PREVIEW： Book Club #64 ｜ James O'Brien's How They Broke Britain
Episode Stats
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Summary
James O'Gammons' How They Broke Britain is a book about the problems that the British people are facing, and how they are trying to fix them, by blaming the media, the Tories, and the Tories themselves.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to this very special book club. I'm Harry, joined by Carl and Josh,
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where today we're going to be venturing through the mouth of madness into the heart of darkness
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as we examine the work of Mr. James O'Brien, or as Carl has memorably dubbed him, James O'Gammon,
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and his book, How They Broke Britain, a rather dangerous title, some have suggested.
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And this is one that I've got to thank you, the one voice, or call me voice, as he goes by in the
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little introduction that he gave us here, his little hello, is that one of our audience members
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sent this into the office out of nowhere, arrived in a mysterious and dark looking package. I was
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getting some rather ominous vibes from it. And I opened it and he said, you know, to all the folks
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at Lotus Eaters have fun dissecting this one. And I thought, you know what, why don't I? Because
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I keep seeing this, because of course, as it says... Health and safety? Well, we don't have health and
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safety here. I chose to not fill in a risk assessment form before I read this, so this is not an insured
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broadcast. I hope you don't know how to tie a noose now, because I'm going to be a bit worried about
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you having read that book. I would suggest keeping all sharp objects away from me for the next four or
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so weeks. But as you can see on the front cover, it says here that this is an instant Sunday Times
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bestseller. The second it was published, literally before anybody could get to the shops to buy it,
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it was already a bestseller. Everyone at the BBC needed a copy. Well, very impressive, yes, I'm sure.
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And I keep seeing it everywhere in Waterstones and in WH Smiths across the country. And I have been
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interested in picking it up, because I thought to myself, yeah, James O'Gammon is an awful bastard.
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He's a terrible person, he's a traitor to this country, and I hate him. If I'm frankly honest
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about it, his LBC show is the equivalent of Audible Cyanide. But I thought to myself, well,
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let's get a leftist perspective on what's wrong with Britain, and let's get a look into whether he
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actually has any decent insights that he can give us, because I find that sometimes the woke can be
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more correct on certain issues. And James O'Brien is nothing if not woke. And also, it's good to
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venture outside of your echo chamber and get a broader, better view of the situation at hand.
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So I thought, you know what, let's give it a look. If nothing else, I wanted to know what the leftist,
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the Brit leftist, because the Brit leftist is its own unique creature in the global stage.
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why they're so obsessed with Rupert Murdoch, because this book is kind of, it kind of reads
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like a miserable memoir. It's written in a very snarky...
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Oh, oh yeah, yeah, you can. Very snarky, miserable manner. And it's loaded with little,
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little ad hominems, personal attacks, and little comments that he puts in every single sentence.
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Um, but it's kind of like a leftist muck-wrecking, um, where each chapter past the introduction
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is dedicated to an individual figure. Rupert Murdoch, Nigel Farage, Matthew Elliott, Boris
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Johnson, Dominic Cummings, Jeremy Corbyn. Um, and he goes through his list of grievances.
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Huh. Well, because he's an anti-Semite, don't you know? Oh. And, and, and he, uh, he blames
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Jeremy Corbyn in some ways for, uh, leading to Boris Johnson's overwhelming victory in 2019.
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Exactly. But, uh, I have made plentiful notes on this in the text itself, so please feel free.
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So, through this, there is the introduction. Let's, let's try and go chapter by chapter.
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So, the first chapter is the introduction, of course, and this is a very generalised overview
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of all of the problems that he has with the country. Yet, the first thing, the very first
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I would love to. So bad. So, quote James O'Brien.
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You can't actually boil a frog to death by popping it into a pot of cold water, placing
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it on a stove, and slowly turning up the temperature. When the heat becomes uncomfortable, the frog
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He must, he is speaking with authority here. He must have tried this multiple times. He
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Well, it's a clearly evil man. Surely, this is just a preoccupation.
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How many frogs died for that first line, James?
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As a scientist, Josh, can you confirm this is true?
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But you're our resident evil scientist. Apparently not evil enough.
