today. It's not skipping school.
If you and listen, if you struggle with
this, I I do understand actually
because it's sometimes very hard to
recognize how much how different the
world is for somebody who is just guilty
of nothing more than being much younger
than you. But the child who really wants
to go but whose anxiety won't let them.
How do you describe that
and how I mean I mean I don't even know
if this is the time or the place to ask
the question of how on earth you can
help them but
it's a it's an extraordinary piece of
polling
undertaken by an organization called
more in common and it looks particularly
at young women um higher reported levels
of anxiety and mental health problems
worries about body image lower life
satisfaction the kids um because no one
can ever resist the cliche are not in
fact all right. So what I want you to do
now if you can is describe to me the
difference between what you might call a
traditional school skipper
and a young woman or a young boy a young
man. But but the story that we're
focusing on is is more about women.
So we'll lean a little into that. the
difference between a traditional school
skipper and somebody who is too anxious
to go to school. I really want to drill
into that difference, that crucial
difference between somebody cooking up a
plastic bowl full of fake vomit to throw
over the kitchen floor in the hope of
convincing his mom that he's too sick to
go to school or someone, you know, is it
Ferris Buer who held the thermometer
next to the light bulb so that his
temperature went off the charts and he
could get the day off school. Ferris
Buer. I It's a cultural reference not
everybody's going to get, but it's it's
a superb film essentially about three
American teenagers playing truent from
school so they can go off and have a
fantastic adventure in New is it New
York City? I think it's New York City.
Anyway, they can go off and have a
fantastic adventure in the big city. the
difference because you see a headline or
you read a story that says skipping
school, you think Ferris Buler or or you
think, you know, uh just William or you
think I've got to come up with a
slightly more modern reference. You
think naughty boys, naughty girls
skipping school. I don't really want to
talk about those boys and girls today. I
want to talk about the ones that want to
go to school but can't. And it's not
because they've got chickenpox. It's not
because they've got some visible
illness, some condition that marks them
out from the rest of the class as being
unable to go to school today. It's
because of some churning
internal torture
that means they get up and they I feel
so sorry for these kids. I got to tell
you, I feel so sorry for them because
they get up and they they want to go and
already there's the voice in the back of
their head telling them they can't. What
are they so scared of? 034560973.
Is that the question?
What are they so scared of? And
sometimes dads and moms get it wrong.
And they think that what's needed is a
bit of stick, not carrot. Come on. Come
on. You can do this. Come on. You can do
this. And that would be a bit like
urging somebody with two broken legs to
hurry up down the 100 meters track. It's
this massive failure of understanding
from one generation to the next because
we do not know what it's like to have
grown up with lockdowns, pornography,
social media, screen time, stress, body
image. What are they so scared of? It
was Chicago, not New York. About 200
people have texted me. Well, at least
you're paying attention. Hey, hopefully
you're going to provide answers to this
question as well. 034560973
is the number you need. This I this is
not a debate about whether or not the
anxiety is real. All right? There'd be
plenty of radio phonins where you can
ring in and and ignorantly claim that
it's not or that kids these days don't
know they're born. The anxiety is
crippling. It's real and it's keeping
young women in particular away from
school in ways that will impact upon
their futures forever.
And it is anxiety, a catch-all term, a
massive umbrella under which all sorts
of things sit.
So what's the difference between this
anxiety
and the very traditional sense
particularly on a Monday morning like
today that I just don't want to go to
school? I can't. What's the difference
between can't and won't? What's the
difference between can't and don't want
to? All right. And one way to answer
that, I think, I could be wrong, but the
phone lines are open, is this, what what
are they so scared of?
034560973.
I don't know who's best qualified to
answer this. Someone who's been through
it themselves and come out the other
side. Someone who's still in the middle
of it, a parent who's trying to to deal
with it. But what are they so scared of?
these young people who are who are
skipping school on an unprecedented
scale and how best do you describe the
difference between I can't go to school
and oh mom I really don't want to go to
school cuz that's where parents need
help all right it's 11:18
>> minutes after 11 Kirsty puts it best
skipping school was fun anxiety is not
it makes you feel a failure because you
can't get out of the door. And that's
what I want to help people listening
understand that difference between don't
want to and can't. And also, and this
may be an inappropriate question, in
which case someone will tell me fairly
early doors and I'll stop asking it
because this is the language of of my
generation. What are what are they so
scared of? Can you put it into that kind
of language? I don't know. We'll find
out. Amy's in Bridgewwater. Amy, what
>> Hello. Welcome back.
