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What are they doing all day?
(upbeat music) - This is LBC from Global, leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien. (upbeat music) - Three minutes after 10 is the time. It hasn't worked in the pie. Now you must get a little bit bored of me, detailing all my failings, but it's probably the Catholic upbringing, isn't it? But you've become like my father, Confessor. I hope you weren't signing up for that when you started tuning in to LBC. But we haven't got it right. And I knew it was important. I knew it was important. It's getting more important. It's still confusing, but we haven't got it right. For some reason, the question, who are they? Or indeed, where are they? Has not produced the responses that we would like. And it usually does in other areas with other subjects. It has previously delivered precisely the sort of results that we were looking for. It's a little bit unnerving, perhaps, for lefties to see words like "crack down" in the headlines regarding the government's approach to long-term illness or benefits in general. But the more you read into the article that Kiyastama wrote this week, and in fact, it was at great pains to say they wouldn't be using words like shirkers. But he had previously pledged, of course, to end the cruel sanctions regime. And now he acknowledges that tough measures will be needed to prevent the bloated benefits budgets spiraling out of control. He said he would never call people shirkers or go down the road of division. But we will crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system. I don't know where to start on this. Because nobody, literally nobody, thinks people that are gaming even, the system, should be protected or shouldn't be pursued or shouldn't have whatever money they're receiving that they're not properly entitled to, taken away. Nobody does that. But I can tell you that immediately headlines like this or stories like this appear, disabled people, who in some ways already have a tougher time of it than others, start panicking. People who's a physical condition, whether permanent or temporary, prevents them from taking up jobs or seeking jobs or doing the only kind of jobs that are available, they start panicking. Because, I mean, regardless, as I call her at the end of next show, who's got a Bulgarian partner, regardless of the fact that in some countries, the benefits system may be even less generous than it is here, compared to comparable countries, i.e. countries with similar economies or GDPs, it's really poor what we do to people who are unemployed. And some people receive 80% of what their salary was for the first six months, because the job is to make sure they can retain their dignity and their livelihood while returning themselves to the workplace. I think it's a, is it a post-fatcher thing? It's quite nice, as you get older, to realize that you're still not old enough to say some things with complete confidence. Was it during Thatcher's period in charge that unemployment became demonized? It kind of had to be, didn't it? Because it got so high that if they were going to take the blame for it, it could have been politically catastrophic. So if you can blame unemployment on the unemployed, then you sort of knit yourself a bit of an escape route out of political responsibility for something. But I know there's always been shame attached to unemployment, but I don't think it would have been unheard of for politicians to suggest that the system is there to help people who need help when they need help, and therefore it is almost always a good thing. But over the course of my 20 years in this job, I have witnessed a sea, well, not even a sea change in public opinion, like in almost every area of public discourse. The people who don't like thinking have kind of stolen the stage from the people who do, for the timeless reasons. The most obvious explanation of which, of course, is my old adage about the queue for the speed your weight machine being a hell of a lot shorter than the queue for the ghost machine. People like being enraged. They like being emotionally provoked. They like being rendered fearful. And they certainly like seeing someone paint a target on the back of A and other, and then invite people to start lobbing abuse and worse at them. If it's managed to propel that impulse, Donald Trump all the way to a second term in the White House, of course. But we don't know what the sanctions would look like. We do know that Liz Kendall is going to demand that town halls draw up, get Britain working plans to help reduce the benefits bill by collaborating with the NHS and local charities. And this is another thing that I find really tricky, because the headlines, to give the Daily Telegraph credit, they report this responsibly today. But the mail, of course, refuse jobs and will cut your benefits. Minister Tells Young in Crackdown. It's a headline and it only makes page 14. So if Labour are trying to curry favour with the rabid right wing by even flirting with these sort of ideas, I'm afraid it's not going to cut the mustard. It's not going to touch the sides of their efforts to protect wealth and to protect inequality and to protect privilege. But you don't know, do you? By the time the story has been put through the mangle of much media coverage, it's become a crackdown on benefits rather than, as Liz Kendall tried to explain yesterday, rather than an attempt to help people back into work in collaboration with the NHS and local charities. But there is a warning and the warning is this. Young people will lose their benefits if they repeatedly refuse to take work. There's no more detail than that. All she said was if people repeatedly refuse to take up the training or work responsibilities, there will be sanctions on their benefits. And it's a world about which we know nothing. It's a world about which we know nothing unless you're in it, which is why I've tried now three, is it four times, to find people who are in that world? If we say loosely 18 to 24 or older or their parents or their friends, their family and what is it that you do? I mean, is it that you are too ill to work? Another politician this weekend speaking about the self-diagnosis of mental health problems. Again, depending on how you write the headline, the story can mean two completely different things. Say Minister, Liz Kendall, welcoming self-diagnosis because it means the stigma of mental health is in many ways being diluted. But at the same time saying that we need, if you like, to help people in those sort of places back into work. And so there's half stick, it's 52% stick, 48% carer, isn't it? We'll take your benefits away if you keep refusing work, but we also recognize that there's a mental health pandemic almost in this country and people really will need help in dealing with it. I just, do you see what I mean? So who can answer these questions? Who can help us with this? A politician seemed to be trying to play to two very different galleries, one of which is responsible and evidence-based, one of which is emotional and potentially divisive. Are there all what factors, workshye, layabouts? Of all the things that took me by surprise when I started doing this job, I think it was the ease with which we can be turned against each other. I know I talked to you about this a lot, but it typifies sadly so much of our media that it's always worthy of repetition, the ease with which we can be turned against each other. Because if you think it's easy to turn someone against a nurse or a train driver, imagine how easy it is to turn someone against a neighbour who doesn't go to work, who has got an invisible condition, but who of course by the time it's been through, the local rumour mill is, I don't know, spending his weekends in Ibiza and living a much better life than all of the people who actually drag their sorry carcasses to work every morning. So how do we do this? I really mean it. DWP has looked into what you do if you haven't got a job, less than a third of people would even go to the job centre these days. Less than half would trust the DWP to help them reach their full career of potential. Very few employers want to engage with job centre plus, very few use it to recruit staff. So where are these young people? And how would they be helped? Can we, should we try again? What is it that Einstein didn't say about the definition of insanity? It's repeating the same thing over and over again an expectation of a different result. That's not what I do. I always think I can slightly recalibrate the question. I always think if I don't get the response that I'm looking for, which happens in about one every hundred topics that we do, I always think it's my fault. And it means I haven't got the question quite right. So what interests me is what these young people do all day. Perhaps that's the wrong question, perhaps that's not the way into this. I've got my well-prepared anecdotes, friends of mine who are employers, talking about young people who seem to have a very strange relationship with the concept of work. But how many times have we told each other that the plural of anecdote is not data. So the young woman who told my hairdresser friend that she wouldn't be able to guarantee that she could come to work every day because her neighbours had just got a new cat and she might be required to look after it at short notice. True story, hashtag true story. That can't be representative of an entire generation. Can it? That can't be representative of 200,000 young people. The question remains what has happened to this relationship between work and workforce. I, again, I don't think naivety is helpful, but you can't conclude we've spoken to young people who wanted to work but couldn't find jobs. You've got the problem of unreliable health. So you might be fine on a Monday, but you actually won't be able to do the job on a Thursday. And you can't expect, I don't think you can, correct me if I'm wrong, you can't expect employers who are operating on relatively tight budgets to be able to absorb the impact of somebody who can't guarantee that they'll be coming to work almost every day. As you know, if absenteeism is habitual, even if it's medically justified, it's something the state should be taking up the slack of not the individual employer. I just feel and have felt for some time now, and I know you have as well, that this is a huge issue. 400,000 people face cuts to their benefits. Potentially, a big, big proportion of them, very young. The hideous rhetoric of accusing people of making up mental health conditions or exaggerating them is always nibbling at the edges of this issue. However responsible and however well-meaning you are, that specter appears immediately. You've still got old men in this country who insist that there's no such thing as ADHD or OCD, or there's no such thing as depression. You just have to pull your socks up and toughen up. They are the old men who in previous generations saw military, saw soldiers crippled by post-traumatic stress disorder, or shell shock as it was called, then be shot for desertion and treachery by firing squads. They are the same men, just different ages. The people who refuse to accept the reality of mental illness on the part of others. But, but, but, but, but, this is a huge number. And whether you think they need hardship or help, whether you think they need carrot or stick, we can all agree that something must be done. The first thing you've got to do is find them. How do we do that? What, what are these hundreds of thousands of young people doing? 4.2 million working aged people. So that goes right the way up to retirement, claiming health-related benefits. But everywhere I go, I see people who are unhealthy. You know, whether physically or mentally. That we are not a well people. We eat rubbish, we drink too much. Smoking has not been vanquished on anything like the level we thought it had. If you look at some of the cancer figures today, we live in polluted towns. We don't do any exercise. We are not a healthy population. And, and the impacts of that are huge, up to and including, not being able to go to work. So how does waking them up in a bit, shouting at them through the bedroom window? That's not going to propel, is it? I don't know. And then you've got the other point. There's so much here. Maybe that's been the problem over the, over the last few months. There's just so much to do here. So many possible answers to the question. So, you know, Joe Blame's video games. Children are up all night playing video games, which is, you know, that may well be your experience. Other people point out that the relationship between the workplace, what you get, there's no dignity in work anymore. You're a young person and you're looking at what's on offer. And you might as well carry on living a kind of subsistence existence while staying at home. But what happens when you're 30? What happens when you're 40? I'm asking you so many questions this morning that obviously you're welcome to answer any or none of them. If you think you've got something to add to this conversation, about hundreds of thousands of young people who are not working or training. And what on earth we, from a place of love and concern, what on earth we can do about it? Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three, 'cause that's the challenge, isn't it? I guess so. Sometimes when I'm tired, and I tend not to be tired on Mondays, but sometimes when I'm tired, I think God, it must be so nice to do this the old fashioned way. I just, you give me a ring. Tell me about your neighbor's window cleaner son's former partner who signs on and lives in a massive mansion in Knightsbridge. Give me a ring and talk to me about how many flat screen TVs the fella over the road who hasn't worked since 1964 as God. Give me a ring and tell me about your mate's son who hasn't left his bedroom in six years because he's absolutely addicted to Grand Thefto. It must be so, oh, Matt, you're not gonna come off air tired, are you? If you're going down that mode of conversation, but neither are any of us gonna learn anything about the important things. Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three. Is the number you need to tell me, where are these young people? Why are they not working or training? And what can we do about it? Seriously, because you take my benefits away and I can't find a job, what have you done to me? That's what happens when you go in for the unthinking knee-jerk reactions. Well, get a job, I can't find a job, there's not a job. I'm not well enough to work, even if you don't believe me. I'm really not, and the only way I can prove that to you is by having my benefits taken away and still not going out to find a job because I can't do it. As you see, it's so nuanced, so complicated and yet, I can't get rid of this sense. She's the sense that brings me into this studio every morning that there is somewhere a key, a rosetta stoner, a skeleton key with which we could unlock parts of this confusion, parts of this story. 'Cause I'll tell you something for nothing. We're never gonna unlock all of it because there are going to be thousands of different answers to the questions that I've asked you. But if we can find a theme, find a sense of something substantive that holds, then that would help. I can't do it. I'd lean towards this text from Leslie and I feel the social contract is broken, James. I think it probably is. But where does that leave this specific cohort of young people? Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three is the number you need. It's 10, 19. James O'Brien on LBC, call oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three. It's 21 minutes after 10. This is from Blake. My daughter is 19. She's finished college and is completely economically inactive. She doesn't play video games. We've tried so hard with her, but I honestly think she's seen the way mine and her mum's wages have stagnated and she barely sees the point. You don't mention whether or not she is in receipt of any payments, any welfare payments. And this might be part of it from Joe. People that are not part of the statistics doing cash in hand or they might be on eBay and vinted and running little businesses like that. And of course, statistically, they're not in work. Again, you'd need to know whether they are also claiming a benefit on the side because that would be something in need of a quote, clamp down or crack down. And then the other thing you do, sorry to go on about this, but I think it's so important. Kieran and Gina are up first. Harriet, I know you can't get through at the moment, but you do sound super qualified to contribute to this conversation. So keep trying. It would make it a bit easier, wouldn't it, if I shut up for a minute, took some calls, freed up a phone line, and then Harriet could get through. But there's one other thing I want to say. Before you do the lazy stuff, all right? Before you do the, oh, they're in bed all day, or you're doing this one too early, James, they'll all be asleep. Just imagine it was you, all right? Just imagine it was you. Why would you, what would it take for you to have been put into this situation? Stop thinking about people as alien. Think about your own personal experience. That's why I find it so baffling. And that's why I lean immediately for empathy. Because the advantages, the attraction of getting out there and earning a crust, when I was a kid, was enormous. But it's not anymore for the, for so many young people, and I want to know why. Which is why phrases like the social contract is broken. I'm gonna play a part in this discussion. Right, let's go. Karen's an arandal. Karen, what would you like to say? - Yeah, no, I think it's just difficult at the moment for young people. 