James O'Brien: Why We Need To Forgive Tory MP Ben Bradley
James O'Brien told his LBC show that we should forgive Ben Bradley for his uncomfortable remarks on sterilisations for poor unemployed people - because we have to forgive people's mistakes in their early 20s.
The new Conservative Deputy Chairman for Youth wrote blogs saying that unemployed people should consider vasectomies to stop them having children which the state would have to support.
There have been calls for him to step down, but James suggests that if we don't forgive indiscretions from when people were young, we would be left with MPs that either have a very thick skin or are sociopaths.
He said: "If you're not allowed to be an idiot in your early 20s, then I'm not quite sure who is going to go into public life. I'm already worried about the thickness of skin you need to do it.
"It's creating an environment in which the only people we're going to attract have either rhinoceros-thick-skins or are sociopaths, who don't care about anybody's opinions on anything.
"And they are already running the newspapers. The last thing we want is them running the government."