>> Thank you. Uh so my daughter is 13 uh
she was diagnosed with autism over
lockdown. um when she was about 8 as a
consequence of her needs and not being
able to be in a mainstream school she
missed about 4 years of education I went
through all the process that you guys
know around um EHCPS and she's now in a
special specialist provision but she's
been there this would be year nine that
she's going into and we still haven't
been able to get her in full time and
she's got severe anxiety but I think
we've got
>> where does the anxiety stop in the
autism begin. Is it even possible to
know? Cuz there'd be an awful lot of I
mean I don't want to use autism as a
>> um I don't want to discriminate or
distinguish between but but it's easier
to understand I think for people
listening if if autism is in play than
if it isn't. Do you see what I mean?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean I don't know
obviously co-orbidity of autism is is
anxiety in varying degrees. So I don't
know whether you know the two things are
separate or not but I think it's a
combin I think a combination of
>> four years of nest education um trauma
from mainstream and then you know her
needs plays a part in the fact that she
just can't go. But I do wonder if some
of it will be also.
>> Um, she's always had an out because my
default has always been to protect her
mental health.
>> And I used I used to teach
>> Yeah.
>> Sorry. I used to teach kids. So I used
to teach 14 to 16 year old kids that
were on their way of been been excluded
from mainstream school and were either
on their way out or onto a pro and we
were sort of the next shop. Um, and in
my opinion, in my experience, having
worked with with kids like that, there's
always usually there's I mean, you're
going to get a small amount of kids who
just do it for japes. But I think
>> a tiny tiny number and completely unre
for people who don't know, a pru is a is
a pupil referral unit, which is where
children can end up after they've been
excluded from um from mainstream
schooling. Well, this is the
million-dollar question, and I'm I'm
glad that you've kind of nibbled at it
because I would have been reluctant to
ask it otherwise. it it you look back
and and and autism is different from
other issues because of masking and
because of the huge toll and the
exhaustion caused by by the effort
needed to appear
>> quotes normal end quotes um if you had
created you must think this I think
judging by what you just said that that
option was never there for for for a for
a 10 11 12y old that that you know of
course you have to go however hard it
is. But you protect the mental health by
creating that door by by and then and
then neither of us know how often that
door is used
unnecessarily
because it's there.
>> I can't Yes. Yes. And I think I think
probably it's a little bit of both. I
think probably you know she has learned
that but but I caveat that with when she
is in school
>> uh she has kind of lots of therapies
while she's there and she is in a highly
>> anxious state and feeling unsafe even
though she's in the perfect environment
for her. So it's really really tricky.
Um but that said she's a she's a send
pupil. you know, where you've got the
the pupils that I used to teach that
didn't come under the same bracket. They
came under the sort of social,
emotional, mental health bracket of, you
know, behaviors in school led to them
being excluded.
The the the all of them that I taught
had disaffected lives or had come from
disaffected lives. You know, there's
always something underneath it. And I
think unless that's addressed, the
problem escalates and then they end up
just dropping out full stop. they drop
out of education because they they they
never be they're never understood or
their needs underneath it all are never
under fully under you know address and
so on.
>> How how can you do it in words? Can you
can you explain the difference between
can't and don't want to
>> I don't think there is one.
>> Do you not
>> not really generally speaking I don't
>> children like yours and and for probably
a huge number of the girls actually
citing anxiety as a reason why they
haven't been to school. once or twice a
term is is not going to have massive
repercussions. But when you look at the
overall figures, 45 school days lost by
unruly children. And of course, it's
easy to just chalk them up as naughty
kids dragging everybody else down, but
some of them will be dealing with the
kind of issues that can also lead to to
to anxiety and to poor behavior. Um Amy,
thank you. Sarah's in Finchley. Sarah,
what made you pick up the phone?
>> Yeah. Hi. I just wanted to um highlight
um my experience um uh our experience
rather as a family with my daughter
who's now uh going into year 11.
>> Yes.