'Cause I think this generation suffered a lot of in education. - A lot of what? - Education, I think there was a lot of difficult. - A lot of disruption during the lockdown and things. Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it as well. And there's mental health impacts, not just educational impacts. - Yeah, I think as well, like you said as well, and I agree, a lot of young people are leaning into stuff like vintage, eBay, freelancing and stuff like that. It's really, really big at the moment. It's a booming market. I don't think this young people aren't in work. I think it's just a lot of these employers at the moment. It's such a difficult time with the budget coming out. And stuff like that. And it's also a bit of a funny comment. - It goes back a long, long, long before the latest budget announcement. We're talking about people age 16 to 24. So the 24-year-olds would have been eight, but yeah, you're right. It may have exacerbated the situation, although I'm not so sure about that. It is the thing then. Well, tell me about yourself first. How old are you? You sounded young. - You sounded young. - I'm 18. - You're in work? - Yeah, I'm in work. So I immediately went out of education. I didn't have any GCSEs and I got my first job. So it's there. And I think it's just difficult for a lot of young people because, I mean, you're up against a lot of other people who have a lot of experience. There's a lot of people looking for work in general. And it always has been like that. But I think there's just, I think there sometimes is a lack of grit there and a lack of determination at times from some people. But there are genuinely people, young people out there who have that grit and determination and are willing to fit in the hard work. I think it's just about giving them that opportunity. - It's always been true, you see. I'm trying to find something that's different today from what was true then. So how many of your friends do nothing? - And I wouldn't say any of them. They're either encouraging. - This is what happens every week. Every time we do this topic, we can't find the young people who are actually doing nothing. - I just don't think that there is. I really don't think that there are-- - It can nomically enact it. Well, I mean, you know, we're jumping around a bit. Either there's an absence of grit that explains their existence or they don't exist. I don't think we can have it both ways. And when you talked about the educational impact, Karen, how did that affect you? - It makes it difficult, but I wouldn't say it's made it impossible. - No, I meant that as a person, how has it affected your health or your kind of-- - Oh, well, during coming out of the pandemic, I had very, very bad anxiety. But I don't think that had to stop me from working. - No, but then-- - That's old. - You know, obviously not as bad as the anxiety. Suffered by people who can't work. And shouting grit at them, possibly, wouldn't be the best way forward. Gina's in Scunfield. Gina, what would you like to say? - Hi, Jane, brilliant, brilliant programs you run. You really do. So, yeah, great fan here. I'm not going to shout at you anything today, so-- - Well, I might tell you that as a challenge. I thought I could make you shout out to know. Anyway, I'm more interested in what you got to say about this, help me out. - I wanna shout. So, I work without kind of going into it too much, but I work with the DWP. I'm an employability coach. And I'll be honest with you, I've kind of only just got into this. - Yeah. - As a bit of a curveball into my career. You know, prior to this, I'd run companies, employed people, had that kind of point of view, what, you know, like seriously, what you're doing with your life, you know, wobble your head, get back in the game, do it. You know, all those cliches, you know. And then I started working with cohorts of over 50s. - Right. - And over 25s. So, it really opened my eyes, I think, to a whole side that I just don't think has been addressed in any way, shape or form. Now, your previous caller, you know, I'm fantastic. It's great. It's great to sound that he's in a good place, his friends are in a good place. But I'm telling you now, I don't see those young people. - This story's not about them, is it? - No. No. I see young people with mental health issues. Let's get that out of the way. You know, and everybody goes, oh God, not that. - No, they don't though, well, at least they shouldn't. It's just, I guess, the invitation to be critical and negative is a bit louder than the invitation to be empathetic and helpful. But if you actually want to improve the situation, then the worst thing you can do in response to mental health issues is go, oh, go, fluke, no. Because then nothing ever gets done. Nothing ever changes. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, but I do think that is unfortunately an epidemic in this country. We are very, very hard. We don't really wish people well, let's be honest. And I think that culture comes from he's getting this for nothing and I'm having to work for it. - Yeah. - So, you know, and so all the time you're up against that in terms of a barrier of getting people past that line. And instead of saying, what do we need to really deal with this, to really sort this out? They're constantly critical. And, unfortunately, that's just the divide and conquer situation that we have. - Well, that makes it worse, doesn't it? If you, I mean, you know, how do you tell the difference between somebody who could, as we've all been there, who could step up a bit more if they had the right encouragement, you know? And sometimes that encouragement would be robust. And the person who really at this point can't and would love to, but can't. How do you tell the difference? - It really, well, for me, it starts with an initial kind of one-to-one meeting with them. And when you actually sit there, I never talk about you've got to get a job because that's obviously, that's the last thing. - Remember, yeah. - Before we even get to that point, we've got about 10 blockers before we would get to that. So, it's about finding out what those blockers are. You know, is it a case that actually, you know, it's all like saying something needs to go and get a job, but when they're on a really low income and they can barely feed themselves, they can barely buy clothes for interviews, they can barely present themselves, they've got, you know, self hygiene issues, they've got, there's a whole raft of things in place that need to be kind of brought down, address, helped with before you can even get them into an interview. - But that is further down the line. I'll tell you how many weeks I get to try and turn somebody around at the moment, eight weeks. - To deal with these obstacles that you describe, and that might work with some people, but they've had eight years, in some cases, to get into the hole that they're in, the idea that you're gonna get them out of it in eight weeks. And then now the threat, that if you don't do this or you don't do that, will take away the relative pittance that you live on, is, I mean, if you were suffering from anxiety or similar, I don't know that that's gonna help either. This is, well, it's worked today, finally, thank you. The idea that there's some sort of magic bullet solution to this is at once absolutely irresistible and extraordinarily, I say naive, but certainly optimistic. Gina, thank you, and that means you need a load of people doing what she does, mentors. - DWP contractors who are literally in the business of helping people get into work, which is why I read you the statistic about the levels of faith and engagement with the DWP, 'cause, hey, spoiler alert, they're really, really low. - This is LBC with James O'Brien, call 03456060973, taxed 8480, Alexa. Send a comment to LBC. - 1034 is the time. - This is the experience or the life being lived that I think is overlooked by everybody. What we're trying to do and failing in the past to do is to pin down how widespread it is. But this is from a dad, listen to this. This is really interesting. My son graduated four years ago as a theatre practitioner and working for the NHS. He was working full-time hours and taking home the first two years, a decent and above average wage. Over the last two years, he's cut a third of his hours and is now working only Tuesdays and Wednesdays morning shifts. He's cut his hours because he said he wanted a work-life balance. He doesn't own a car. He goes to the gym, he goes for a walk every day, even after his shifts. He often has a nap in the afternoon and he eats all his meals at home. He saved almost 50,000 pounds in his first four years of work, which would be enough to get a deposit on his first place, but he has no intention of doing so. And as he's now earning much less, he doesn't have any transportation expenses or pay requirements to repay his student loan. My wife and I on the contrary have full-time roles. At the beginning, I was against this, but now I fully support him because I see that he is much happier. That is the trickiest nut to crack. So we come from a position of either pity or condemnation, right? You're either doing what I am minded to do because I'm a softy, is to go, "Crikey, this must be terrible for these people." They can't get into the workplace or they don't see a way in, or you come at it from a position of being unpleasant, which is crack the wet, lazy so-and-so's, we're back in my day, yada, yada, yada. The truth has always probably lies somewhere between the two stools. But it's the second attitude that's bad for your blood pressure, not the first. But what if this is actually much more significant social change, which is why I keep coming back to the question of what do they do all day? And there's your answer. Well, there's one answer. They actually look after themselves. They have enough to live on. So they work to live. They don't live to work. And maybe my generation will never be able to understand that. Sam's in Sleefford. Sam, what would you like to say? - Good morning, James. - Good morning. - Thank you for having me on today. - Very well. - Thank you. I just wanted to come at it from a slightly different point of view. I was born with cystic fibrosis. And so it's chronic illness that gets worse over time. And I've constantly had to battle all the way through sort of the benefit systems to even get sort of the bare minimum, as entitlement despite sort of the difficulties that it compromises my immune system. And the requirement I have to take sort of, wow, I take about 15 tablets a day and still I'm not exempt from prescriptions. So I just wanted to sort of look, I just wanted to kind of bring to this sort of plate. Maybe, I think I find a lot of the rhetoric used in a lot of these conversations that are quite scary have been known how difficult it is sometimes to get sort of, as I say, the absolute bare minimum to be able to just subsidize when you've had time off work or things like that. Yes, and even if you're not necessarily in the firing line yourself and you perhaps will be, we don't know for sure that the idea, the problem of talking about this group as if it's a homogenous block and everybody's in the same boat doing the same thing for the same reasons is profoundly unhelpful, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. And I mean, especially since we've had sort of a COVID period as well, and sadly for me, I did catch COVID despite being high risk and it's affected me to be long COVID. So I am no longer in the position to be able to work. Could you work with help? Could you work with an understanding employer and a tailored schedule and health concerns being prioritized or is that off the table completely? Because that is, well, you answer the question first. Yeah, it's a very, it's a very fine balance to have change really. Because I have, well, I worked up until about a year, about a year and a half ago when my conditions obviously got worse because of the consequences of the illness. But if I was in to go in to work, the difficulty that I've had with things is A, the amount of time that I do have off because of these compromised immune systems and things. But B, also it's a real fine balance to get all the medications and things that I need to do on a basic level to just keep sustained health, even when I was working, that was a difficulty. So it becomes difficult for the employer because it then means from their point of view, they're either going to have to take somebody on that may be good at their job when they arrive, but not necessarily as reliable as somebody with the full health. And working from home, be of use to you? Or would that not help mitigate what you guys find? It has been something I've tried, James, and I have applied for things, the difficulty that with that the risk of sounding awfully, it kind of becomes to the point where the ability to actually be productive for the workforce can be even a challenge. So it's not just necessarily the physical aspects, but the mental aspects of having the changes to health. I am a father as well. So at the minute, once I've achieved managing to take my children on the school run, to be honest, if I achieve anything else in the day, I've done super well. My wife is very much responsible for sort of looking after meals and really the majority of care for the children. So it's also the fact, the guilt impact that it has, that you see everybody that looks like. Yeah, it's very difficult to say that the thing that you brought up earlier about the invisible illness is really, really key to a lot of this. I have had people make comments before and in the same boat as saying, well, there's clearly nothing wrong with this guy yet. By the time I've walked to the end of the street, I'm absolutely shattered and having to rest and it's taken me probably 20 minutes to get there, you know? I do. Well, I know because you're telling me. And one more thing you must tell me, if you can, is how headlines like this make you feel. I mean, these are not male stride type headlines. No one is being accused of making stuff up or of swinging the lead, but you are under the, you get filed under can't, not won't. How does the DWP tell the difference? Yeah, and I think, to me, I think the main way that they need to look at this is the way that they assess it along with medical help. I know, for example, for the cystic fibrosis specifically, that the CF trust, for example, have gone to the table numerous times to present things. And I think the last time that they actually assessed anything that made any manger change for support for cystic fibrosis itself was about 1978, I think. You should at least be getting your prescriptions, shouldn't you? Really? I'm not an amazing person. I'd get your prescriptions for free. I would have thought so, because it would have been nice, but equally, it's something, again, as a SAS, we do miss out on, but sadly, without those drugs, you could give it probably a couple of months, and I wouldn't be here, so. I don't say that. My thing would be, I think, that there needs to be a sort of re-evaluation of the whole sort of process, to be more unified and have an understanding, but I also appreciate that with the amount of time, probably this government may have, it's going to take an awful lot of time to replenish, to get it. Well, it is, and to turn, I mean, I always talk about the welfare state as a safety net, and some people need it to be there to catch them, and people like you need to be in it for a long time. And of course, decades of right-wing political posturing means that they remove the safety net, because they convince people that it's full of Malingurus and full of liars, and then what happens to the people who need it is a question that people like you would be asking yourself on a daily basis. Andy describes it well. He writes, "It's the stocks, James. "Give people someone to throw stuff out, and they'll do it, "rather than looking at the people at the top "who put them in the stocks in the first place." This keeps people honest in quotes to the system, committed to the status quo. Nobody wants to be in those stocks, and it's nice to feel morally superior, even financially superior to the people who are. Thatcher's competitive society means that compassion isn't due, and there was another one. Well, that actually, Sam speaks for quite a lot of people. Rob's been in touch, so this man is speaking for me. Managing life with a chronic condition is difficult enough without running yourself into the ground, further maintaining employment, but this was interesting as well. As an ex-supermarket manager, it used to dismay me that staffing levels continually dropped for cost-cutting reasons. The only jobs we ever offered were part-time 15 hours a week with 6 a.m. starts. Why would you bother? The company was also crying out for managers, but no new blood enters. I think this is a bigger part of it than we realize. The pairing down of pay. There was another text that I've lost, which was brilliant, saying, "I know in my kid's case, they just look at us. "They look at Mum and Dad and think, what's the point?" And that's where my bafflement kicks in, because the difference between doing something and not doing something, from my generation, was really big, I don't want to sound like in my day, theitis has kicked in yet or start banging on about the good old days, but if the difference between survival and what's like two notches up from survival, a pleasant lifestyle, materially speaking, you're not going to make that leap by getting a job, then your muddle along in survival mode, won't you? Your muddle along in survival mode. The gap isn't big enough, the leap isn't big enough. I'd also remind you that in Scotland prescriptions are free, John and Edinburgh outraged by Sam's experience as all people should be. James O'Brien on LBC, listen on your smart speaker, just say, "Play LBC." It's 1048, if at first you don't succeed, try and try again, and finally, it's bearing fruit, this attempt to understand the differences between the younger generations, relationship with work and our generation, and this has to be part of it. Mary Knoxford puts it better than I managed to. She writes, "I think the main problem is lack of incentive. "So many well-paid industrial or traditional jobs have gone. "There are many low-skilled and low-paid jobs "that offer few prospects and are only marginally better paid "than benefits for a young woman with childcare costs. "It's pointless, the balance has shifted, "and the type of fulfilling work has polarised." So how about a policy, well, they've tried that, haven't they? They are putting wages up. That would be one obvious way to address that part of the population, or that part of the problem. But then you are reminded that putting wages up and putting national insurance up has got all the employers reaching for the fire alarms and pleading penury and poverty and claiming that they're going to have to stop hiring people, because they can't afford to operate with a marginal increase in national insurance. 