James O’Brien is an award-winning radio presenter and podcaster whose current affairs phone-in show on LBC has almost a million weekly listeners. Described as “the conscience of liberal Britain”, O’Brien is the author of the bestselling book How to Be Right...In a World Gone Wrong, a guide to challenging those who hold “unchallenged opinions”.

How do you respond to critics of your show who say that it isn’t a fair fight between you and your listeners, because you have the upper hand and can interrupt at will?

It is a fair fight, because I’ve been on the radio for 16 years. I have what I suppose you could call a reputation. The clips that go viral are watched by millions and millions of people, so anyone who rings me [must be] certain they’re going to get the better of me. Occasionally, you get the sense that someone might be vulnerable and then you take your foot off the pedal, because there is no pleasure in beating up someone intellectually who sounds a bit unwell. I interrupt because you can’t come on the radio and say things that are untrue.

I’m not interested in opinions unless they’re based on fact and, tragically, too many places in the media, particularly with regards to politicians, will allow people to say things that are simply not true and leave them unchallenged.

The factionalism and the infighting is so much more important to a certain kind of leftwinger than taking on the Tories

How often do you think you change people’s minds?

Not as often as I’d like. I had a chap at a festival of debate a few weeks ago who was a fully paid up member of the EDL before he started listening to my show and he stood up in front of 600 people and said: “I think you saved my life.” Those moments are incredibly important to me, but that’s extreme. I’m not arrogant or naive enough to think I’m moving the needle on national conversation anywhere near enough.

If you call your book How to Be Right, is it fair for people to accuse you of being smug?

I think people who peddle lies for a living call people who tell the truth smug. I’m not smug – smug would mean I was enjoying this.

Your book dismantles the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic views that you encounter on your show. But how much hostility or change in attitudes have you noticed in your day-to-day life?

I’m a white heterosexual male and despite what many people are currently arguing, I remain the most privileged constituency on the planet… I don’t have [that] experience. The mystery is how much of [this] there has always been and how much of it you now have because of emboldening.

I’d argue it was already there, but the lid has simply been lifted.

Sure. You’ve got Farage on the radio just flirting, knowing exactly where the line is, and Donald Trump crossing the line on a daily basis. So we’re seeing people, prominent people, incredibly powerful people saying these things and the “breaking point” poster [Farage’s 2016 anti-migrant poster] – there is no way you can unveil that poster in public and not think some people will think it’s OK to spit at brown-skinned people in the street. It’s the scale of how much the recent rhetoric of invasion, about cultural identity and about values being eroded – which is all bollocks – has impacted on beliefs. People who believe it find a logic to their anger.

Do you feel people are fundamentally good?

Of course I do; you have to. Look at the effort being put in to make people believe bad things: the effort is immense, it’s the richest people on the planet, the most powerful media owners, it’s the demagogues with the biggest platforms, the season ticket holders on Question Time. There is a commercial and audience imperative in this country where if it gets chatter going and it gets clicks, a big reaction, then it must be good. But of course, when ordinary punters watch this stuff, they don’t see a circus or bonfire, they just get seduced by the narcissism and you don’t have good tunes if you’re on the side of kindness and decency – you have nothing to point at.

You sound defeated even by the fightback!

It’s pathetic. It’s astonishing; the factionalism and the infighting is so much more important to a certain kind of leftwinger than taking on the Tories or in the last few years, the government. They’re obsessed with centrists, they’re obsessed with Blairites, they’re obsessed with denying antisemitism when it’s right there in front of them, so all that has incubated the problem.

Does a career in traditional politics beckon for you?

I have a silent rule that anyone who wants to go into politics should be banned – you should be forced to go into politics by plebiscite because people think you could bring something to the table. So it’s highly unlikely.

Given the success of the Brexit party, Farage might believe the same applies to himself?

Farage is simply a very very good heckler. He couldn’t be involved in delivering Brexit, he couldn’t be involved in delivering policy, he couldn’t be involved in putting together a proper manifesto or assembling a proper political party, all he can do is assemble a dizzying array of rotten tomatoes, stand at the side of the stage and lob them at the poor sods who are trying to make some sense of the current matter.

You’ve just been on holiday – what did you enjoy reading?

I’m halfway through The Ministry of Truth, Dorian Lynskey’s biography of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it’s absurdly good.

What was the last thing that made you laugh?

My 13-year-old daughter is addicted to Saturday Night Live sketches on YouTube and Pete Davidson’s character Chad brings me pretty close to wetting myself every time I watch him.

How do you relax and switch off?

Crime fiction. We live near the Thames and I like to walk the dog there as often as I can. I love walking up to Brentford where there’s still a boatyard and a real sense of when the river was an industrial hub. And I try to play Fifa on the PlayStation once a week with one of my oldest friends – we’ve been doing so for nearly 30 years! I keep meaning to take up meditation properly but can’t find the time.

• How to Be Right… in a World Gone Wrong is out now in paperback (WH Allen, £8.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99