>> So she started off um school absolutely
fine, no problem at all and then had a
massive falling out. It started with a
social falling out friendship.
>> In year eight halfway through.
>> Huge at that age. It's the only thing
that matters.
>> Yeah. Massive. But also what happened
with her was it just now I think she's
potentially on the spectrum but we
haven't gone down the diagnosis route as
yet cuz she doesn't want to.
>> But um it just cut so deep in her psyche
that I could physically see uh a
reaction when um she had to attend uh
school like in the morning like um not
so far as a panic attack but kind of
going towards that way where you could
see the body language just almost like a
child shrinking physically. and
and a lot of like um I think they call
it stmming um you know when you do
repetitive behavior
>> um just to self soo
>> and she'd never really done that before
um but we had to persevere for a time
because we didn't know what the other
options were so
>> so you had to force her into school you
mean if
>> on some days we couldn't as in on some
days it was just too much
>> what would she do would she would she
like she couldn't go the threshold
>> we would Uh but
>> yeah, but and and on some level she
wanted to go.
>> She knew she needed to. She didn't want
to, but she's quite she's quite in she's
quite academic, so she knew she needed
to for what she wanted.
>> This is the weirdest bit, isn't it, in
terms of parenting is that idea of
>> knowing that this isn't an exercise in
swinging the lead or an exercise in
trying to avoid I haven't done my
homework, I don't want to go in today.
>> Yeah. Nothing like that. But also
knowing that or fearing, shall we say,
that you could be doing something else
or you could be doing something more to
get her out the door, to get her into
the school.
>> Well, I could, but the school were okay
to a point, but I think they just lost
interest when they were worried about
their data. Yeah,
>> I have to say that because I was unhappy
with how it was handled. We moved her to
another school.
>> Didn't work because by then the damage
had already been done, unfortunately,
psychologically.
>> Is this a horrible question to ask,
Sarah? But what what was she so scared
of?
>> Um she was so hypervigilant, James, that
>> um she couldn't just and for um she
couldn't um relax. Now, if you can't
relax for eight hours of the day,
>> so she wouldn't necessarily be able to
put into words what she was frightened
of, but she was frightened of it
happening every minute of every day.
>> Yeah. Yeah. She was just constantly on
edge.
>> Yeah. Hyper vigilance is a is a
>> going to a job interview or something or
you know.
>> Yeah, of course. Of course.
>> Um but there was a happy ending.
>> Good.
>> Um we found a fantastic new model of
schooling which we didn't even know
existed.
>> Um which is an uh it's an online
independent school where we don't teach.
She learns at home. They're now
offstaded.
>> Um but she has her full curriculum,
eight GCSE subjects online and it's
working brilliantly. And there's a
physical community as well.
>> Okay. So she doesn't lose out on that
kind of thing. Can you talk to me a bit
briefly cuz I'm going to be late for the
news, but that's a nice way of
establishing that I'm back from holiday.
>> I bet even James Cleverly hit the news
on time. Um what what difference have
you seen in her?
>> Um she's I realize how she loves
learning and she's really interested in
life
>> and and world views and politics. so
engaged with knowledge. Um but all of
that was u um cut off because of the
anxiety that she was feeling with the
physical school environment. Um and now
this is a little girl who we went to
Oxford last weekend and she's even
thinking this is a possibility.
>> And she didn't even want to go to the
school that's you know half a mile down
the road. Can you believe it? This is a
really really great outcome. And I'm
very I mean we we're with a fortune
position. We have to pay for this
resource
>> of course and not everybody will be able
to but it's a recognition of of of
something shifting in in society itself
and children dealing with what I would
describe as trauma. Um even if you know
there'll be someone in my inbox no doubt
say oh we all had to deal with this kind
of thing when we were young. You pull
your socks up and you you you do this
and you do the other. But it's I mean
and that's why they've ended up um how
they are now. It it because if you don't
deal with it, you do become something
different. You become uh unempathetic
and you become angry and you become
isolated or you all of the things that
you can become. So in order to guard
against that, you look for new roots and
and you've been lucky enough to be able
to find one and afford it. Um, but but
you can't get there unless you've
recognized that this isn't a question
that can be answered with the old
cliches and the old solutions or quai
solutions or non-solutions. It's 11:31.
