Nobody actually wants gender-neutral sausage rolls, argues James O’Brien
16 December 2019, 13:08 | Updated: 16 December 2019, 13:10
James O’Brien hits at out at the media for whipping up outrage over ‘PC’ demands nobody seems to want.
Off the back of a call about the outrage some voters feel, James O'Brien spoke about the media creating a narrative that whips up outrage over things liberals seem to want - but actually don't.
He used the examples of 'gender-neutral sausage rolls', banning the word 'blackboard' and putting school boys in skirts.
James O'Brien said: "When those stories appear about something being outrageous, I don't think I can ever find anyone who's outraged about it.
All I can find is people describing how awful it is."
He continued: "If I'm a consumer of media, I think the last 20 years have turned me into someone who who thinks that they're always, they whoever they are, are always getting on their high horse about about minorities and blackboards and gender neutral toilets."
He summed it up: "It's as if the reaction is bigger than the action."
James O'Brien explained: " So here is a story about, I don't know, a kid in a skirt or here is a story about a gender-neutral sausage roll or here is a story... and you very rarely find huge numbers of people queuing up to go 'what do we want gender neutral sausage rolls, when do we want them? Teatime please?'
"But you can find millions of people, especially in this business, generally the sort of older big right-wing men who are constantly outraged by a kid in a skirt or a gender neutral sausage roll or what else?"
He added: "The country has been seduced by the idea that there are secretly burrowing away millions of people trying to force gender neutral sausage roll and boys in skirts on them."
Based on his experience as a journalist, he said: "If you're in a newsroom, if you're in a media organisation where debates are still the way, confected debates, are still the way of putting programming together, you hear the desperation with which people ring around trying to find someone to argue one corner.
He concluded: "A large part of the problem is people are persuaded that there's this invisible army of do-gooding liberals dedicated to trying to ruin their lives and yet when you ask them how their lives are potentially being ruined, what they come up with... gender neutral sausage rolls and boys in skirts."