1049 is the time. Saba is in Islington. Saba, what made you pick up the phone? Yeah, so I just wanted to start by saying that I qualified to work in children's mental health with the NHS. So I've been working since 16 different jobs, but I'd qualified and I'd left for my physical health reasons. And now I find myself struggling to get back in. So I've got undergrad and masters as well as my training. And I find that my interview experiences, so I'm trying, I'm looking every day. And again, sometimes I'm told there's someone more qualified than you, and I just find the job market right now really, really difficult. And there's a lot of graduates that have graduated with brilliant degrees and whatnot. And they're just struggling to get their foot in the door with whatever company it is and get their experience. I'm someone that I don't believe in taking any form of benefits because when I'm young, I'm able to actively look for work, which I'm doing. But again, I believe there's other people that need it more than me. So what do you live on? So I've got a bit of savings from my qualified role, but that's just getting me through. And when that runs out, what do you do? Again, so I'm looking, I'm considering training into something else, maybe a social worker, but I'm really passionate about this because this is literally my situation for the past, what, three, four months when I had to leave for my physical health reasons. Can I ask what was wrong? Or would that be rude? Yeah, no, it's not wrong at all. I just got really sick and I had to get hospitalized and I was on medicines, IV drip, everything. OK, well, no, don't worry, I didn't mean to pry. So it's a complicated situation that you'd describe. And there's not one simple solution to this, but it being much harder to get back into work than people shouting from the sidelines that people are, "You should be working," is not helpful. I mean, it doesn't work like that. It's definitely challenging as well. I will say, like I've actively reached out to my council, they're trying to help me get into work, get me into your prep ready, everything. And there's brilliant charities that do support people with helping, if there are financial difficulties around interview clothes and prep, I don't know if I'm able to name drop, but they're brilliant and they help you with interview prepping as well. Oh, that's good. And how much of this, and again, I don't want to pry, but is there a worry that your illness might make you a less reliable hire than people who haven't had to take time off work with their health, or not? Yeah, I do find, if employers, when I'm going for interviews, if they ask about this gap in employment, I struggle to know what to say and you're like, "Oh, I don't want to be discriminated against," and say, "Oh, I've got this condition," or, "This is something that's occurred in this gap." And you just leave it down to ambiguity and say, "You know what, it's personal reason." No, and that's tricky as well. And that is going to make you distinguish you from the person who's got no gaps in their CV. And it's not fair, but it is just how things are. So 23 years old, I think, and very, very keen to get back into a complicated situation. Not easy to achieve. And yet, how did these sort of, well, I mean, to be fair to labor, they are talking about putting things in place that would help address the complicated situations. We just happen to live in a country where they can dilute that detail down to a provocative headline that will frighten many of the people listening to the programme today. 1052 is the time. Harriet is in summary on Thames. Harriet, what made you pick up the phone? - Hello, James. You know, I've nearly called you on this about, so many times, it's going to take a deep breath. I work for a charity that works with young people, 18 to 25, 16 to 25 to get them into work. - Right, Bingo. - I also was, and I also was a young person, not in worker education myself once upon a time. - Okay. - So I've been coming this from various angles. I also work in HR, so I am responsible for giving people jobs, and I have ADHD, so maybe that's all of the films together. But I think one of the main issues is the social contract is gone. It's work hard, work hard, work hard. You will see the repercussions of it through salary, whatever, and it just doesn't come. I turned 21 in 2008. My entire adult life has been post-financial crash. - Yes. - I just bought a house at 36, well done, and cloud through that. The young people I see coming on our program are, they just don't see that there's anything for them in the world. They don't see that there is a epidemic of anxiety and depression, I truly believe it. We have young people who have been in their bedrooms playing video games for two or three years until they find out that they are there. They are at home literally crippled, and they don't know what to do, they don't know how to write this video game out. - And they don't want to be in that situation. - No, they don't want to be in that situation. - Again, we use the video game trope as shorthand for people who are lazy, but these are people who can't really do anything else, and their parents have given up, their parents have despaired, they've tried everything. The young people would much rather be living a fulfilling life, but they can't do it. They just can't break that cycle until they're lucky enough to come across organisations like yours. - Yeah, pretty much. We have, it's a six-week coaching programme. You might have done coaching, sort of business coaching, life coaching. It's that, it's a lot around mindset, the mindset you need to get into work to have that resilience and capacity, as well as receiving right to that kind of thing. We do a sort of celebration at the end of that six weeks, and parents will come and cry on our coaches and say, they haven't left their room in three years, and now they're here standing on stage. We are small, we are small, and we're trying to grow and do more, but I see it from both sides. Like, I went to university at 24 the last year before the fees went up, and I was on my own. I've been mentally ill for a long time trying to do that. I felt like I could get there, and then I see the young people now. What does it mean to try and go to university at 24 now? - Yeah. - The whole thing is just- - We've taken away, we've taken away the things to aim for. We haven't, but they've disappeared, so another tree owner writes, when you're young, when we were young, you worked to better yourself, to fly the nest, start a family, but now rent, house prices, child care, all of this, cost the living, makes it all unattainable. I can see why people get disillusioned, so that's one piece of the jigsaw. And then you've provided another piece of the jigsaw, which is my obsession with what do these poor kids do all day? What do these young people do all day? And the answer is nothing. In many cases. - They're doing it a lot of nothing. So you've got my friend, son, who has cut down on his work because he's happier. He's given up on chasing the dream. He's given up on keeping up with the Joneses. He's chasing a very different dream, which is mental and physical, health, general, well-being. I don't need a car. I don't need a fancy job title. I don't need to work more than a couple of days a week. I've got enough. What happens when mum and dad move on or move out? I don't know, but it's an entirely different relationship with work, which is built partly from problems, and partly from priorities, and partly from a sort of poverty of aspiration, and poverty of targets. The targets aren't worth aiming at for a lot of these people. - No, and I think partly we've got a selfless situation where we've got some very, very good jobs that are very well-paid, that you probably have to go to university, you probably need to sit in unpaid internships to get into them, et cetera. And then there's a lot of low-paid jobs at the bottom, and the middle seems to be disappearing. The jobs that I've got, I've got family members who are in trades and things like that, but that's so hard to get into, to be able to support yourself. And it's like, well, I can't aim for, I'm not going to be a lawyer, I'm not going to be a doctor, I'm not going to be a director of a company. So what's left of me is a shop work, that's, there's no middle, the middle of it. - And there's nothing wrong with shop work if it provides you with a decent standard of living. But of course, these entry-level positions will not, and that's why universal credit exists to top up the income of people to a sort of subsistence level, because the actual wage they're getting paid is not enough to do. So what's the name of your chat? Well, I don't want you to be inundated. You're probably already full, are you, Harriet? - We're not full. We're in London in a few other cities, and we're called Recergo, but we run the SPARE program for young people. - Okay, well, I mean, it's got to be good, hasn't it? Unless it's, how have you haven't just smuggled in some, I invited you to, didn't I? It is 10.57, you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. No, I think that's all fine as far as I can tell. Think of, this is really helpful from Chris. Think of video games, TikTok, and the rest of it lying in bed as coping mechanisms rather than an ambition. No one wakes up in the morning, really. I mean, look, I appreciate it. If you've done a nightmare shift, and you're absolutely cream cracker, do you wake up on a Saturday morning and think, "You know what? "I'm just going to play gods of war today." Or, "I'm just going to scroll through blue sky, "looking for interesting, funny things." Or, "I get that." And, of course, you'll wake up like that sometimes. But it's a bit like a job in a chocolate factory. You know, by day three, you've sick to death of chocolate. So, not having to do anything becomes, in and of itself, depressing and problematic. Incredibly quickly, and yet there's a determination not to believe this. There's a determination. I like the stocks analogy. I really do, but have a think about what would be within your reach if you were 19. Have a look round, what would you be aiming for? And how far would that wage get you? And then that final mystery, that final bit, is just coming into focus. Well, what would you do instead? And the answer is kind of opt out. Which you can only do if you've got supportive parents. But they're not going to be around forever. So all of these problems, if they're not addressed now, will only get worse, only exacerbate. And here's another danger. This is almost best-case scenario. If things carry on as they are, the next generation comes round. Like the next cohort, the ones who are in school at the moment, and they're better off because they haven't been hit as hard by lockdown and they haven't had the disruptions and the mental health impacts. And they end up actually having a healthier relation, healthier, a more traditional relationship with work. Maybe, touch wood, if wages start going up and cost the living comes down. And then the cohort now, the 18 to 24-year-olds now, are lost forever. So that's, I think, why Labor are doing what they're doing. This is LVC from Global Leading Britain's Conversation with James O'Brien. Thank you. I was beginning to worry. I said to you at 10 o'clock, didn't I? This is a subject that I hadn't really found the right way. I don't know what we did right today. I may break the habit of a lifetime and listen back to my introduction at the top of the show and try and work out what we did right because I came out of that. I'm not necessarily uplifted by what I've learned, but I have learned I'm getting a better grasp of things. And there are problems that won't be fixed by threatening to remove people's benefits payments if they do not take up jobs or do not look harder for jobs. The problems will not be fixed by that, but perhaps some of them will be. We turn next to something else that the government is doing, which I've got to tell you, at first glance, I don't quite understand, only in the sense that it's already illegal. So the government is announcing plans to stop the spiking of drinks. About 10,000 hospitality workers will be trained in preventing and dealing with spiking by spring of next year. Downing Street has said. Kia Starmer is today hosting senior police officers, transport bosses, hospitality industry executives in number 10 Downing Street to urge a coordinated response to violence against women. Spiking is something that has been on quite a journey, isn't it? 'Cause I think that the first time we talked about it together, it was, and I don't know how ashamed you should be of this, but I think almost 50% of the calls were suggesting that young women had just had too much to drink or were suggesting that there was no such thing. I remember being skeptical about injections. I was skeptical about the stories involving needles, involving people being injected unknowingly, unwittingly, with the substance that would sort of knock them out so that a man could then take advantage of their condition. But the prospect or the practice of spiking, getting a drug into a drink, has been so difficult to properly understand and address, precisely because of the temptation or the tendency to simply say, "Good Lord, she's had too much to drink," where she's clearly displaying the impact of a drug that has been administered. And there was something else as well that used to hold me back. And if you think I demonstrated some naivety in the last hour, wait until you hear what I'm about to say about this subject, it's like, I don't know if it's a reluctance to appreciate the scale of a problem or an inability to appreciate the scale of the problem. And for me, these two stories don't immediately sit next to each other until you stop to think about it. But the incredible woman in France who is currently giving evidence against her husband, who invited hundreds of men to, there's a trigger warning here, obviously, we're going to be talking about sexual assault in this hour, we're going to be talking about the spiking of drinks and all of the other issues that you might expect to pop up. But it's incredible woman, Dominique Pelico, who is seeking the conviction of her husband, who invited hundreds of men to rape her while she was unconscious, has changed my approach to the spiking story. Because I know that there are details involved in this, but I never knew, I could never quite get my head around, the idea of how many men would even think about doing that kind of thing. I know, I said it was naive, all right. But what that story has showed me is something that I suspect all women have known forever. It's a bit like that social ronin appearance on the Graham Norton sofa a couple of weeks ago that quite rightly drew an awful lot of attention, is that there are loads of men who would like to take advantage of a woman who had lost the ability to consent or even contribute to a conversation in any kind of way. So I could never quite get my head around the... Dominique is the husband, but my apologies. Could never quite as Giselle is the wife. It could never quite get my head around the frequency. I could never quite, because you'd open this up as a conversation either in your private life, in your personal life, or professionally on the radio. And you'd sort of think it can't be that widespread, because... and I know this sounds pathetic now, because men can't be that awful. You think of 100 men, you think maybe there'd be one, right, who'd be interested in spiking a woman. You wouldn't think that there'd be 50 out of 100 or 20 out of 100. And I don't know where we get the numbers from. I don't know where we get the numbers from, but the prevalence now, the popularity for one of a better word of spiking, has finally drawn specific government attention. So... I don't know what the government can do, except make it easier for the men doing it to be caught. And that means that we will talk today about why the system didn't help you. I also... I mean, is it necessary to deal with the difference between being spiked? You just know, don't you? I know lots of women that this has happened to, of all ages, actually. And they just know. And usually their friends know. But of course, what happens is, you get separated from your friends. In a crowded club, that's incredibly easy to do. You think someone's gone to the loo. You don't notice for two hours that you haven't actually danced around your friends all bit. You haven't caught each other's eye, for all. Because you're in the moment, you're dancing away. You might have thought, "Oh, they must have gone on to the next place." Or maybe they've met some other people. So, there are two ways that you can be saved. One is by professionals, people that are working there, either in the hospitality industry, or people who've been hired to guard against this kind of thing. Or you're lucky enough not to get separated from your friends. So, part of what's going to happen today will involve bar staff being trained to spot telltale signs. Drinks spiking is, if you don't know, secret, the secret administering of drugs to victims without their consent. And it will then lead to sex offenses, most obviously, but also thefts. It's going to be made a specific crime. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. Why that? Or how that changes anything? Because it is, of course, already a crime. But I presume it makes the evidential threshold a little bit easier to achieve. And it will also have a look at what the maximum penalty will be. That's something that you can change by making it a specific crime. But here's the thing, right? I don't know. Would you know if your mate was doing it? Whenever it comes to the stripping away of my naivety with regards to sex offending and the like. And remember, we live in a world where a sex offender can be elected president of the United States of a self-confessed sex offender. Never mind an adjudicated rapist. And women vote for him. So we live in a world where it's not just much more commonplace than we realize. We live in a world where many, many people are much more comfortable with it than some of us can even begin to countenance. You know, how expensive do eggs have to be before you celebrate the election of a rapist to the White House? It's incredible, right? So when that tape came out of Donald Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women, that there's a speed with which people like Nigel Farridge, who, of course, has a convicted woman beater in his parliamentary party, the speed with which they tried to talk about locker room and things like. So some of us balk at it, some of us curdle at this kind of stuff. And some people, I'm getting to the Y of it now, but some people presumably because they empathize with the impulse. Now, how can you be anything other than outraged by spiking answer? Because, well, maybe I'd give that a go in some circumstance. And that's where the naivety becomes really toxic and dangerous. I used to wonder what feminists in the early days of feminists, when they talked about all men are rapists, is to take a personal offence and not know what they were talking about, right? But, of course, what it means is that you must treat all men as a potential threat. And how on earth a society can end up being in a place where it's comfortable putting a rapist in the White House? People in this country celebrating the election of Donald Trump, who will, on a day like today, presumably make all the right noises and call upon the government to address the issue of drink spiking. It's incredible, isn't it? I think didn't James cleverly make jokes about administering Roe Hypnol to his own wife. Now, I've met James cleverly. I don't think he would do that in a billion years, but you're making a joke about it and then come very, very close to becoming the leader of your own party. I don't know. I'm trying to knit too much together, really. We should just focus upon this issue. But I want you to understand why I am so naivety is dangerous. It's not charming. It's not sweet. You know, when you have daughters, you suddenly think about things like walking home in the dark, you know, or what circumstances situations into which you wouldn't want your daughters to put themselves, which, if you had sons, would never even cross your mind as being vaguely dangerous. I tell you what it teaches you. It teaches you to think of all men as a threat, even though you're a man who grew up being a little bit offended by the idea that women would talk to see all men as a threat. That's the rhetoric of all men are rapists. Don't put yourself in any situation where a man who you do not know could be an, well, no, you've done the thing. Again, put yourself in a situation. It's not your fault that men are scumbags. So many men are scumbags. So I think we won't overcomplicate things. My ludicrously complicated introduction, not withstanding. And you can probably guess why I'm uncomfortable talking about this. So when I say that it's happened to people, I know, I really mean people I know, and that there's a powerlessness attached to hearing these stories or knowing these people that needs to be addressed. We need to move the power away from the perpetrators towards the targets. And you do that by doing the things that the Labour government is discussing and introducing today. But let's take it back to the dance floor or take it back to the bar. And I don't do many programs that are dedicated to puncturing skepticism. My patience with skepticism is thin, actually. Thinner than perhaps it should be. Thinner than perhaps it would be if I didn't do this as a job. The effort you'd have to put into, for example, in the last hour, thinking that all young people who aren't working are lazy. I don't know that there's anything that I can do to help people who are putting in that level of effort to believe things that aren't true. There's a petition around. I don't know if you've seen it over on the other social media site, which is the more you look into it, the matter it is. But apparently it's evidence that millions of people want a general election. You remember when we put petitions together asking for a second referendum on Brexit and the kind of people who shouted, "The will of the people are now putting together petitions full of bots." And I looked at a list of some of the countries, "Angela, Angola, Angola, Barbuda." All of these people overnight of people in quotes have been signing it. But people want to believe stuff that isn't true. And I don't know yet to work out the best way to deal with that. But, and of course it can happen to men as well. But I do think the messages that come in, telling me that it can happen to men as well, the kind of missing some of the point, just the scale of the problem with regard to women is obviously much greater. And it will be men who are the perpetrators when men are the victims as well. So the problem is men. 11.15 is the time. The question I've got for you is this, what happened? What happened, and I think we can do this responsibly, that the question of you didn't think it would happen to you, is very helpful when it comes to criminality, because there's a tendency to think, "I'm too clever, or I'm too careful, or I would never get myself into that kind of situation." And of course the stories that resonate most, the stories that provide the most help to people who could be targeted next, are the stories from people who thought it could never happen to them. So, I want to know what happened to you, 03456060973. And I want, if you can, and I appreciate it's going to be difficult to recall elements of what, depending on what happened, I want to know what you would do to make the situation better. So, there are three questions here in a way. When did you realise what a massive problem this was? 03456060973. When did you realise that it could happen to people like you? You know, people who thought that they were a little bit protected by dent of their company, by dent of their wisdom, knowledge, carefulness, carefulness. And then the third question is, what would actually help? What would actually help? Because I don't know how much time you spend in crowded bars. I don't know how, I mean, how vigilant can a balm and be, or a balm and be, in that, I don't know. And that's often the precursor to some of the most interesting conversations that we have. 03456060973. What happened to you? How did you realise, when did you realise that this was a much, much bigger problem than the early reports allowed? And what would improve, you know, there's one other question I want to ask, but I don't know if I dare, because I don't know. There must be men who know men who've done this and did nothing. There must be men who know men who've done this, who would never do it themselves. But what would you do? What could you do? If you knew a mate was going to spike a woman? Regardless of questions about how you could have ended up being mates with a person like that. But would you find the police straight away? Would you just try and get the woman away from it? Maybe that's just a little bit niche. But there's two ways of stopping it, isn't it? Stopping it at the moment of commission or dealing with the bloke who's thinking of doing it. What would you do? Punch him? Lock him in the... I genuinely don't know. Come at this from whatever angle you want. But the more experience you have, the more helpful it will be. I am going to ask that question. What do you do if a friend is... I'd say I don't think you're going to ring me, are you? Because what are you going to say? If you didn't do anything, if you didn't call the police, what are you going to say to me? I don't know. This is LBC. Message James O'Brien on WhatsApp now on 03456060973. So many stories and some lucky escapes. Hannah writes, "I think I was spiked in 2014. A friend and I were at a concert. We were 16 years old. Two older men bought us drinks, which we thought was very exciting. And then promptly ran off after asking us how old we were. We felt sick and weird and we thought drunk, so we went home. All night we both had strange dreams, verging on the hallucinogenic and felt incredibly sick and anxious. Nothing like I have experienced before or since. So only years later, when it started appearing more in the news, that I realised it may have been a spiking. I think we were incredibly lucky. But that's all that happened. I haven't pinned down that question about men who know men. But I think it's really important. It's why I talked about Donald Trump and how stupid I feel for thinking that all the fans of Donald Trump in this country would somehow abandon their support for him when they discovered that he was a sex offender. And they didn't, they didn't even pause. I just started calling everyone else woke. So that's the same problem. Men who know men, men who excuse men, men who envy men. But I don't know how that works as a phoneme. And it doesn't matter because the first conversation we have to have is with people to whom this has happened. Louise is in Peckham. Louise, what would you like to say? I just wanted to make it really clear that this genuinely can happen to anybody, a friend of mine was spiked at our Christmas day a couple of three years ago. And the background of this is important. So I am a police staff. I'm not a police officer, but I work with police officers every day. So the whole group of us were police staff and police officers. None of us are naive. We're all, we're all slightly jaded and cynical and, you know, we're slightly jotted to humour and all that. And we were out. So we keep an eye on each other. It's a group of men and equally, I'd say 50-50 men and women. But we're all out. None of our partners are with us. We just have a Christmas drink from the meal and they hang out. And so we're keeping an eye on each other. We've got a table. We've got our drinks on the table. We're keeping an eye on what's going on with what we're watchful. And then my friend stopped making sense. And it happened in the space of 15 seconds. And we got her outside to get some fresh air. And she passes out completely and is frosting at the mouth. I then run back into the bar to grab our bags and stuff. And picked up, went to pick up my drink and the lady at the table next to me, knocked it out of my hand and said, "Baby, don't want to drink that." As if she'd seen what had happened. Now, I didn't remember that until afterwards because so much was going on. But afterwards, I was like, "Oh, my God, I remember that happening. That woman did that." So we, thankfully, we get my friend to A&E. And we get her in and she's tested. And she's put on a drip. She was kept in hospital, I think, for 48 hours because she was so ill. She was really, really ill. Some people are going to have even more violent reactions than others, aren't they? Absolutely. She's tiny. She's like, you know, super set person. She's like, five foot two. So if they don't, you know, this is the problem is they don't know who they're dosing or what their reaction might be. But what I wanted to make really, really clear was this can happen to anyone. If it can happen to us, a group of really cynical, astute, aware, you know, eyes on people, it can happen to anyone. And please don't be ashamed because you're the victim. You shouldn't be being changed. Yeah, exactly. The person who's changed is the person who's put in the drugs and you drink. Always. And no prospect of identifying who had done that in your case. No. It was reported and it was a crime Russian number and they went back to get the CCTV and there were so many people moving around in the bar. There was no way you'd have been able to see if that's who you did it. Well, then, I mean, I don't know what hat you put on now, but with your professional hat on or your colleagues, I mean, what might change? What might actually make things better? Because it's a great thing for a politician to be associated with. I think when you read or hear that the prime minister is personally addressing this issue in Downing Street today, then if you have any proximity to these offenses, these crimes, you're going to feel good. But the second question should always be, well, what? What would improve the situation in the scenario you described? How could it have unfolded differently if staff had been better trained? Or if the world was turning on a slightly different axis? I think that, you know, I mean, we've got the Ask Angela scheme and they recently did a survey of pub and restaurant staff who hadn't no idea what the Ask Angela scheme was. I saw that. So this is if you think for people who don't know, if you think you might have been spiked, you ask a member of staff for Angela, is Angela here? And they will come to your aid. They will come to your assistance. So if staff don't know how to do that, how are you going to get them to do this, which is much more complicated and difficult to spot? You know, I mean, the CCTV was reviewed and there was no way they could identify who it was. Now, if watching the CCTV in slow time, they couldn't identify how are the bar staff with a queue of people in front of them and 18 things going on in their head, how the hell are they supposed to do it? You know, we're putting the onus on the wrong people. It's not the bar staff. It's the people could like you say. If you've gone out with a couple of mates and one of them has spiked someone, at least one of those other mates knows. Yeah. So why is it become acceptable to do this? I don't know. What do you think? Is it funny? I think it's, you know, we see an awful lot at work, but I think it's a general lack of respect for women. And I have to say, not for my colleagues. My colleagues are amazing. Been there three years. They're awesome. Male and female. I've never seen anything untoward. But from the people that we deal with on a daily basis. Wow. Who taught you those manners, chicken? Yeah. And that in some ways getting worse, of course, with the rise of sort of professional misogynists on social media, that's got to be part of the conversation. Hasn't it about how on earth young men can end up thinking this kind of behavior is acceptable? Well, it is large swathes of the internet where it's not just acceptable. It's absolutely celebrated. 