Dominic Ellis is here with your
headlines.
>> It is 11:34. You're listening to James
O'Brien on LBC. I sometimes worry that
you think I'm exaggerating when I
dissect the psychology of people
possessed of opinions that have been
lifted almost wholesale from a a Daily
Mail column or um even Billy Bunch of
numbers with the bulldog avatar on your
favorite social media platform. But
here's David responding to the uptick,
the extraordinary surge in anxiety that
our young people are experiencing
largely as a consequence of entirely
unprecedented circumstances. most
obviously
uh the COVID lockdowns which broke
something in a lot of children and quite
a lot of grown-ups actually uh and the
access to social media to pornography on
the internet things that nobody of our
age had to deal with but which we just
um left our own children to to deal with
almost unaccompanied. So David gets in
touch to say it's just bad parenting.
School can be daunting and always has
been, but it builds character. Now
parents give in and Molly coddle. So I
find myself wondering, what sort of
character does it build, David? And
luckily I have a little button on my
switchboard that I can click to see the
kind of messages that that people like
David send into the program. And here's
one. Here's an example. Just in case you
thought I was exaggerating when I drew
parallels between kind of people putting
flags up um painting roundabouts and the
kind of people who use words like molly
coddle or decide that when a parent has
a child crippled by anxiety, it's
somehow the parents fault. And lo and
behold, here it is. Labour should use
the hotel situation to ship all asylum
seekers out of the hotels into fenced
off tent villages like Glastonbury with
no leisure facilities or games, no TV,
basically the same as what is in Calala
and they're not allowed out into the so
there it is. I I mean, you know, as if
by magic. Central casting provided me
with the latest entrant for Idiots
Corner. And and that is part of the
problem because the idea that the way we
used to do things was was the right way
to do things is an idea that's
perpetrated by the victims of that
system, the people who have been made
emotionally
uh unavailable. the people who have been
left um devoid of empathy or unable to
to feel humanity towards others in this
case asylum seekers and and it is a
consequence of cruelty and of course the
British public school system is built
upon it. It's something I'm particularly
interested in and and I became even more
interested in during lockdown when I
found myself wondering how on earth
people like David Cameron could say
things like don't you worry about Boris
Johnson. still recover from this
life-threatening virus because I've seen
him play tennis and you realize that's
what we are taught when we go to these
schools and it's not just public schools
obviously um it's what you do molly
coddle molly coddle it's funny isn't it
or not funny uh Ellie is in lamington
spot Ellie what made you pick up the
phone
>> um I was particularly struck by um a
your compassion for the children and
young people who are struggling but also
your wanting to hear from people who had
been through it.
>> Um I've lived and breathed um school
non-attendance with my kids since 2014
when we became fully non-attenders in
primary school. Um and it wasn't part of
the life plan James at all.
>> Um we had um kids who were born with
medical needs. So we were sitting within
the health lens to begin with. And I had
no idea that that would become uh a
special educational need for example in
terms of impacting um overall
development and ability to learn and
socialize. But it did and what we were
met with was a very rapidly changing
education system with new measures
around managing behavior literally
brought in overnight. Attainment levels
raised overnight by two years. So what
was expected of a seven-year-old was
suddenly um backtracked to someone who
was five and you and and and that
happened as well with GTSC content
suddenly being expected um at a much
earlier age and if you spoke to teachers
at the time which is why we've got the
curriculum and assessment review
happening at the moment because we've
radically changed so much of what's
happened and how education is delivered
but in many ways the way that children's
behavior is managed and the way that the
systems respond to children and families
hasn't changed. And I think that's part
of the disconnect at the moment.
>> That that's the sort of old model of
tough love, stiff upper lip, almost
almost whipping a child into school
because if they say they don't want to
go, that's exactly how children have
always behaved and and I got forced, so
they'll jolly well be forced, too.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I I I tried all that. I
you know, I was told to bring my child
in in his pajamas or naked even. That
was that was a suggestion and my child
was told that if I didn't do better then
I would be going to jail. So at the
moment through my work with Square Peg
we're we're calling to decriminalize
school attendance. We don't think that
it should be a criminal offense. Um, we
think that that's out of step and out of
time and out of touch with uh really a
more helpful approach to to school
attendance
>> and and yours is an organization that
speaks directly to all of the issues
that we're covering now and and is an
antidote to the idea that there is there
is blame attached to these behaviors.
