Hall of fame
Lifetime Achievement Awards
For outstanding and sustained service to absolute and utter tosh and nonsense. Not everyone can manage a lifetime of being spectacularly, confidently wrong. These two have put in the hours. The committee is unanimous. The trophies are imaginary. The citations are not.
Future winners will be announced when the competition becomes even more crowded. Which, on current form, should be next Tuesday.
Inaugural recipientCategory: Radio
James “I’m a mug” O’Brien
LBC · Professional certainty · Amateur reflection
For a career spent mistaking volume for argument, and for the rare moment of accidental self-awareness in which he admitted, on air, that he felt like a mug.
Citation quotes
“I feel like a mug, actually, is the short answer.” — On being played by Jason Arday, August 2026
“If I was a racist and I met a black Cambridge professor, then I probably would find myself thinking, ‘Yeah, really, a black guy, professor…’ — but I’m not a racist, so it didn’t cross my mind.” — Explaining why he suspended disbelief
Previously a prominent promoter of Carl Beech’s VIP abuse claims — later shown to be lies — and later the broadcaster who read out, unchallenged, a listener’s claim that Jewish children were taught Arabs are “cockroaches to be crushed.”
My article: I challenged myself to listen to James O’Brien for a week. I managed one day. → Also recommended: Michael Murphy in The Critic — The Book of JO’B
Inaugural recipientCategory: Commentary
Owen “absolutely definitely not an anti-semitic weirdo obsessed with Jews” Jones
Columnist · YouTuber · Professional hauntings
For turning a single foreign conflict into a full-time personality, and for the energy required to insist, at volume, that this is not an obsession.
Citation quotes
“I hope this boy’s screams haunt you for the rest of your life.” — To a journalist who disagreed with him
“I’m not religious, but if I was, these depraved pricks would be haunted by the souls of the slaughtered Palestinians they dehumanised until the end of time.” — On critics of his coverage
A man who can find Israel in every cupboard, every BBC report, and every disagreement — while remaining, in his own words, entirely unobsessed.
My article: Owen ‘‘absolutely definitely not an anti-semitic weirdo obsessed with Jews’’ Jones → Nominations for next year’s awards are closed. The field is already oversubscribed.