27 minutes after 11 is the time. A couple of finalised free as I bid farewell to Louise. You can of course grab that. Find life yourself on 034560609 at 73. Ed's in Canterbury. Ed, what would you like to say? Good morning, James. I just think that people need to understand just how scary easy it is for people to commit this crime. I mean, the amount of drug that is required to make somebody very unwell is shockingly small. If somebody is not used to taking any kind of drug or then, you know, they're not used to drinking heavily, then just a pinch of a powder, you know, and you're talking about some of these nightclubs. I mean, I've worked in the nightlife economy for a long time. And some of these nightclubs, they're massive. You know, you've got nightclubs with easily, you know, it's all over the country, thousand plus capacity nightclubs. That's hundreds of people a minute often coming in and out of the doors. And you're expecting door stuff to be able to find tiny amounts of powder, tiny pills, things like that. You know, obviously they do a lot of checks anyway because this is just the same as drugs. This is just what people, you know, who aren't spiking, are consuming themselves. They're taking in and out and they're very good at it. And, you know, we know that as much as nightclubs have zero tolerance policies towards drug use, it gets in and if it can get in for recreational use, it can get in for illegal use. And what can you do? I mean, how much of your role is vigilant on this front when you're working in a nightclub? Because I would have thought not much. Well, so, I mean, nightclubs are incredibly busy places. Precisely, so you deal with the aftermath and the effects, but you can't, I don't know where prevention sits on your list of priorities, professional priorities. I think that everyone who works in that industry is always on the lookout. Right. Like, they want their punters to be safe all the time. You know, I've worked with some incredibly professional door team security teams who are well trained in doing the best they can to prevent it happening. But ultimately what they're having to focus their training on now really is what you do with somebody who's been spiked and how you make that person well again. Obviously, that doesn't really solve the bigger problem. It's an easier target because they present to you as an unwell person. You can deal with it. But, you know, and I also think there are probably a huge amount of people who are spiking and being spiked. And it's almost part of a culture where I've worked in university towns. You know, recreational drug use is huge. It has been for a long, long time. But that kind of culture of drug availability and of sharing drugs. There's two things, isn't there? There's spiking you'll make because it's going to be funny when they start seeing vapor trails and wondering what's happened to them. And there's spiking a woman because you want to rape her. Exactly. And that is where it gets difficult because, you know, the people who are doing it for those horrible reasons, they're not telling anyone. I think that actually this is something which people are doing discreetly and secretly. I don't think there are men who know that. Do you really? Yeah, I do. So you'd go out, because you're not out on your own, are you? You're going to be out with such... so you could be hunting as a pack, I suppose. But I'm not... I mean, you're a lot closer to the action than I am on this. But I would have thought that you could be in a group of five and one of them is dodgy. And the other four don't know. You would say, I'd say they probably do know. They might have suspicions. And of course, I can only talk from my experiences. Yes, I do. I don't have any friends who would do it. But I think if you did and you didn't speak out, then yeah, you're as culpable. Because what I think needs to change is the atmosphere of caring and well-being within our nightlife economy. I sometimes think that's kind of... I don't think that, because I wasn't old enough to experience it. But the hippie days of love and music were going out for a night. No, no, no, no. I don't want to disabuse you of your romantic notions. But there was an awful lot of sexual abuse going on during the hippie era as well. Have you ever caught anyone then, Ed? People get caught with drugs all the time. But you never caught anyone trying to spike or you've seen something. In my experience. I mean, how long could you spend in a nightclub? And before you actually saw someone slipping something into someone else's drink? I've never ever seen anybody slip something into somebody else's drink. I've seen people get arrested and charged afterwards. Sometimes CCTV is available and sometimes people have been caught and that's great and it sends a clear message. But I think there are a lot of people who are maybe even perhaps being spiked and they don't know they were spiked. Because if you're already taking drugs on that night and you're already high or drunk. Yeah, and also the staff might not know the difference as well, so friends looking out for friends is probably the biggest message lesson you can take away from this. Thank you, Ed. Paul sent me a message on Blue Sky saying his daughter got spiked and they were told to watch a video on YouTube about how easy it is. And it is a video of a woman at a festival. Someone slipped something into her drink while she is posing for the camera while she is filming herself at a festival. And I just mention that because it highlights the point I was making with Ed about how difficult it would be to identify. And of course there's nothing to guarantee against members of staff being the perpetrators as well. Whether bar staff or security staff towards the end of the evening or whatever it may be. It's an absolute minefield. This is LBC with James O'Brien, call 03456060973, text 84850. Alexa, send a comment to LBC. Hearing this a lot but you have to hope that things have changed in the intervening period. This is 30 years ago I was spiked at a club, I was 19 and with my boyfriend less than half an hour before I collapsed on the floor, boyfriend took me outside. The door staff's attitude was another silly drunk girl that was probably done for fun to watch me collapse. Because I was clearly with my partner at the time that people can be separated. There's a lot of this coming into the studio about the staff being abjectly unsympathetic, the opposite of helpful and co-operative. But I think most of these stories, if not all, are from a while ago. And Eugenie who's also shared her story, adds that I think sometimes it is just so that people can watch the consequences from a distance and laugh. So I mean whatever the motivation, whatever the plan might be, it's an absolutely awful thing to do. But there may be different reasons why it is being done. Stella is in Camden. Stella, what made you pick up the phone? Hi there, long term less than a James first time cooler. Thank you, I'm sorry it's on something so ugly. Yeah, yeah, basically my daughter's at university in London and she was on a night out with a friend and she didn't drink much at all. But the following day she called me and said I don't feel well and I was like what's wrong. She basically said I don't know what happened, I drank way too much last night. She didn't make any sense to me at all what she was saying. So I went up to her halls, got to the halls, lots of the people there were not being very sympathetic to her. I started asking her questions. She didn't remember anything that had happened. I said this isn't right, we need to take you to the hospital, it just didn't add up at all. She's on a lot of medication anyway for underlying health conditions, so I thought I'd better take that. Which is partly why you're so vigilant. Exactly, exactly. So we get to a big central London A&E hospital. She wasted a few hours, went into A&E and they basically said okay we need to look at her body. They found injections biking marks on her leg or one big mark straight away. They said she needs loads of blood tests. So they knew what they were looking for? They knew exactly what they were looking for. They said she'd obviously had the injection in her leg. They tested the blood for acidity levels and then they said she needs HIV and hepatitis tests. They then said she needs to come back in six weeks to have it all done again to check what's going on. They said there's something called HIV prep but they don't give it for injection spiking. Right. So it's made us very nervous about her going out. She's all right though. She's all right. And hanging over us. Yeah, no of course it is. I know they lost hours from that evening. Would she with people all the time? She was with, I think she was. You know, can't be sure. She says she got carried home but people thought she was drunk. Everyone thought she was drunk. Even her friend. Very drunk. Very drunk. And they then accused her of taking drugs which she hadn't done. Right. It's fine. I mean how old is she now? But they didn't believe her. Yeah, well that's the thing. 19. Yeah, so you'd think that. So you'd think that that generation would be a lot better attuned to the risk in place, wouldn't you? And that's obviously part of the mission that the government is setting itself today. So that if you see someone in this kind of situation, you don't immediately presume they're in that condition through choice. The doctor at A&E said there's no point telling the police they don't do anything. No, I mean what could they do? They have to trace your daughter's movements for the entire evening. I contacted the pub. Yeah. She was in. They said they'll go through their CCTV. So I did feel they took it very seriously. Yes. But she can't remember very much at all. They wouldn't know. And there it is. Common place. And there's nothing you can do about that if someone is going to do that to you. Then all the vigilance and all the concern you take and looking after your drinks and making sure no one can get access to them goes out of the window. Top mumming though, Stuller. What a horrible business this is. I don't know how you put it on a priority list for politicians and I don't know why Labour have decided quite early on to do this. Starmer's track record with violence against women is very, very strong. It's something that he's been heavily involved with. Particularly domestic violence actually. But I suppose that there's a natural association between the offenses here. And £250,000 to fund training for up to 10,000 serving staff and bouncers on how to spot a spiking offender. The problem I've got now is not the cynical one, really. More a curious one of how what would that training look like? Have you had it? Oh three, four, five, six, zero, six, zero, nine, seven, three. Ed's worked in loads of nightclubs. Seen the aftermath. Seen the results. Never seen the perpetrator in it. How would you spot someone? Have a look at the video that I've just re-posted on Blue Sky. If you want to follow me on Blue Sky I am @MrJamesOB. But have a look at that video pool sent in and there's no earthly way in that kind of circumstance that you would. How do you train someone? That's we've got 20 minutes left. They've got one phone line free at the moment. The Stella vacates it. You can grab it. How would you train someone to spot a perpetrator? Because you read these lines and you think, oh good, well done. But I can't even begin to put together a picture of what that would actually look like. Maybe you can. Russ is in Blackburn. Russ, what would you like to say? Hi James. No, I'm not a first time caller. It's the first time I've spoken to you and a huge fan. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm just saying that this also happens to a lot of men. I'm 60 years old now, but 40 years ago I remember going into a pub in Blackburn where I lived and I was staying with a friend. She wasn't with me at the time. And the last thing I remember is having a drink in this pub. The morning after I sort of got up and spoke to my friend and she said, what the hell was that all about last night? And I said, I'm sorry, what are you talking about? She said, you were in hospital, we'd call an ambulance. They took you to hospital and they pumped you stomach. You know, they thought you'd taken something. I said, well, no, the last thing I remember is having a drink in a pub. And James, your conversation today has actually been very triggering for me because I've had to pull over. Obviously it's meant to call, but I was sad to pull over because I was shaking whilst I was remembering. Because there's a whole swathe of my life that evening that I don't remember or recall. She said, and I did have physical signs that I'd sort of scratch as all over my face. Got on when it was what happened. But she'd been with you, had she for the first? No, she wasn't with me at all. She was at home. So the first thing she did is when I targeted in, apparently, I'd walked in. So you'd lost hours? You'd lost hours? I don't know what happened, so I went out at eight o'clock and I got home at two o'clock in the morning. Did you contact the police? Did you do? No, because I... Did you do? What would you tell them? What did you think? When did you first hear the word "spiking" rust in your life? Perhaps when I started working in nightclubs and pubs myself, which we were doing during the 90s, I think. And you had a moment where you thought, "God, that mad thing that happened to me. I bet it was this." Yeah, I absolutely think that's what happened to me. And the scary thing is, obviously, I don't know what these people did to me whilst I was non-compassmentous. No, of course it is. And that's why this line that keeps emerging about friends, people who you're with, who know you, knowing that this behaviour is out of character, but of course that presumes context that you may not actually be in. Russ, I'm sorry that this has brought things back to you in the way that you described. I really am, but as I know you know, that is part of the reason why we're having the conversation, so that there aren't people who are similarly affected in the future. Alexis is in Brixton. Alexis, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Hello. How are you? Very well, thanks. What's on your mind? I was actually sexually assaulted on a night out. My friends told me that we were all kind of drinking, having a good time, and I just did a complete 180. There was a gentleman who was with us, with us, excuse me. He was in our periphery and we had been chatting lightly throughout the night. My friends allowed him to take me home, and he was actually my falter in the end. I'm sorry. No. I mean, it's all his fault. Of course. Do your friends thought that you had sort of copped off, as it were, as we used to say, in 1984? Your friends thought that you'd pulled. Or you were, because corpses sent me something which hadn't occurred to me before, and that's the other alternative, is you get the man playing the concerned Samaritan, saying, "Oh, I'll take her home. She's looking a bit ropey. I'll make sure she's safe. No, I don't mind. I was getting fed up here anyway." What happened? When you say your friends let him take you, what happened there? You know what? They were all having a really good time, and this person had interrupted our night several times. I think they just thought everything will be fine. I guess in the end, what I was calling to say, I have seen security guards kind of slide off women who they deem to drunk, kind of throw them out of the pub instead of ensuring they get home, and friends kind of not really... Well, also men, predatory men looking for very drunk women is as old as the hills, isn't it? This is just a sort of, it's a wrinkle on that practice. I'm just trying to pinpoint, and I don't want to pry unduly, but was it the next morning that you realized what had happened, or that night? It was that night I kind of came out of this state, and it was like coming back to life, and I realized what was going on. So you screamed the house down, did you? I certainly did. Right. But I do think it's kind of a collective responsibility from the friends to see a friend, you know, don't let them go home with a stranger. Yeah, that's the bit of the story that leaves us out. Well, I mean, it's a horrible story, but the bit that you'd hope wouldn't happen, even if you accept the existence of predatory men and the prevalence of this crime, the fact that your friends kind of just let you go like that without demonstrating better concern or more care is very sad, and also I suppose a reminder of what happens when you're caught up in those moments. Yeah, all right, all right, off you go see her, and then you get back to whatever it is you were doing instead. There's so many different aspects to this issue. The question of how you would train staff to deal with it better becomes harder to answer by the minute. James O'Brien on LBC. Ten, two, twelve is the time. It's not a modern phenomenon, but I think the scale of it, presumably with the availability of the necessary substances, it seems like it's exploded in recent years, and I don't want to, in any way, decry or denigrate government plans to address it more directly, but I do wonder what training would look like in the context of drink spiking, how you would train staff, who a couple of you have already pointed out are probably underpaid and overworked, how might you address this issue more effectively inside the venue? Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three is the number that you need, because that's really the central point of the policy. Yvette Cooper says these changes are about giving victims greater confidence to come forward, and ensuring that there is a robust response from the police whenever these appalling crimes take place. So that's why you are making it a specific offence rather than relying upon other offences for prosecution, for example the offences against the Persimact 1861 for the pedants among you, and the second bit, of course, would be the introduction of a specific sentence that is a consequence of making it a specific crime, but the rest of it, the training of staff and the offences on how to spot a spiking offender. I hope it's doable, I'd just like to know a little bit more about it. 1151 is the time, Liam is in Wilson Forest, Liam, what can you tell us? Hi, James, I would need to correct you to start with the door supervisors. The answer is that you're giving your nightclub edge away, really. I was reading it out of the Daily Mail, Liam, which as we both know is no defence at all, but you're absolutely right, door supervisors. You read it so we don't have to. You got it, you got it, go on. I think there are points in the journey of taking people through a nightclub that you really need to pay very careful attention to. Yes. At the front door, your door supervisors, your picker, your guest desk person, you just got to look alive, and a lot of the time you're just trying to bum these people in as quickly as you can, and I think you missed a trick there. I've always paid very special attention to men on their own, going into nightclubs, and I think paying very close attention, and it's the power of a hello. If you're stopping that person and engaging them, letting them know that you've got them in front of CCTV, have a nice friendly chat, get their ID, wish them a very good night, and ask them why they're going in there on their own. You're talking about radar, aren't you? You're talking about your antennae twitch. Correct. They could be meeting their mates inside. There could be lots of reasons, but if you're on your own, that's a bit of a red light, I think. Well, they know they've been clocked. Yes, exactly that. And then you have a point at the bar, and I see this all the time, and I hate it. But I think that's a lot of stuff, just got their heads down, they're doing this serving, and they don't want to look up. And that's right at the point where a lot of these things could happen as well. Yes. I had venues before where people were having their credit card pin numbers when you had to put pin numbers in, and people were looking over their shoulder and taking the pin number. The staff, by getting the staff to do this. What are you? Are you ahead of security or a club owner? Or what's your role if you don't mind me asking? I've been in late night music since the 90s. I think you did your 30th birthday in my venue, James. I've told you once before. And so getting them to look up. Oh, yes, that's right. I did. Yeah. I've completely forgotten where that was. The end. But at the end, yes, when you had the dinner, the fancy dinner spot as well. We haven't spoken for a while. No, we haven't. No, but I'm still involved in the industry, although I'm not on the cold face anymore. Clearly, but something as simple as that. So you are nowhere near as confused as me, Liam, about the idea of staff. It'd been possible to train staff to do it better. Oh, yeah. I'm training dozens and scores and scores of young people about women's safety. And when you do the training, the training can go on much longer than the actual training, because they're curious. They're engaged. They want to know. And what I wanted them to try and do is just by being alert, being awake, you create a hostile environment for that type of person to be in. And make it clear, all you're doing is dispersing it. Yeah. You're moving it somewhere else. Yeah. You're creating a safe space for everybody to be in. And you get a creative venue when you have a space like that. So it's just been a live alert, heads up, and surveying. And when you have a team of door supervisors engaged at that point, totally dependent. They all know the game. They all know what we want. You just create safer venues and safer places for people to be. Well, I mean, you're exactly the kind that you should be at Downing Street today. You shouldn't be ringing me. You should be involved. Well, I mean it, man. You should be involved in this process, because of everyone we've spoken to. And admittedly, most people have been talking about it from the other side of the experience. You're the one that sounds by far the most clued up. Has it been a steady offense, Liam? Or has it, forgive me, has it spiked? Well, Jim, I was spiked myself at a live music venue in London. In the late 1980s. I know exactly what it's like. Yes. That loss of control and loss of power is devastating. I was very lucky. I had a very strong woman with me that evening. It got me home, got me safe. And, you know, for that I am forever grateful. So I think it's always been a part. Yeah. And I do think it's like a one-person crime we have in a lot of places. OK. You know, and that's why you've just got to be alert all the time. I'm not sure of this in the epidemic. But we've got lots of very good people at Dining Street today as part of our industry. People much more knowledgeable than me who will be pressing that point home. And you've made it clear that this is achievable. These are achievable. Goals, improvements, measurable improvements can be made. Did you ever catch anyone? Did you ever have someone on your premises who was actually caught in the act or caught red-handed? Not with spiking drugs. But, you know, you can spike with alcohol as well. You know, it is a very, very naughty conundrum. And it's a very tricky thing. But what you can do by protocols and a team that understands how devastating this can be for the customers. And remembering most people in hospitality want to serve and make people feel safe and nice. It's something you can make fast improvements on. Yes. Good. Thank you. I tried to keep 22 years ago, my 30th birthday. That's why I couldn't remember them. But I obviously mentioned it to you last time. We had a wonderful night, as I'm sure I told you last time. I'm so lovely to hear that. Thank you. It's coming up to 11.59. I'll read this because I'm sure that you've asked me not to give your name. Remember, if you don't want me to give your name, put it at the top of the message, not at the bottom. Because sometimes I read them out on out almost for the first time I've read it. But this is from someone whose name I'm not going to give you. But I'm reading it out because she was 61 when this happened. And you shouldn't feel silly, but you do. You've told me. I'm 61. I met a guy online, went to a bar in the West End. He went to get a bottle of wine, came back. We had a couple of drinks. I started to feel absolutely hammered. I said I want to go home. So we went to the tube station. He tried to kiss me. I declined. When the train came, I quickly got on. I knew something had happened. I felt absolutely smashed, James. And on two glasses of wine, nope. I managed to get off the tube, got myself home, I'm convinced that he spiked my drink. And I've never told anyone. I think this might be much more prevalent than we think. And that's a different context entirely. That's like the, in a date scenario. It's huge this. And absolutely the right thing for a government to be seeking to do. I think that last call from Liam took away an awful lot of my doubts or a lot of mine. Sort of areas of confusion on the plausibility of it. And if it's plausible, then it is important that it gets done. It's coming up to 12 noon. You are listening to, James, on LBC. I'll try and have a slightly less harrowing conversation in the final hour. I can at least promise you that I've got a couple of rather peachy, missing word rounds. One of which is an absolute corker. But as for what the central thrust of conversation will be after 12 o'clock. Well, there's only one way to find out. This is LBC from Global, leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien. It's three minutes after 12 and we return now to a story which we talked about last week. Because for no reason other than I find it absolutely fascinating. You know that transformation is the thing that I enjoy most on the radio. The idea, well, changing minds is the goal, isn't it? Changing minds is always the magical moment. Or just the penny drop thing when you learn something. Or you finally understand something that you hadn't understood before. But the reason why I'm drawn back to this story is because the idea of it becoming a negative. So it's the 40th anniversary today of Band-Aid. And if you had told 12-year-old me that the day would come when the Ethiopian prime minister expressed his unhappiness with it. Not in the context of what happened 40 years ago, but in the context of where it is today. I mean, could you just think back, if you're anything like my age? Think back to how absolutely seminal that song was. I also happen to think it's a really lovely song. I appreciate that some of the lyrics are questionable and we'll get on to that later. But it's, you know with Proust it was Madalins, wasn't it? It was those little cakes. He could eat one of those cakes and he'd be transported back to his childhood. Some songs just take me back to Chaddisley Corbett Village Hall in approximately 1984. What else was around at the time? Last Christmas? Band-Aid keep last Christmas off the top spot. Bit like that processed food book keeping my paper back out of the number one slot. Yeah, just a bit like that though. What else was there? Take on me I think came out at about that time, was it? Were there have been aha? So the two singles, the first two singles take on me and the sun always shines on TV. So there are probably half a dozen songs from that Christmas. December 1984 was when I started because I'd have been 13 in January. So this would have been like my first ever slow dances with a girl and stuff like that. It would be very wrong with me to tell you the name of the girl that I had the most enormous crush on on that time. But would you remember what would happen when the opening bars of last Christmas would start? So you'd spent most of the evening on opposite sides of the dance floor or kind of playing a form of rugby with your mates which passed for disco dancing and occasionally kind of accidentally bumping into a girl and sort of blushing and smiling. Remember I went to an all boys school so I was even weirder than the average 12 year old. But then when the first bars, oh man my stomach just did a somersault. The first bars of last Christmas or do they know it's Christmas or hello? Hello by Lionel Richie, that was the absolute killer. The first bars of that would come on and you'd look at your sort of okay, you never wanted to go first. You'd walk across the dance floor to the girl that you liked and say would you like to dance? And the point was it was a slow dance so you would actually put your arms around each other and sway in time to the music. Oh wow, so if you'd got me then, if you'd got me in 1984 and said to me that this song is problematic or that this song one day when your kids, actually my kids are a bit older than that now, but one day when you've got kids of your own people will, the actual Prime Minister of Ethiopia will have some complaints about this song. The one thing I don't want to do is for a single moment minimize the scale of Bob Geldof and Midyear's achievement. The success of do they know it's Christmas is like and subsequently of course Live Aid is like nothing we have seen before or since. And the motivation was really simple. Bob Geldof, who's autobiography by the way is a brilliant read, it's called Is That It? And it's a really, really brilliant book and the motivation is simple. He was looking at a television screen where starving children were being filmed and he determined to do something about it and what followed is a story for the ages. Parts of which Midyear shares with me on a full disclosure that we recorded together recently. So absolutely no truck with the idea that it shouldn't have happened or that it was a mistake at the time. But it's the 40th anniversary. Now my favourite bit from the story today is Midyear's explanation of why they talked about Africa as a single homogenous sort of entity when it's in fact 54 states. And Midyear said that Ethiopia had too many syllables. So once they got the tune written and they're putting the lyrics, that's such a wonderful songwriter's explanation, isn't it? So there's a great Paul McCartney lyric as well that was very nearly something else as well, I can't remember what it was. But the idea that you want to sing a song about Ethiopia, but by the time you've got the tune right, there's too many syllables in Ethiopia. And there won't be snow in Ethiopia, you can't do that, Africa, Ethiopia, it's got two more syllables. And that's why they wrote Africa, not Ethiopia, which is so hard. You told him 40 years ago that he was going to get hammed strong for it in 2024. And again Ed Sheeran who has made it clear that he'd prefer his vocals to be left off the latest remix has been very respectful. The Uzodg, the Ghanaian English performer was on with Nick Ferrari of all people last week, explaining very powerfully why it perpetuates the damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth. But you cannot change the fact that this, what Gilda calls this "miraculous little record" brought relief to thousands of hungry children when they needed it the most, and indeed at a time when they might not have received it from anywhere else. But that's what I mean by transformation. Prime Minister Ethiopia was eight, Alex tells me when the song came out. And as I say, he's not questioning the humanitarian motives of 40 years ago. But he is pointing out things like, and this is brilliant. He is pointing out that actually the song is an interrogative, isn't it? It has a question mark on the end of it, do they know it's Christmas? And he wants to point out that his country was celebrating the birth of Christ centuries before most of what is now considered to be the Christian world. So yeah, not only did we know it was Christmas, but we knew it was Christmas before you did. Says the leader of Ethiopia who, I mean, he has won a Nobel Prize. He's won a Nobel Prize as well for the cessation of the war with Eritrea. So he would prefer that the 40th anniversary of Band-Aid was not marked with a re-release and a call for further donations. And this really interests me. So he acknowledges that the endeavour was well-meaning in response to more than a million people starving, but this is what he says now. It is frustrating to see our nation's ancient history, culture and diversity and beauty reduced to doom and gloom. How much do you think it's raised over the course of those 40 years? Much more at the front end obviously, but it's kept going and these decade anniversaries have always been marked with a re-release. How much do you think it's raised during that period? It's about 150 million pounds as well as spawning live aid, which was again phenomenal. But the idea that it should be put out to grass now, put out to pasture is one that fascinates me, partly because I'm talking to 12-year-old me. I can't believe it. You know what? They've done. You're not supposed to. They don't want to sing do they know it's Christmas anymore because it's doing more harm than good or it's causing more problems than it's solving. I mean, it was almost like the mothership of charity. For many of us, it was our first introduction to charity, followed by comic relief. It was that part of the world. It was to Africa that our attention, to African countries that our attention was turned. And you'd have thought that it was an unalloyed good thing. I'm aware that Mount Kilimanjaro would have had snow on the summit all year round, John, but this is the point, isn't it? It wasn't supposed to be a PhD thesis. It was a song that they got out in double quick time so that they could raise a ton of money for children that desperately needed it. And that is part of the, I suppose, the process that we're going to examine together now. Because what I want you to do is just explain, because you can't cling to things. If you cling to things, then you run the risk of becoming a sufferer in my dayitis. I bulk at this. I bulk at it because of 12-year-old me. But what you've got to do, it's a bit like the whole woke political correctness. All of these things, the National Trust Publishing information about national trust houses, international trust houses. It's important to understand why people get upset by this stuff. And this is really helpful for me because I could allow myself to get upset by this. You know, well, in that case, I won't make any more donations to any charities at all. But the point is you've got to let go of things. If you don't understand someone else's upset, someone else's offense, you've got two choices. You either add to it or you try to understand it. Having made efforts to understand it, you don't agree with it. Then just the polite thing to do would be to stay silent. But if you're going to reach immediately for attacking it, the opinion that you don't understand or like. Because it makes you feel bad. I'd say it's awful. You're stealing something from me. You're stealing that sense of wonder I got from doing a sponsored run in 1984 and making my first ever charitable... But you're not, are you? You've got to understand that the world turns, that things change. This guy sounds pretty impressive, the Ethiopian Prime Minister. I mean, not just the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the way that he explains it. The way that Abi Ahmed explains his thinking and talks about how it is doing what you might call "reputational damage" to Ethiopia in particular and to other African countries as well. He says, "Famine does not define who we are. The song is not a great soundtrack for the investment we need." He said, "His country should be recognized as a fast-growing economy. With ancient sights on travellers' bucket lists, Christianity in Ethiopia dates from the fourth century when King Azana was converted by a Phoenician missionary who became a slave, playing rich history, fascinating stories, rich resources, and still 40 years later that the image conjured up in the mind of the average Brit is going to be the image that was conjured up in the mind of the average 12-year-old back in 1984. So, I've got two questions for you. Can you articulate the problem better than I have managed to? Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three is the number you need. Can you explain why this 40-year anniversary is a timely moment to reflect upon whether the song itself, but also the message it carries about Ethiopia in particular in Africa in general, is no longer a message that needs to be disseminated. The longer you've struggled with it, the more interested I am in hearing from you. I mean, I presume some people had a problem with it back in 1984, but it would have been a bit like saying that you thought there was something a little bit rum about the whole Captain Tom business. We talked last week, didn't we, about the idea of saying this doesn't look quite right to me. I wonder, I hope he's not been taken advantage of by his fact. If you'd said anything in the middle of Captain Tom fever that was even vaguely suspicious, you'd have been lynched. And back in 1984, if you as a black Brit or as a Brit with African heritage, you felt that this was a little bit unsavory or unhelpful. I don't know what word you would use. You'd have, well, you'd have needed quite a lot of courage, I think, to have said so out loud. So the longer you've struggled with it, the more interesting I... Well, I'm even more interested in hearing your explanations. Oh, three, four, five, six, zero, six, zero, nine, seven, three. But the second bit of it is what should the rest of us do now? No one's really had a crack at that. Apart from the lazy suggest, well, I'm not going to give any money to any charity evermore. But what should the rest of us do now? I still like the song. It comes on. It's one of the early signs of Christmas, isn't it? First time you hear it, as it comes out, that and the fairy tale in New York, probably, or driving home for Christmas, the Chris Riesle, the sort of little thing. Oh, here we go again. But I want you to explain what your problem with the song is, oh, three, four, five, six, zero, six, zero, nine, seven, three. And I think following Ed Sheeran's lead, because if somebody whose lyrics were included in the 30th anniversary can express unhappiness that they've been included in the 40th anniversary, he can disassociate himself from it. Where's the balance? What's the tension here? A battle between really interesting and meaningful reservations and objections to something that we still consider to be one of the greatest forces for good that we've ever seen in our lives. So what do we do now? So tell me what the problem is. Oh, three, four, five, six, zero, six, zero, nine, seven, three. Tell me how you have processed that problem over the years. What was it like when you were 12 and you were black, and this song obviously landed very differently in your life from how it would have landed in mind. And then what should we all do now? What should we do now? What do you do? Is the relationship Ed Sheeran, because I wish my lyrics weren't on it. Do we not play it on our radio? What do we do? So what is the problem? How long have you wrestled with it? And what's the solution? That's uncharacteristically neat, isn't it? Those three questions, distilling down the whole issue. You can't wait to hear what your answers are. Oh, three, four, five, six, zero, six, zero, nine, seven, three. Is the number you need? James O'Brien on LBC, call oh three, four, five, six, zero, six, zero, nine, seven, three. It's 20 minutes after 12, and of course the bit missing from all of that, Blarnie, is what do you, as someone with Ethiopian heritage think of the song? So maybe that's part of the problem. I'm talking about a fundraising project directed at One Country, which became subsumed into the whole African continent. And because of my privilege, I'm talking about Chaddis Le Corbett Village Hall in 1984. What would you, if you were an Ethiopian, if you were 12 years old with Ethiopian heritage, Ethiopian family back in 1984, what do you think of this song? What relationship have you had with this song over the years? So the broader question of why it's problematic. But the specific, your specific personal relationship with it as well. If you have Ethiopian heritage, or you are Ethiopian, what role does it play in your cultural history? How is it regarded in Ethiopia? I can't believe I've never asked that question. That perhaps highlights part of the problem that we're trying to articulate today. What does it do? How does it land? What kind of reputation does it involve in Ethiopia? Hit the numbers now. You will get through. Oh, three, four, five, six, oh, six, oh, nine, seven, three. But I want to come at it from the angle of regretful recognition that that rose-tinted 40-year-old memory of mine needs to evolve now. It needs to move on. I just need you to remind me why. Amanda is in Haringay. Amanda, what made you pick up the phone? Hi, how are you doing, James? The images, the narratives are perpetuated and dangerously perpetuated for generations of children, young people who weren't even born when the song was released. And what it also does is dangerously feeds into sometimes parts of the curriculum at school that seek to continue showing JOG Africa as the resource poor. Hungry. I have maybe the opportunity of witnessing some daytime ads that, again, feed into the stereotype of poor starving, hungry Africa, Africa. And we know the content is rich beyond rich and talented. So what can the media do? Start to turn the narrative around. Start to shift the discourse and the conversations around what Africa really is about. Because until such then, the powerful force of the media will continue to do what it has done, which is perpetuate these images. And they are dangerous for children and they feed into far-right discourse as well. How do they just briefly? Because I want to pick up on what you've already said, but I wasn't expecting far-right to pop up at the end, although it pops up bloody everywhere these days. So in what way does it feed into that narrative? You mean in terms of why are we sending all our money to Africa? Absolutely, absolutely. There are people who are hungry and starving and homeless here. Why can't we look after our own? All right, then, we're going to increase your taxes to improve the NHS and look, well, it turns out they didn't want to look after our own either. But that's a conversation between them and their conscience. Let me take you back. Because everything you've just said, I understand, but it's a charitable cause. Even the adverts that you're watching on daytime television, they're raising money for people who we think need help. I mean, how can that be about? You know what stereotype is, it's perpetuating the same images again and again and again. There's no balance to any of the images, there's no balance to the discourse. You've got the... When did you start feeling uncomfortable with it? Can you remember? I was probably I'm 52 now, so when it came out... 1984. You weren't in Chasley Corbett Village, are you? Not at all, not at all. I'm lucky. But I was aware of this is somewhat uncomfortable. Even then, even at the beginning. Absolutely, absolutely. Because if you unpick the lyrics, rubbish. What are you talking about? They don't know it's Christmas. You might be hungry and you might be poor, but you're cognizant of what time of the year it is. And if you happen to live up in the mountainous parts of Africa, you know, in some parts, there is snow. So it's... Including any of the... It's condescending. It's condescending. And by the sounds of it, I'm not knocking the intent. No, no. It's the outcome. I'm not knocking the intent. It is the outcome. And it's the outcome that continues to do damage to our current image and narrative around Africa. I mean... I get it. I think that's interesting. Is how much of what we might call anti-woke rhetoric comes from a space of guilt rather than not personal guilt, but just a bit of embarrassment that you didn't notice sooner, how important something was. And rather than sit with your embarrassment, process your embarrassment, you actually lash out at whatever it is that's making you feel embarrassed. Not for the actions necessarily of our forebears, but for our own ignorance about them. I like how you phrase that. I want to understand it for the stuff that I don't. And that is all that needs to happen. An acknowledgement and an understanding. And where possible some kind of caveat to preface the kind of resurgence of this song coming back round again. So what should we do? As knowledge that we're in a different climate now. And as knowledge that Africa is not this place only. We know Africa is not this place only. We know Africa has managed... And yet for huge numbers of us. For our generation, particularly of people that have never given any thought to Africa or who have no familial links with Africa or with the Caribbean. It's all we knew for years. All we knew about Africa was that starving children on the television. But therein lies the power of the media. And the power of the media is seen through a very monocultural lens. And this is what happens when you don't have people at the table who are able to be the decision-makers and say, "Wait a minute, that isn't in." So again, it speaks to a wide issue. It speaks to the issue of diversity at the top of these decision-making trends. Yeah, it does all of those things. And it needs to be pointed out. 26 minutes after 12 is the time. I won't ask you, Amanda, the question of what we should do now with the song, because I want to get as many people on as possible. But I will read this from Mr Pete. Wow, brilliant first call on this topic. James, Amanda is amazing. She certainly is. Ruth's in Greenwich. Ruth, what made you pick up the phone? Oh, hey, James. In 1984, I was a sort of fairly young, fairly young teacher in schooling, South East London. And I can remember so clearly the song coming out and what it inspired there. And it was, you know, collections and doing activities. And the last Christmas assembly, I can just remember all the kids sitting there, you know, all singing feeds the world, all the teachers, arms, waving, et cetera. It was a fairly white monocultural score. That's not actually true. But we didn't have an awful lot of what I would consider. So fast forward for 30 years. And I'm teaching in a six form college in, again, South East London. So there were three of them. And the whole demographic now has completely changed. And I would say, oh, 78% of our students were from Nigeria, Somalia. It's got lots and lots and lots of different athletes. And I, thinking back, we did not in any way play that then. And I don't think I thought about it. No. And it's only you saying now, would I have been comfortable? I don't know, James. And that's the problem, because like you, I've got that fluffy memory. And it was, you know, it raised huge amounts of money. It was the first time that many of these students had considered charity in a big way. And you had to use your stuff, particularly because it was a Catholic school. But I sort of look forward and think, I'm not in assembly with a whole sphere of students whose parents or grandparents or even themselves had come from that continent. I don't think I would have been comfortable, but I've been retired for years now. Wouldn't have crossed our mind in 1984 than it might be before. Absolutely not. Which speaks, I don't know what it speaks, speaks of all sorts of cultural change and also growing awareness. And of course, if you take the literal meaning of woke being alive to prejudice, then there it is. That's probably our first introduction to it, in a way. Yeah, it is the one thing. It's funny because the last time I spoke to it was about singing Delilah on the picture. And it's a very similar, not similar, but you know what I'm saying. Yes, it is, because Delilah is about, I mean, Delilah is a victim of violence, we would say. So you only ring in when we're re-examining classic pop songs. Absolutely, absolutely not. But it's just interesting that this is a number of people. You've got a niche, haven't you, Ruth? I wonder what else we could put on that. But yeah, and it's good to think about things. But what I've found really helpful is it gives me a little insight into what those people do. Into what those people complaining about national trust properties are feeling. It gives me a little insight into that combination of vague embarrassment coupled with a little bit of resentment that you're taking something away from me that I thought was precious. Yeah, as a national trust member, believe me, I didn't vote for those people. I made you, I got my vote hit. Yes, well, exactly. Thank you, Ruth. There are new lyrics, of course, which I think do away with quite a lot of the problems. For example, they add West Africa into the conversation and some of the other stuff. I think the stuff about snow has gone. Some of the lyrics were great, weren't they? There's a world outside your window and it's a world of dread and fear where a kiss of love can kill you and there's death in every tear. These are beautiful lyrics, but that's not the point. The point is this, the problem has been articulated. The idea that something so precious from 40 years ago is different now because the world has turned. I'm interested in this week, the more people who spotted it sooner. This is LBC, message James O'Brien on WhatsApp now on 03456060973. It is 1234, you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC, where the conversation about the Band-Aid song, who they know it's Christmas, is a lot more interesting than I would have allowed a month ago and a million miles away from any conversation I thought we would ever have been having when the song first came out 40 years ago. I said I'd be interested to know what somebody of Ethiopian heritage, what kind of relationship you have with the song and I think our next caller is in precisely that category. But if you're just joining us, the reason we're having the conversation is following on from Ed Sheeran's comments last week about wishing that his vocals were not included on the latest remix. The actual Prime Minister of Ethiopia has pointed out that they were celebrating Christmas in Ethiopia long before we were in Great Britain, but also that it actually has a negative impact now upon perceptions of his country and the idea that it is sort of backwards and desperately in need of Western help in the fact that what it's really in need of is contributions to a fast-growing economy and a little bit more tourism. 