That's that's the I mean the more you
talk about it Ellie and you obviously
talk about it more than I do, but the
more you talk about it, the more absurd
it becomes. the the idea that this is a
a lifestyle choice or or something that
children are embracing enthusiastically
and parents are facilitating and
encouraging it makes it turns every
>> either into either a war zone or a sight
of unspeakable sadness.
>> Yeah. And and I think that's what's so
sad. So when people say that children
are just doing it for japes or you know
skipping school is a soft choice. I
think you you you can argue that point
for maybe a couple of months but as we
know time in a child's life is massively
magnified. So you know um waiting for
Christmas takes forever you know so if a
child is out of step with their peers
and is not able to access attend or
remain in school it has massive effects
and they really feel it. They really
really feel it. And to watch my children
crumble from being curious,
appropriately independent,
developmentally on target kids to
literally shrinking and withering away.
We have 77,000 families in our partner
support group um trying to access
support every single day. And
overwhelmingly the problems are beyond
the family's control all the time. you
know, it's it's insecure housing. It's
unaffordable transport. It's having to
share a pair of shoes between three
kids. It's um it's uh not being able to
keep up with um the curriculum and then
being sent to detention because you've
forgotten your protractor. And and there
are schools who are trying to do their
very best despite the pressures on them
as well. But I think we really really
need to think about how we are. What's
the purpose of education? Who are who
are we doing it for?
>> It's Victorian is is is what you're
trying to undo is is more is a Victorian
legacy, isn't it?
>> Yeah. And and and and we you know, our
children are alert and and fully aware
of what is going on. We've got posters
in schools at the moment. The DF's
campaign is that if children miss five
or 10 days off school, their lifetime
earnings are impacted. What are we
doing? What are we doing? So, if a child
has neuroirus for two weeks, they're
then persistently absent. Their family
is receiving letters for non-attendance.
It's rupturing the relationship with the
parents. In whose in whose interest is
this approach? I successfully campaigned
for a support first approach which has
led to government guidance being updated
and moving away from um sanctions but
we've actually seen a 22% increase in
try penalty notices with half a million
issues in the last year.
>> Well, this is this is where you began. I
just want to clarify that. So, so some
so it it is perfectly feasible that some
of the families that are contained
within this polling in the Sunday Times
yesterday, the 33% of girls saying they
suffered from anxiety, the 70% of girls
saying anxiety had caused them to miss
school. They could then be hit with
sanctions. They could their parents
could then be hit with truency notices
which which carry fines.
>> Absolutely. And and a custodial sentence
worst case. Does that ever happen?
Yeah, we've we've Yes, we we we've seen
in um T-side, which is the try capital
of the UK, right, we've heard from
parents who who the matrix the police
matrix team have broken in, arrested mom
in front of her kids, and put her in the
cells overnight. I mean, are we really
serious about breaking down
intergenerational experiences of
services? Well, maybe I need to take
maybe I need to take David out of
idiot's corner because he's just a
victim of a nationwide
>> uh ignorance of something that probably
does date back to the 19th century in a
sense that a child is, you know, to be
seen and not heard, but also that if
they're not going to school, it it is
because they are quote naughty or or or
wrong and that parents are facilitating
that naughtiness and that wrongness and
therefore the police are going to come
around and and Whoa. It's mad, isn't it?
The more you articulate it, the madder
it looks. Yeah, we we've got the
legislation coming through in the
children's well-being and schools bill
that increases the use of school
attendance orders powers for example and
we've already seen a fasttracking in the
use of fines and prosecution. Hampshire
County Council had made 1.5 million in
penalty notices. So it's a real cash
industry.
>> Yes, it's making money. I'd never
thought of it like that. Can you do it?
Can you explain the difference between
can't go and don't want to go? Or do you
feel that's an unhelpful question?