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It's a recurring pattern through the entire book, which is overwhelming pedantry.
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In an attempt, a really strange attempt to look clever. And that's something that, again,
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Brit Libs, they love pedantry to try and get their one little one-ups over you, their
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tiny little victories. Well, yeah, you may have won the argument, but I corrected your
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I have noticed this, actually, just arguing with people online, which is a waste of time,
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obviously, but I enjoy it. And they always sort of, they appeal to procedure and rules
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just, and things like this all the time. It's sort of weird. It gives me a sort of vibe
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of a school prefect, that sort of thing, where they're just like, oh, I'm telling.
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If you're arguing with some British leftist online in particular, and you want to get out
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of the argument, just make a spelling mistake. They'll be like, correct, gotcha, and it's
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Yeah, you are right, Josh. They are probably the sorts of people who, when they were at
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school, excuse me, they were prefects who immediately tattled to the teacher every opportunity,
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He literally says it here. This book, then, is a charge sheet. A compendium of poor behaviour
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The problem is, though, and one of the main contradictions that he can't seem to wrap his
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head around through this, is that, who are you tattling to, James?
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Well, it was written in, it was released originally, the first edition, last year. This was the
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paperback edition that came out at the beginning.
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Yeah, he was tattling to the Tories. Is that when you're appealing to procedure, you're
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proceeding, appealing to the procedure governed and administered by the people you supposedly
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Yeah, I suppose. Or no, he's appealing to the higher power, which is the sort of liberal
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Well, that's true. But in that, there's an implicit acknowledgement that really, he
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knows that Boris Johnson is just as much of a shit-lib as he is, really. And there
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is an interesting admission in this book as well, in the Boris Johnson chapter, is that
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in 2008, when Johnson was running for mayor of London, O'Brien voted for him.
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Would you like to, well, exactly, would you like to know the reason?
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Yes, it's because Boris Johnson had promised an amnesty of all illegal immigrants in the
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Just a quick thing, though. What I love this, this is very much like Eleanor Roosevelt's
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dictum here. You know, great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, and
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small minds discuss people. And James O'Brien's like, yes, people, poor behaviour, bad actors.
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But also the expectation that politicians will be any different than how he's probably describing,
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I imagine that he has grievances with politicians that I would agree with. And I certainly don't
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like many of the people that he's talking about. But there's a sort of naivety there, whereby
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he's just like, my politicians are good, but your politicians are bad. When he realises
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the incentives are all pretty much the same for all. They're all doing the same things.
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And that's the interesting thing, because most of the arguments that he makes, as you'll
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see through the introduction alone, he's going through a lot of the scandals, the procedural
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scandals around the Tories at the time of the COVID pandemic.
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And the way that there was a lot of WhatsApp backroom dealing with how they were dealing
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with things and communicating with the media. He's really, really annoyed about that. And
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he picks apart a lot. Well, he doesn't pick it apart. He just very dryly and dully whines
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about it while giving you the most bare bones description of what happened in order. But then
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he also jumps around at the same time to make it completely confusing and unreadable, because
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you can't really follow along what's happening from one page to another. But yeah, he's
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complaining about the Tories going about things in a purely procedural way. They're not following
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the rules. How could the Tories not follow the rules? The rules that they set and can choose
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to break? Because of course, Dominic Cummings is evil, mostly because of Brexit, because that
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is the centre that this entire book revolves around. It's the Brexit happened.
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Yeah. Which is terrible. It's endless Brexit whinging. But beyond that, he's also annoyed
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that Dominic Cummings did that thing where he went for a drive.
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He broke the rules during COVID, and therefore he deserved to be ousted.
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What about the guy who was the architect of the lockdowns through his modelling, who also
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broke the lockdowns? Who's that? The scientist.
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The guy who's responsible for the modelling that was completely wrong, said like, you know,
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Wasn't it not the historian, but Professor Neil Ferguson?
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Yeah, and he broke his own lockdowns. Does James Campbell complain about that?
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He was also involved in the foot and mouth thing, wasn't he, that guy?
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Inaccurate models that lead to catastrophes. That's fine.
