James O'Brien (7) (1972–)

I got interested in this book during my last two visits to the UK - both in spring 2024. I hadn't travelled much to the UK during the past 20 years, quite the opposite to the 15 years before, when I had lived and studied there, made friends and regularly visited them. Visiting the UK today feels very different compared to twenty years ago. Even when considering that the entire world has changed a lot throughout the past two decades (and so did I, myself), I wondered what it is, that appears show more to have changed "on top of how the rest of the world has changed". James O'Brian's book sounded like a good read for better understanding this apparent change. I am afraid it didn't help as much as I had hoped.

Just to be clear: l learned a lot about various media scandals and political desasters that led up to Brexit and the various cosequences of Brexit. The book is a well written and well selected compilation of reports on "things that went wrong", covering legal cases, newspaper columns and commentaries, outrageous speeches, unfortunate or desastrous political decisions, etc. etc. Also, I appreciate O'Brian's choice of ten people for ten chapters with analyses of their particular role in the process that led to Brexit and/or its political implementation.
I learned a lot about Brexit, but I wonder whether this is all there is to say about what has changed in the UK. I agree that Brexit was a tragically anachronistic political decision, and I believe that this decision has caused many problems and will probably continue to do so. Still, I find it hard to believe that it can explain all changes in British society. Maybe it can, maybe it can't. To find out, the book would have needed to compare "the old days" with today. It doesn't do that at all. Instead there is a persistent but implicit claim, that everything was better at some ill-defined moment in history - when Britain was not yet broken.

Readers of this book can learn a lot about the various ways in which British media interact with Westminster politics. One can find out a lot about the Tory party, too. I admit that enjoyed the clearly marked attitude of the author. However, I still don't know why visiting the UK today feels so different than it did twenty years ago.
Also, I don't think that Britain is any more broken than other European countries - just visit Germany, France or Italy for comparison! show less

An alternative title for this might be - "How to be Angry". This was a difficult read in some respects - O'Brien draws less from his time as a radio host and more from copious amounts of reading and research, and the result is certainly an angrier examination of what has gone wrong in Britain in the last few decades. But then, we should be angry that politicians now feel free to live in a world of alternative truth, that think tanks and lobbyists have so much sway, and that a large part of show more our media are controlled by those who wish to control us. Put these ingredients together, as O'Brien does here, and the result is xenophobia, rioting, Brexit, a cost of living crisis, and one of the worst responses to the pandemic of any country in the western world. show less

This is the companion piece to O'Brien's other recent book, How to Be Right. The first one was, frankly, a much better read - here O'Brien talks about the power of changing your mind and accepting that you can be wrong about things. That, of course, suggests that eventually you will be right (the topic of the first book), but the value lies in examining why one feels the way one does about different subjects. Penny drop moments abound here, and credit is given where it is due for their show more occurrence, whether it be from corporal punishment (smacking one's children etc) or vegetarianism or fat shaming; the only problem really is that the juiciest content comes in the first book and not so much here.

Though there are plenty of moments of value in this slim volume, too much seems to have been given over to padding, suggesting that this has been a slightly rushed affair - dare I ask if it was suggested by the publishers as a way to capitalise on the dramatic success of the first volume? show less

Rounding out to 3.5. O'Brien is preaching to the converted here but it's a short, entertaining and engaging book (the audiobook is very well produced too, with example conversations from his radio show reperformed).