>> Um, I think the difference is is that
the definition of of of mental ill
health is where it affects your
efficacy, your self-efficacy and your
ability to engage in your overall life
just just as any illness was would. Um,
and I think actually what I I didn't
believe that children could become
mentally ill until I watched it happen
in real time like a slow car crash with
both my children, one and then the
other. And once mental ill health has
got the grip of you, it is very very
difficult to rationalize or punish your
way out of it. Because what happens is
is that the body is taking over and
actually um in the same way that you
would feel a threat from from from I
don't know bombs dropping or
>> or a lion whatever it is.
>> No, I mean it's primal, isn't it?
>> Saber-tooth tiger.
>> Exactly. That this is this is the hyper
vigilance the earlier caller was talking
about.
>> Yeah. and it's exhausting and and so
then that has you get into an adrenal
depletion, cortisol overload, um
inflammatory conditions, immunity
impacted and premature morbidity. I mean
that's we know that this happens and
what we're doing is that we're
perpetuating it on an industrial scale
on our children and then we're turning
around saying well I got through it was
good enough for me so you know boo sucks
to anyone else
>> and and of course it has not made us
well-rounded and healthy and empathetic
human beings. It's turned us into people
like the text I read out before you came
on. Um Ellie Costello to give you your
full name, the executive director of
Square Peg, that organization working
very much in this field in case people
want to find out more about the work
that you do. Thank you. And to to to
Ellie's point about the poverty or the
insecure housing role in some of these
stories. Uh the big issue reported last
week about 3 million school children
have experienced hygiene poverty in the
past year with 23 million estimated days
of school learning lost as a
consequence. So this is um also seeing a
68% year-on-year increase in state
school teachers reporting daily
instances of pupils um unable to afford
basic essentials like soap, toothpaste,
or even the ability to wash their
clothes. And I've heard people uh I've
read people with backgrounds like mine,
with jobs like mine display an absolute
inability to believe that. It's
extraordinary when you think about it to
to just presume that these people are
lying or that they spent all their money
on flat screen televisions and tenants
extra larger or or whatever it would be.
This absolute inability to believe that
it's possible to reach the end of the
month and not have enough money left for
basics and and yet there it is. And and
would you want to go to school? If if if
you didn't have soap, if you didn't have
toothpaste, if your clothes hadn't been
washed for a week or two or three, I
don't know. I I'm just saying it's real
and it's all part of this problem and
all part of this process and all
generally filed under um naughty or
taking the mickey or it's all the
parents fault or I blame the mom. It's
11:47. James O'Brien on LBC.
>> It is 10 to 12 and you are listening to
James O'Brien on LBC. Um, extraordinary
really listening to Eddie Costello there
talking about the fact that parents can
still be criminalized, still get a knock
on the door, still get a fine if their
child hasn't gone to school because it
speaks so directly to this sense that
it's somehow a matter of choice. Which
is why for once I got the question right
this morning when I talked about the
to. And I'm guilty of this. I I don't
know how long you've listened to the
show but when I started here I was very
much a product of uh of the UK newspaper
industry. I was a bit lazy um uh in
terms of thinking about things. I was
unsympathetic and I suffered from this
extraordinary
uh what would you call it? Conviction
that if something had happened to me, if
it was good, then
it should happen to everybody and if it
was bad, then it should also happen to
everybody because I'd had to go through
it as well. And that was married to the
idea that it didn't do me any harm. That
that's a kind of Victorian attitude. I
didn't hadn't fully clocked until Ellie
called in that it was institutional as
opposed to individual. But the whole
country is geared towards that idea that
you know a child not going to school is
suspect and so are the parents of that
child. And it's so completely at odds
with the 70 odd thousand families that
she helps. And crucially,
the um the survey in the Sunday Times
yesterday and the lived experience of
millions of families that children just
can't go because anxiety is a a beast
that we do not understand because we
didn't have to go through the trauma
that these young people have been
through. James is in Diss in Norfolk.
James, what would you like to say?
>> Yeah. Hi. Um, so my daughter's 10 now
and um, we moved her school when she was
um, just going into year four,
>> Um, and
I think I'm hoping that we've sort of
nipped it in the bud, but she we noticed
that she started to say, "Oh, I've not
had a very good day at school today."
And um, yeah,
>> when she was in year two.
>> That's young, isn't it?
>> Yeah. And we just said, "Well, that's
just what you know, you have bad days at
school." And neither my my wife and I
neither of us
>> particularly had bad times at school. So
we just said, "Well, that's just what
happened." You know, you just get over
it.