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But there's also the complete contradiction that Josh was pointing out as well, which
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is that obviously when the Tories break procedural rules, it's terrible. It's awful. It's the
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worst thing in the world because these people break rules for bad reasons. Whereas, you
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Yeah, you saw that struggle that he had, what was it, last week when we were recording
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this, or the week before, when there was the LBC caller calling about the Starmer spending
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scandal about receiving gifted tickets that he didn't declare or something like that,
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Well, he resorted to just saying, well, how'd you know about it? Well, he declared them,
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Well, and yeah, but the Tory government also, after it was revealed what Dominic Cummings
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did, you know, they fired him and held him accountable. So it was all made right in the
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So that's the big problem. And he has, on that same basis, a complete and unwavering
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Yeah. You can find it, if you flip through some of the introduction, I'll have made some
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notes on it, where there are a few of these institutions that he names that he unwaveringly
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and completely blinkers on, says, well, if they say it, it's true.
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There's the Institute of Economic Affairs, which he praises two thumbs up. They must always
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have the... wait, no, not the Institute of Economic Affairs.
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Well, no, the IMF and the OECD upgraded their forecasts for the UK economy, and so the idiocy
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of these jingoistic positions would be laid bare. Neither Jessup, Riesmog, or any of the
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other free market fetishists argued that the institutions were now acting out of sudden
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irrational affection for the UK. Again, just, the UK is always wrong, the Tories are always
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wrong, but the International Monetary Fund and the OECD, oh, they must be right, when
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they're making up forecasts for the future that can't possibly be proven.
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Yeah, because I will say, there is one good thing in the book, which is the... which chapter
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is it in my notes here? There's one chapter in particular, I think, yeah, it's Andrew Neil,
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his Andrew Neil chapter, I think it is, or Andrew Neil and Paul Dacre, where he actually talks
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a lot about all of the various web of right-wing NGOs that make up the British right-wing spectator,
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the Daily Mail media sphere, and how Andrew Neil and a lot of those people have ties to
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Yeah, yeah, Tufton Street. He really doesn't like Tufton Street, because of course, those
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institutions are completely full of bad actors, people who have vested interests and are paid
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by nefarious people to give them the sorts of...
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Exactly, and George Soros only has the best intentions for the world.
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I mean, he's right, but for the wrong reasons, you know. A lot of the Tufton Street groups,
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there are a few good ones there, but some of them are sort of a little bit wet and lame
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and give bad advice, I think. So, but obviously I'm doing that from the right and not the left.
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Yeah, of course, but you would, rightfully so, as would I and as would Carl, put doubts
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on all of these organisations, a blanket distrust to them, because a lot of them are full of people
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who are not going to be perfect, are going to have their own, excuse me, vested interests,
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they are going to have their own problems and biases that are going to dictate the sorts of
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forecasts and ideas that they put out to the world. James O'Brien only has that problem when
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Yeah, I think British politics has a softer variant of what American politics has, whereby
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the right tends to be a bit more sceptical of institutions more generally, and the left sees
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them as unequivocally good, and I think that James O'Brien epitomises that.
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By his unwavering devotion to some institutions, and not even questioning the source of the
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information, or the validity therein, or the possibility that they could make a mistake.
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Is it conquest second or third law, where any institution that's not explicitly right-wing
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I get the feeling it's that effect on James O'Gammon.
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But isn't it interesting, though, that the idea of an unwavering trust and dedication to
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British institutions is kind of one of the pillars of Scrutonian conservatism?
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So it's actually a remarkably conservative position that he's taking there, but in pursuit of progressive
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But it's because, as Conquest points out, it'll inevitably become left-wing over time.
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And so James O'Gammon's like, yeah, well, we're going to win in the end, because you'll
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Because we need all of those illegal migrants as a tax base.
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They're not paying tax, but we need their tax money.
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Yeah, I didn't know that James O'Brien had it in him.
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But all he's revealing the whole way through is that he is a dedicated NPC.
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His brain is an empty vessel for leftist ideas to be poured into without question.
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And that's what makes him such a good mouthpiece.
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Because that was what makes him the attack dog.
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So I did a media degree at the University of Salford.
