James O’Brien’s takedown of a listener who was glad he was being wound up is a masterclass in debating skills
LBC’s James O’Brien spends much of his time on air surgically deconstructing the arguments – or lack thereof – of Brexit supporters. When one listener commented that he was enjoying hearing James in a wound-up state, the presenter called him and pulled apart his argument.
When “Chris” was pushed to defend his position, he found himself getting tied in knots, like these.
Chris: You just spend every time Brexit comes on running it down. You can’t be positive.
James: What’s the positive here? “Men in manufacturing jobs who left school with qualifications no higher than GCSE are the most exposed to curbs on the flow of goods after Brexit.”
Chris: The positives are …that we’ll be able to make our own rules in future, we’ll be able to run our country the way we want to run it and we will have curbs on immigration – not that I’m against immigration, I think it’s a good thing, but we need to be in control of the immigration, so that people who are in the lower end of pay scales may be able to get an improvement in their pay in the future.
James: You’ve just been told that people at the lower end of the pay scale will lose their job completely and you’ve texted in to say you’re glad. So tell me why you’re glad.
Chris: I’m glad that you’re spending so much time talking about Brexit because I do find it quite interesting, however, you’re …
James: What have I been wrong about?
Chris: It’s just funny to hear you get so wound up about it.
James: About people facing unemployment?
Chris: You obviously have got a real bugbear …a Remainian bugbear …
James, No, it’s not that. These people who got lied to and they’re going to lose their jobs and it winds me up that it makes you happy and I just want to understand why.
Chris: How do you know they’ve been lied to?
James: Let me read you some lines and then you tell me whether or not you think it was accurate or inaccurate, so:
July 2017, the free trade agreement that we have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in history. That’s Liam Fox. I’m wound up that he lied to you. Why are you glad he lied to you?
Chris: Why is he lying to us, James?
James: Because it hasn’t been one of the easiest in human history.
Chris : But it will be.
James: Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy. The UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation. John Redwood lied to you. Why are you glad about it?
Chris: This is the problem with the EU. They’ve got too many layers of bureaucracy.
James: If they’ve got too many layers of bureaucracy, how is it going to be easy to do a deal with them?
Chris: Well it won’t be.”
One-nil to James O’Brien.
