James O'Brien: Conscience, empathy, and learning how to be right (with Fi Glover)

Unfiltered with Oli Dugmore

Unfiltered with Oli Dugmore || JOE Media

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2018

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After 50 fantastic episodes, James O’Brien’s time at the helm of Unfiltered is sadly coming to an end.In this special episode with BBC Radio 4 presenter Fi Glover, James signs off from the interviewees chair with a touching conversation about his life. James shares his experiences from growing up adopted and getting expelled from school to breaking into journalism through gossip columns and showbiz, before ultimately finding his ideal platforms at LBC and JOE. He talks about the curse of being right when all is going wrong, his personal politics, views on free speech, the dangers of amplifying extremists, that infamous Nigel Farage interview, and offers his thoughts on private education, capitalism and economics, feminism, sexual abuse, #MeToo, the future awaiting Britain, and of course, Brexit.Unfiltered will return with a new presenter after a very brief hiatus.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Unfiltered with James O'Brien, brought what you're expecting. You're thinking,
0:14.8	that should be James O'Brien and it's not. I'm Feiglover and I work mostly for
0:19.1	Radio 4. I've also done a 10-year stint at Five Live and host the fortunately podcast with Jane Garvey.
0:25.1	And the reason why I'm here this edition is because very sadly it is James's last unfiltered. So he won't be doing the podcast anymore, and this is an opportunity
0:36.7	to put him in the hot seat, to find out more about him, and what he's loved about doing the whole
0:41.2	series.
0:42.2	I'm a James O'Brien fan girl, so I have loved listening to him
0:46.7	since he first got his own show on LBC. And I also think, and this is no exaggeration,
0:52.4	that he has changed the landscape of UK radio forever,
0:58.0	because what he's done is he's shown that you can be opinionated and partial but you can make radio that still
1:04.8	balances your mind and it's radio that counts and ultimately it's radio that
1:09.5	matters so this is a total pleasure for me at any rate.
1:14.1	So I have to confess to being your greatest fan girl. I've listened to you for a long time and I think the thing for me that makes you special is that combination of being clever but also really genuinely curious.
1:35.6	So were you the kind of little boy who was displaying both those things?
1:40.5	I mean were you quite annoying? Were you the guy going...
1:42.8	It's definitely annoying.
1:43.8	How do pistons work when everyone else was saying Bob the Builder?
1:47.0	I don't...
1:48.0	That's a really interesting question. Thank you for being so kind. I mean, teachers and mom and dad always thought I was quite
1:54.0	clever but I don't think the curiosity started until I started my radio phone in show
1:58.7	absolutely I don't believe that. Well because I mean I was a bit of a dick as a younger man I was very
2:05.5	full of myself and very convinced that I was right about everything and
	...

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