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One of the things that we were shown as an example of good journalism and how to do a
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good interview, if you're interviewing, say, a politician, was James O'Brien in 2014
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Well, happily, if you flip to the Nigel Farage chapter, he literally transcribes the entire
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He's a complete empty vessel for leftist bullshit.
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Oh, you've got lots of notes on the Farage chapter.
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But he's also a complete, smug, prideful scumbag, and will endlessly self-promote if he gets
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Just read through some of the questions and how he's phrasing them and how he's responding
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Now, I will admit, reading back through it, it reminded me, Nigel didn't really do very
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well in that interview because he wasn't really prepared for such a hostile interview.
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But there's a difference between an actually well-done, hostile political interview, which
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is, I would say, the recently Stephen Edgerton has been doing some absolutely fantastic journalistic
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work interviewing right-wing politicians like Nigel Farage, where he's putting forward
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the questions flatly and bluntly, but without being personally, on an interpersonal level,
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Whereas James O'Brien is just letting you know, I'm a bellend.
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I don't care about the answers that you're going to give me.
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I want the audience to know that I'm full of virtue.
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I want to give you an example of just how awful James O'Brien is.
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Wherever we have found people who have had extreme, racist, unpleasant views, we've unceremoniously
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And O'Brien replies with, well, okay, what about your associations with the BMP?
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James, he just said he's getting rid of all the racists.
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It's like, yeah, but you're associated with the BMP, aren't you?
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Yeah, he's associated with the BMP because people like James O'Brien associated him with
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Nigel Farage brags about how he destroyed the BMP.
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Do you want to know what his association with the BMP is?
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If we go back to 1997, you had lunch with a chap called Mark Devon.
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So now I'm associated with the BMP, says Nigel Farage.
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A month after that lunch, Devon wrote an article, so it didn't even happen in advance of the
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And then a month later, he writes an article for the far-right journal Spearhead, never
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even heard of this, suggesting the BMP and UKIP get in bed together.
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Well, Nigel should have activated his anti-fascist radar.
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The all-leftists like James O'Brien come fitted with from the factory that they're produced
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Also, the notion there is that you only eat a lunch with people you agree with.
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But also that you know you'll always agree with.
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I'm having lunch with a guy who's not done anything that James O'Brien can find exception
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with, but in a month's time, he might do something that hasn't happened yet that I
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Like, I've found the source of why James O'Brien is so miserable.
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He never goes to lunch with anyone because he's terrified of what they might do.
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He's terrified they might be thinking micro N-words in their brain as he's eating dinner
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And this might get him cancelled somewhere down the line.
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But, again, that was the example fed to me of good broadcast journalism, of how to conduct
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Accused your opponent of not being able to see the future and therefore he's a racist.
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This book is a regurgitating of the Brit-lib leftist talking points.
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Because as I was reading through that, I noticed something, which...
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Sorry, this James O'Brien for our interview is just a racism interrogation.
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Well, I mean, James O'Brien, in that chapter, puts his perspective out very flatly when he writes...
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He writes a paragraph essentially explaining racism, why one would be racist, and making
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I think it's closer to the beginning of the chapter.
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So you'll see that I'll have made a note around the entire thing, marking it out.
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James O'Brien makes the reasonable case for being racist.
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Discomfort with immigration is a constant background hum, and whether we admit it or not, everybody
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If the person pushing in front of you in a supermarket queue speaks an unrecognisable language
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or wears a hijab, or simply looks different, the initial offence of their conduct can easily
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be compounded by the thought that they have somehow less right to be there in the first
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That's quite a reasonable argument to make when, literally, James, they do have less right
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to be here than me, and their presence is actually inconveniencing me and the nation
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But then he just follows that up with, it is obviously bunkum.
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So James O'Brien has racist thoughts, but he mind-kills himself.
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My NPC programming kicks in and shuts that down.
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Well, he doesn't realise that all of this stuff is innately built into human nature, is
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biologically enforced, and that actually, the way it works is you give more favourable
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treatment to people who are genetically proximate to you than further away.
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That's why we give our families special treatment, and people we have no relatedness to, less
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That's true, but, like Carl said, the NPC programming kicks in, and he says just outright,
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well, there is no biological reason for differences in people.
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