James O’Brien, the left-wing LBC talk show host with enough opinions to easily fill three hours of airtime a day, has clearly benefited from living in what can politely be described as “interesting times” – even if he is rather apoplectic about about this. he had to do it.
In his latest book How they destroyed Britain, he points to ten people who, with their “unbridled arrogance and unquestionable ignorance,” have essentially ruined everything for everyone—except themselves, of course. They did well.
As a man who was a vocal opponent of Brexit and who was once called “the conscience of liberal Britain”, his cast list holds few surprises. We have politicians (David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage), former newspaper editors (Andrew Neil, Paul Dacre), think tank strategists (Matthew Elliott) and media moguls (Rupert Murdoch).
Dominic Cummings is also present and wrong, while Liz Truss is the only woman to make it, although Nadine Dorries and Suella Braverman receive honorable mentions. Taken together, their successes are monumental: Brexit, financial crises, poor handling of Covid, blatant xenophobia.
Of course, O’Brien’s only intention is to be the lone voice of reason amidst the chaos. He is both admired and deeply ridiculed, but his ability to reason and make an argument is second to none – after all, he attracts 1.46 million listeners to his LBC morning show every week. And he can do it here all the time – unlike on the radio.
“This book is an attempt to explain the emergence of an ecosystem in which dishonesty can flourish and facts can wither,” he writes. Even though we don’t learn much, it is still a wonderful experience to see everything laid out on one page and expressed with such power. That’s why we watch Do I have news for you? “If we really are all going to hell on handcarts, we should grin grimly as we approach.”
O’Brien does not have a subtle tone, but is rather intimidating and often mocking. When he says David Cameron’s family tree is “full of politicians and baronets”, he explains that the Baron is “one below the Earl, if you want to know”. He ends up spending a lot of trouble preaching to the converted. His comrades may applaud him for calling Boris Johnson a serial liar, but he is only adding more water to a fiction already known for its heroic watertightness.
Everyone here is “terrible” or “stupid.” Jeremy Corbyn is ‘pathetic’, Liz Truss is simply ‘overrated’. Interestingly, he almost likes Dominic Cummings. “Obviously he’s crazy as a frog, but I think he’s more driven by demons than defined by them.”
Whether you support these killings will of course depend on your own politics, but O’Brien makes sure to back up his arguments with statistics and facts, providing ample evidence of the detrimental influence these figures have on the country. His conclusion that national stability is currently conspicuous by its absence is difficult to question, and he does not offer an optimistic conclusion because it does not exist. Power corrupts. So what can politicians do other than mind their own business uncontrollably?
Towards the end he assesses how Johnson was preparing to return to No. 10 after Liz Truss’s disastrous premiership as prime minister, fully confident that despite – well, despite everything – he would have his party’s full support. “The break from reality was complete.”
Former Sex Pistol member John Lydon once said that anger is energy. James O’Brien has enough to set the national stage on fire.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.