1235 is the time. Here it is in Rhyslip. Here it, what made you pick up the phone? Well, the conversation made me pick up the phone, James. Last week I heard you talking about it and I feel super strongly about this whole conversation about Band-Aid. Let me start. I was a 12-year-old young girl in Ethiopia and I have a very clear idea, 40 years old, 40 years old, about the Band-Aid. I commend the people who did it. It needed to be done. However, the damage has done to us personally and individually, wherever we go, these followed us. So I have mixed feeling, one. Personally, it hurts me wherever I went, my interaction. I came to the UK, I've told you this before, in the 1990s, 1991. Wherever I go at work, at social events, any encounter I have with people, 5 minutes, 10 minutes into the conversation or in the relationship, whatever it may be. That story comes up. It's the song, it's the song, and the famine. The poverty, the poor, but the famine, yes. So somebody may pay you a compliment, or you look nice, you look pretty, I like your dress. But the next conversation is the famine. Because it's all we know about your country. I know we're both. I understand that. I understand that. So for us, it has been very painful, but was it a lie? It wasn't a lie. It has happened. It's part of our history. It's a shame. But it wasn't lack of food. It's the same in knowledge that gets me, you know what I mean? Yes, the famine has happened, but the famine happened because of war. It wasn't that it was that barren, dry land where food was not growing. No, that wasn't the story at all. That area was badly into civil war, you know what I mean? That was raging. And there's another aspect to that as well. The reason why it was so big in the Western world was there was a fight, what do you call it? The Cold War fight between the allies of the West. And then those who were with Russia, Soviet Union, yes. And they were really drumming that up. Let me tell you something. Worst things are happening in Ethiopia right now. Tell the primary part of Ethiopia now to stop genocide. Genocide is happening in Ethiopia as we speak. Nobody speaks about that. I didn't know and I will make it my business. Well, I'll make it my business to find out more after this program. And my apologies for that because it's not mentioned in the times coverage of the story today, either. And there is a reason for that. Well, I'll go on. I mean, what I wanted to ask you was when you first became aware of this song. Yes, it made me sad. But when was that? I wasn't in Ethiopia because I had friends in England who were sending, well, you know, we didn't have internet or any of those. No. But they used to bring this song. Maybe, I don't know, a year later or just around around the same time. I was exposed to the Western world. My father was working in the airline business. Okay. So, you know, Newsweek, my father used to bring me Newsweek in Ethiopia. I used to read Newsweek at the age of 12 and 13. Michael Jackson was in, you know, the story. He was big with all, you know, his songs, Madonna, all these things. They were live and well. We were talking about it at school. And then, first of all, 1991, I came to England. It really hit me. It really hit me. The lenses. This is all that anyone's ever going to know about. This is all that people know about me. And it's not even me. They're just associating me with this thing. And it's huge in the minds of British people. Yeah. And yet it's not fair or accurate. It's not fair. It's not accurate. Now, I have children who are born in this country in their twenties. They go to school, come Christmas time. You know, the Christmas shows. These stories come up. The begging starts. They are ashamed. They feel sad. Really? Yes. They really feel sad. They want to dance. They're so ashamed with that. I mean, I've studied, I've learned, and I read about this whole thing. I can withstand it now, because I can't stand up high and explain all the other aspects of Ethiopia. I don't really care anymore. But the pain, I cannot tell you. The pain of-- I'm sorry to hear that. Yes. My people suffering. Yes. My people suffering. And the pain of the lenses through which my every development and success is seen. There's some very, very interesting story. I know you lived in New Zealand. You mentioned this before. I used to work in the sensories there. And one particular day, I was asked to support this blind customer to take him around, you know. So he put his arms into my arm and we started walking around telling me, you know, what he was looking for. And then, of course, he said to me, "Oh, he's got an accent. Where are you from?" So I told him I'm from Ethiopia. You know, he moved his arm out of me. Oh, wow. I was shell-shocked. He was angry. He told me, "It's okay. Thank you very much. I don't need your support anymore." That much. And I know, I know, looking back, he didn't mean to be bad or anything like that. I'm quite forgiving about these things. Clearly. It is what-- So what did he think that you were infectious or-- Your laugh is infectious here. What can I do? There's nothing you can do. No, but what do we think he thought? I mean, because it wouldn't have been-- he must have known that you were African from your accent, so it wouldn't have been simple racism. Yeah, the information, Caribbean. Are you from the Caribbean? I said to him, "No, I'm Ethiopian." So before. So it wasn't simple racism, then. It was specific to Ethiopia and what he thought-- It was very specific to Ethiopia. And he couldn't take it. So this is even a person. Who was unable to see. But the story has gone through his mind. And so that you become something-- I don't know what word to use, something undesirable. Absolutely. Yes, undesirable. No, I don't want to associate with you. Yeah, I'm so sorry that you have to go through that. Well, we don't have to, Jim. I am allowed to feel sympathy. I was a rubbish thing to experience. It's something that hearing you explain had such a dimension to the discussion that we're having. Because I could never have conjured up that story in a billion monologues. Yes, it does happen. Many, many, many things. People tell you in your face, you know, in your country, there's no food. It's almost like, you know, the amazing thing is like Ethiopian cuisine is one of the best. I can really put my head up, whether it's vegan, vegetarian, meat, you call it anything. And then when people get to know you, of course, now, you know, the world is vegan. Everyone is mixed with everyone, whether socially or whatever, the scenario. And they are exposed to this. And they always tell you, oh, my God, I would not have thought. I would not have thought. You know, there's this kind of colorful food collection in Ethiopia. So, you know, we lived with it. And it's the way it is far. Well, you live in the-- Right? You live in that, but the reality is, I think I must stress this. It doesn't matter how we feel individually. This is the damage that's done. And of course, those who are governing us and continue to govern us so badly are-- It's a very good right up in the paper today, so I shall make a point of educating myself after the program, what is going on in that part of the world that you referred to. Previously here, thank you so much. A lot of very warm words coming in in response to your contribution. I'm a bit shell-shocked by it because I don't know whether 12-year-old me is relevant to this, but 12-year-old here, dealing with the consequences of it 30, 40 years later. The idea that Ethiopia carries a stigma that would actually prompt a visceral response in North Kensington, Sainsbury, decades later. I don't want to-- I don't want to. Wow. It's coming up to quarter to one. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. So as we said, do these conversations right, and you come away learning so much, understanding so much more. Because I'm a bit obsessed with it. The actual ability to understand some of the weird response, some of the things that we find weird, much notably that national trust, pearl-clutching exercise, or the people that have kept very worked up about recognizing the role that slavery played in the creation of many of the fortunes that still define Britain's social hierarchy. Why would someone who hasn't benefited, whose family isn't still living in a massive stately home, paid for by the profits from sugar plantations, get across about the idea, because you feel that you're having something taken away, part of your pride in being British is taken away by conversations about reparations and slavery, but it doesn't have to be. You can hang on to your pride, just no more about the world around you. So I can feel that. Don't take this away from me. Those are happy memories. I've still got the happy memories. And no, I know more about Ethiopia. It's win-win. James O'Brien on LBC. Listen on your smart speaker, just say, "Play LBC." 1247 is the time you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. And what a conversation. Absolutely fascinating. And here is perspective there of someone who was growing up in Ethiopia when this song came out. Precisely the perspective I was looking for, although, of course, as she acknowledged, there'll be lots of people from Ethiopia who may have very different thoughts about it. And latterly, or now, the sense that it portrays a picture of Africa in general or Ethiopia in particular, even with the new lyrics that seek to address some of these mischaracterizations. It remains what the Prime Minister has called "reductivist, reductionist and dehumanizing narratives." And I think he's right. And I never would have thought of it. I never would have even known about it if the white pop star Ed Sheeran hadn't come out and said it. I wasn't aware of Fuzo DG's contributions to this conversation. It's so, you know, funny, isn't it? Joseph's in Stanford Hill. Joseph, what would you like to say? Okay. Well, I've got so much to say, but let me just think about, I've been thinking how to frame this. Okay. I am from Uganda. We are all known as the Horn of Africa. But I can tell you when Bandaid wrote, no. When Bob Gilda wrote that music was 40 years ago. Now, 40 years ago, until today, probably the situation in that region really hasn't changed. Now, I am asking this, I don't have a problem with the song because I understand it and I understand the intent. But what my beef with so many people, especially my fellow Africans who are objecting to what Bob Gilda did, is that if Bob Gilda wrote some 40 years ago and nothing yet has changed, what are the Africans doing? Because now we have got big stars like Buna Boy, I don't know. We have got big musicians from South Africa. Why can't they come together and write a song to help Africans? And for me, what I see is that we have got a big problem in Africa because we have 54 countries. Now, if something happens in another country, it doesn't matter because we just see, oh, yeah, well, it is happening in Ethiopia. Well, it doesn't matter. Look at Sudan. What is happening in Sudan today? So it's a very Western notion of Africa being a homogenous whole, as opposed to it being like any other continent. It's full of disparate and often divided and feuding or cooperating countries. Absolutely. Well, there is no cooperation in Africa. And I know many, many Africans listening to me, they are going to get angry, but I really don't care. What have you said? I don't know that you've said anything. I consider it to be particular. Believe me, this conversation is going on. And also, there is this idea of not understanding what the content of the song it is talking about. The other day I was listening, they said, "Oh, of course we know it is Christmas." Look, some people, they don't even care whether it is Christmas or not, because some people believe Christmas itself is not an African thing. You see, you see where I'm coming from. Yes, of course I do. I stare it back to the song as a phenomenon. Surely you recognize the relevance of the claim that it leaves Ethiopia in particular in Africa in general. It leaves in a stereotyped, no longer accurate place. So people carry the images from 40 years ago forward even now, and those images are no longer accurate or relevant. Well, you must see that. That's just true, isn't it? No, can I tell you, you have been talking to a lady, an Ethiopian lady. Yes. She's actually what she's telling you. What is happening in Ethiopia today is totally different. Look, I have been on the streets documenting Ethiopians, especially the guys from Tigray, demonstrating on the streets of London. This proves the point, though, that we're still seeing Ethiopia through the lens of 1984. We're not capable of recognizing that it's now a completely different place. As you remind us with a completely different bunch of problems, but that's even the political opponents of the prime minister would make the same argument just for different reasons. You're looking at us through a 40 year old lens. And that's a mistake. That's a silly. That's a bad thing to do. That is true. 40 years ago. But what I'm saying is this, let us throw the arrow back to the Africans and say, now, don't worry about the Western people from Europe helping you. That's the point. That's what everyone's saying. 'Cause that's the white saviour syndrome that you're moving to, isn't it? But James, let me say. Why do we have to complain when somebody is already done something? It is like we have got a saying that you do not repair a bridge when somebody's broken a leg. Now, we are complaining because that song was not there. That's a rubbish saying. That's a rubbish saying. You don't repair a bridge when someone's broken a leg. Yes, you repair the bridge before an accident. Oh, I see. You don't repair a bridge after someone's fallen off of you. Oh, OK. Well, again, I'm still a bit rubbish now. This is a conversation about how things change. And we're not recognising that things have changed. Look, what do you know about Ethiopia if you think things have changed? Well, I know there was a massive famine there 40 years ago. 40 years ago? Yeah, exactly. As a consequence of today's programme, I'm reading up a little bit on the plight of the Tigray people. I'm aware that there was a civil war that ended in 2019 and the Prime Minister got a Nobel Peace Prize for it, but I'm also aware that that might be an unhelpfully simplistic view of the entire situation and that I need to know more. I don't know if this last bit's true, but one of the obstacles to knowing more would be the weight of the 40-year-old legacy that leads us to believe, as Westerners, as white Westerners, that we actually do know quite a lot about Ethiopia when we don't. I don't know that you're opposed to the central thrust of this conversation as you think you are. No, no, no. This is what I'm saying. If the Africans, like myself, I'm always shouting on politicians and stuff like that. If we could get together and organise ourselves, write songs like what Bob Gildoff did and do concerts, no one will come, but no one will come wanting to help us because we will be doing it ourselves. And that's a really powerful point. I don't know how many records you'd sell, but that's not really the point, is it? Because it would kill the notion of being a basket case in need of constant patronage and condescending. And condescending assistance from the other side of the world. Joseph, thank you. I'll read this from James. This Ugandan guy is dead right. I spent 30 years living and working in East Africa covering English-speaking Africa in a sales career and saw firsthand our little cooperation that there is. A huge range of ethnic peoples, religions and political systems that didn't care about each other. It's not quite the point that Joseph was making, although you may have sent that message before he talked about the importance of caring and cooperating. Fumi is in E-lingue with what might be the last word that we'll see. Fumi, what would you like to say? Hello James. Hello Fumi. I've been saying heat lively. You hate it? In one sentence I hate lively. Band-aiders, the song and the concert. I beg your pardon. No, that's right. Band-aid, initially. I'll tell you why. Yes, I can't bear it. It changed people's attitudes, never very positive anyway, towards Africa for the worst. Don't get me wrong. Let me first say the intent was really laudable and a lot of money was raised. I heard phenomenal amounts was raised. But I'll be cynical and say it didn't hurt some of the pop stars careers either. Sorry for my cynicism. I don't think that's unduly cynical. I think they'd be the first to admit that themselves. Well, live aid, certainly, the concert propelled some bands. I think most obviously Queen into spaces that they hadn't actually reached before. But that's what you might call a happy side effect rather than a negative. Yes, and the main aim. Yes. So why hate? Hate the strong word? Immediately I've played earth. I'll tell you why. Immediately I've played earth. This is the... I'm your sort of vintage, a bit older than you. We African children were mocked at school. I was in school in Kent. We were mocked. Even a couple of black children who weren't African were mocked. I mean, serious mockery. I'll tell you how it persists. About 20 years later, if I was sitting with a mutual friend and one of our friends I got engaged. So I'm absolutely stunning Ethiopian young lady. Oh, yes. Do you know what all of my friends said? Because I'd met her. Yeah. But a friend who I'd met her, he asked, "Or she a refugee?" And I bristled because of Ethiopia. And I said, "Well, no. She's a trainee accountant and her father is a lawyer back in Ethiopia." She had was furious. Because if you're Ethiopian, you must be in need of assistance. That's what you are. You must be in need of help and that's decades, decades later. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I want. No, I know you... And that's why you were... When did you first... Did you hate it at the start? Well, you did hate it at the start because people were teasing you for being bullying you. Oh, yes. I mean, this is... Yeah, all these negative images again and again and again. And Bob Gildorf, correct me if I'm wrong. He didn't speak to anyone Ethiopian or African at the scene. Forgive me if I'm wrong. I don't know. And if you can... There was no Ethiopian doctors or journalists or anyone. It seemed to be just him, from what I remember. Yeah, I mean... He was sitting or standing with a lot of starving children. I can't imagine... Well, he would have been accompanied by aid agencies. You would have been accompanied by people on the ground. But that's probably the neediest fault more than it is fault. But no, you make... I mean, that is an absolute hour of brilliant points, many of which I'm going to have to find out more about. But I'd never would have crossed my mind. But as soon as you said it, of course, you would have got negative treatment at school. And therefore the relationship with the song that you felt from the very early stages now being reflected right across countries, right across cultures. Thank you for me. Apologies to everyone waiting to talk about that. We'll probably talk about it again next year, won't we? We may talk about it again this year. We'll have to wait and see. If you missed any of today's show, you can listen back on "Catch Up" on Global Play where you can also pause and rewind live radio as well as listen to a dizzying array of podcasts. So download it now for free from your app store or head to globalplayer.com. Leading Britain's Conversation, LBC. You