>> Yes. Exactly that. And and that doesn't
make you a bad person. It just makes you
very much a product of your own
experiences. Like there were days when I
didn't want to go to school, darling.
And you know what? There are some days
when I don't want to go to work, but I
have to. So get so get your satchel and
hop it.
>> Yeah. So we did that and then and then
and then we sort of got sort of most of
the way year through year two. And I
think I think um I think some of the
it's quite a small village school sort
of outside of this and I won't name the
village because the school's there but
>> and um and we live next door to the
school. So it was quite a big decision
to
>> go yes
>> oh it's very convenient and then we also
had the twins in reception so to move
them move moving everything.
>> Um um and so at the end of the year year
two we were like it's going to have a
new teacher next year. it'll it'll be
fresh. And we spoke to the school about
it and they just sort of I don't know.
They didn't they just said, "Well, she
seems fine. Like she's doing well at
school and we don't see any issues." And
I said, "Well, this is what she's saying
is happening. She's sort of getting
excluded from games and things at
lunchtimes and break times. Can you not
find something else for her to do?" And
one of my ideas, she really liked the
library. I said, "Well, could could one
or two days a week she be
>> like in charge of the library or some
something just to so she doesn't have to
um cut a long story short, a couple of
you know, we get to the end of year uh
just at the start of year four and she
said, "I just really hate going to
school." And I said, "If you had a
birthday party, would you invite anyone
from your class?" And she said, "No, I
wouldn't invite anyone from my class."
And I
>> It's heartbreaking, isn't it?
>> Yeah, it is. In fact, we really were
upset about it. And so we went to look
at her school in the next village which
was, you know, a good I think the other
thing was we we had it in the back of
our mind that the school she was at was
on paper a good school. So
>> Sure.
>> Um it's not it's just not working.
>> Just wasn't working. And and um a
complete stranger I was talking to about
something and she we were talking about
it and she said, "If you had a job that
you didn't like, would you just keep it
forever?" I said, "Well, no. No." She
said, "Well,
>> if I had any choice at all, like any
choice, I'd do it."
>> Yeah. No new job. So, we So, we went to
look at the other school. We moved her
and and the and the prince as well.
Moved the whole lot. They get on great.
And the first parents evening um a
teacher literally said to us, "We
noticed that um you know, your little
girl is really likes the library, so
we've we've put her in charge of the
library department in our class."
Literally said, "I gave that idea to the
old school." And is she interested?
>> I think I know the answer to this
question. She she's she's visibly
happier. She's measurably
>> 100%. Yeah. 100%. She she she she
you know, she'd have a headache. She'd
have a tummy ache. She'd have this
reason and that reason. And and I think
she
>> my wife works from home, so not
particularly problematic if they have
the old day off sick. And I think she
only probably had one two or three days
off sick from the old school. So nothing
kind of made
>> it would have got worse. It would have
only got worse and then it would have
escalated to to to you know that idea of
it becoming becoming traumatic to go
because things things weren't going what
lovely parenting. Thank you for ringing
in that story James. It's uh not
earthshattering as you acknowledge but
also quite straightforward when you put
it in that kind of language. If you if
you were doing something you hated every
day then um would you and you had the
ability to change it would you change
it? to which the answer would be yes as
opposed to hang on a minute. You'll
jolly well go. You'll jolly well go to
school just like I had to. Uh Phil's in
Leon C with what will probably be the
last word on this. It might be time for
one more afterwards. Let's find out.
Phil, what would you like to say?
>> Um just want to thank Ellie. Right. What
a call
>> for her. Great. Um yeah uh I work in
secondary school second um student
wellbeing manager. Obviously feel very
passionate about the subject. In terms
of can't and don't, I just want to frame
it in terms of a young carer.
>> Yeah. If you're a child and you can't go
to school or you can't come in at a
normal time because you have to help
your parent in the morning,
>> right? Yeah.
>> You you you're you know you're at a
disadvantage unfortunately. Yeah. So
your attendance is affected, your punch
is affected, you know. Um, and the flip
side of the that part of the can't the
following that is the I don't want to
because even when you're in school,
you're feeling anxious about that parent
who's at home who hasn't got you as
their support.
