Talk show host James O’Brien holds up a mirror to an
increasingly ill-informed society around
us.
O’Brien’s central thesis is the need to make people
accountable, not let them tell lies and get away with it. He blames much of the
right wing media for propagating total untruths over a number of years, leading
to a dangerously ill informed society.
The book is illustrated with exerts from his daily phone in
programme on LBC, as he looks at Islam and Islamism, Brexit, LGBT, political
correctness, feminism, the nanny state, the age gap and Trump.
The ludicrousness of the view that all Muslims are
responsible for terrorism is amusingly exposed in a conversation with a guy
called Richard. O’Brien takes Richard through the absurdity of his argument,
that all Muslims must apologise for any terrorist attacks done by Muslims, pointing
out that the shoe bomber Richard Reid shared his name, so on that basis he and all
Richards should apologise for that action.
O’Brien has a real originality of thought that comes from
analysing things in a logical way. In the case of the chapter on the age gap,
he points out with younger generations never able to own their home they are
effectively repeatedly paying the mortgage, through rent , of the landlord letting the
property out.
By the time a younger person reaches old age they may have
paid a mortgage two or three times over but have nothing to show for it. And
nothing to live on in later life, when health and social care bills start to
mount up. This is contributing to a concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer
hands, creating a very dangerous society where a growing numbers of people simply
do not have a stake.
Finally, he comes to Trump with his accusations of fake news
and alternative versions of the facts. The public discourse really has reached the most banal
level at this stage. O’Brien illustrates why Trumps assertion that he could go
out on Fifth Avenue, shoot someone, and still be backed by his
supporters, is so frighteningly true.
This is a fascinating read from an excellent journalist, who
does his best every day to expose the idiocy of much that goes on around us. He also outlines how much of the nonsense is quite deliberately fed
through a media owned by vested interests, set to profit most handsomely from
the ongoing promotion of such lies. An
excellent book, if a little frightening at times.
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