>> So that's just one of course
>> aspect of this attendance anxiety. It's
not all about ADHD and sen, you know,
it's all about
>> personal. Oh,
>> you're right.
>> Yeah. It's just hard to talk about,
mate. Hey,
>> you know.
>> Hey, hey, hey. Of course it is. But it's
important as well. And you're doing a
cracking job. And you're
>> Well, going back into battle tomorrow.
>> Is it first day tomorrow?
>> It takes time.
>> My daughter is starting in my school as
well. So I' got quite a lot going on.
>> You managed to squeeze me in somehow.
It's How much better is it now than than
when you started? I mean, the very fact
that
>> James I've been here 12 years.
>> Yes. Um, anxiety is always going to be
part of the fabric of school.
Unfortunately, it's a pressure cooker
such socially and expectations in terms
of academia. Um, so Ken Robinson, bless
his heart, um, he called it, you know, a
factory and unfortunately too many still
are. We have an amazing provision with
us at the school I work at um called
Elements and
>> we had children last year that were
anxious not able to be in mainstream
they've taken part in that provision and
thankfully they're now you know coming
back into mainstream tomorrow actually
>> which is the priority and and I think
the first thing they do is recognize
that this is what the children want.
It's not that they want to be out of the
>> system. They desperately want to be in
it, but that for for various reasons.
And it's such an important reminder that
sometimes the reasons will be
>> domestic and and you know whether it's
unsafe housing or whether it's a poorly
parent or whether it's caring
responsibilities or hygiene poverty.
These are these lists are endless. Let
alone the absolutely what would you call
it? The the the anxiety that's
impossible to pin down. You know,
everybody's vaguely familiar with the
notion of a churning stomach. Times that
by a million. And you get an inkling of
what some of these kids are feeling
every single day. Well, when they wake
up, but also most pertinently when they
start contemplating the possibility of
doing what they want to do that day and
go to school. And yet, every single
element, I don't think we've ever nailed
this subject quite as successfully as we
have today because every almost every
element of our system is still facing in
the wrong direction.
James O'Brien on LBC.
>> It's 3 minutes after 12. Um, would you
like a little bit of homework? Would you
would you like a challenge? So, I want
to talk about there's two good news
stories today that we're not going to
dedicate a whole hour to because I can't
quite see the way. We're going to take a
guest on this 10 billion pound deal that
has been signed with the Norwegian
government to supply them with
anti-ubmarine warships. It seems really
significant. The more you read into that
story, the more significant it becomes.
But it's not just the safeguarding of
thousands of jobs um until well into the
2030s. It also speaks to a sort of
strengthening of NATO's northern flank
and the idea that this is part of the
recalibration of Western defense caused
largely by the combination of Vladimir
Putin's aggression and his puppet Donald
Trump's acquiescence in the face of that
aggra. Puppet is probably not quite the
right word to use, but anyway, the
changing nature of of of the world. So
we'll get on to that towards the end of
this hour with General Sir Richard
Barrens who co-authored the UK Strategic
Defense Review. The other story is about
the child care costs, but given that
that is only kicking in today, it might
be a little bit too soon to cast an eye
over it. That's your homework. By the
way, how can you come up with an
interesting radio phone in based upon
the roll out to every parent earning
under £100,000 in this country of 30
hours a week of free childare? a couple
of colleagues already pointing out flaws
in it. Um perhaps a slight element of
letting the perfect be the enemy of the
good because it's definitely an
improvement of what went before.
Inevitably the Daily Mails already
trying to find fault with it, find pick
holes in it. Um Bridget Phillipsson was
warned last night that her flagship
childare plans were at risk of collapse
because of Labour's national insurance
uh raid. So again, that wait and see a
big slice of wait and see pie. But when
we are serving up that wait and see pie,
how do you think we should do it? That's
your homework and I shall take all of
your suggestions um very very seriously.
But next, something rather different. In
fact, something that we've never done
before. How
often do we do that? Does anyone
actually keep score? Eleanor, Keith,
anybody? Does anybody keep score? How
often did uh James Cleverly do a topic
last week that we've never done before
on the program? Did he do any brand new
box fresh humdingers straight out that I
bet Lewis Goodle had a couple, didn't
he, up his up his sleeve? But something
that we've never actually done before.