Book Review : How to be Right by James O'Brien

Let me get 'right' down to it. There are some books I have read, and I immediately know : There is something going on here and it ain't 'right' at all. In terms of 'rightness' (and this book has self proclaimed rightness) it is the second worst book I have ever read. The worst was "Proof of Heaven" - See earlier review. So congrats to this book on coming second. From bottom.

I want to say first off , that if you want to write a book on 'how to be right' then you had better be 100% sure that you are right. With your facts. And if you are wrong on one little fact then maybe the whole premise is wrong? I am going to show you that this author is wrong on three major facts (in the first 100 pages) and I will show some other naïve arguments.

I am going to indulge myself here and say that the author of this book is a bully. This is my personal opinion. Read the book without any knowledge of what is 'right or wrong' and judge for yourself. The way he treats his callers is abhorrent. They can't get a word in, they can barely get their point across, and this semi-wordsmith simply humiliates them and swipes them aside. It takes a brave person to call in to his show. I have experienced being bullied and it is life changing. To do it on in front of millions of listeners is downright irresponsible.

1) Chiswick.

James O'Brien : "I remember a caller from Colchester, let's call him Bob, who pursued the always popular line of accusing me personally of being insulated from the horrific effects of immigration by dint of being middle class and a resident of the leafy London suburb of Chiswick, an area that my dedicated handful of unapologetically - but always anonymous - racist internet trolls laughably describe as a 'white enclave', despite it having over three times more immigrants than the national average."

OK. So let me tell you where he is misleading his listeners here. He is saying that because Chiswick has three times more immigrants than the national average then it cannot be a predominantly white area.

Firstly you should not compare Chiswick to the country as a whole. There are places such as the Outer Hebrides that barely has any immigration (though I was surprised to read about a mosque being built to serve the 60 Muslims who live there!). Every single borough in London has more immigrants than the national average!

Secondly, according to the last available census, Chiswick is predominantly young and educated with very low unemployment (3%). It has a high proportion of people of white ethnicity (85%). One could in fact call it a 'white enclave' - it's certainly not 'laughable' to describe it as such - although personally I would not have used the word 'enclave.'

Caller 1 - James 0

2) James and the Giant Peach

There was a balloon (or blimp) of a 'baby Donald Trump' that was flown in various parts of London ahead of Trump's state visit to the UK in June 2019.

A little background first. Trump's original visit was actually cancelled because of fear of protests. He cancelled it himself which was not his wisest move. You need to stand up to protestors, but I suppose he felt the protests would get more headlines than the real purpose of the visit which was to strengthen ties between his administration and ours. A pretty important thing to do given that we were in the middle of negotiating Brexit at the time.

Anyway, fast forwarding to the actual visit. Protestors paid £30,000 for a balloon of Donald Trump looking like a baby. Talk about a waste of money! And extremely insulting to our greatest ally of the last 75 years. I don't need to ask where we would be if the US hadn't helped us during the 2nd World War.

Anyway a someone named Brian called in to ask (quite legitimately) if it was common courtesy to allow the blimp to be floated in Parliament Square. He was also quite 'rightly' worried that this might isolate the US even more at a time when were still in the middle of Brexit and desperately trying to get assurances about future trade deals that would impact the economy for decades to come.

James mocked the caller saying "I know you thought you had some brilliant points when you called in....." and in fact, didn't answer any of them!

Unbelievably, it was the MAYOR OF LONDON, Sadiq Khan who gave permission for the balloon to fly over London. For a politician to do this before a state visit from the President of the United States of America beggars belief. He put personal politics above the interests of the two great nations. Donald Trump later called him a 'national disgrace' which sounds about right.

Incidentally Police Scotland denied permission for the balloon to fly there. London's Metropolitan Police did nothing. Oh wait, they did do something. They arrested AND charged the Trump supporter who popped a much smaller version of the balloon. To use one of my favourite expressions : You couldn't make it up!

3) The Nanny State (Health by Stealth):

The author thinks that 'nanny state' rhetoric is a divisive and dangerous school of thought and that proponents of it are plain selfish among other things. In fact 'nanny state' is an extremely accurate way to describe the UK.

This whole chapter reeks of lefty student level economics.

But why should I have to pay more tax to help lazy people who make bad choices?

A caller called Henry makes a valid point 'Why should I pay more (tax) because other people are too stupid to understand that they're going to get diabetes if they drink a gallon of pop for breakfast?'

He shouldn't call these people stupid of course. That's a bit rude. Badly educated more like (another huge can of worms - why does my tax go on educating people who don't even want an education and on teachers who are under-qualified to even give one?)

James counter argument is that if you can afford to pay the sugar tax then there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, he actually says that he could afford to pay double! What!? If we applied his flawed logic to everything else that is taxed unnecessarily (alcohol, cigarettes etc.) there would be riots that would make the poll tax riots look like a teddy bears picnic. This is health by stealth!

Get this through your skull James - just because most of us can afford to pay a few more pennies in tax, doesn't make it right! Where would it end? You want everyone to spend their spare cash and savings on extra tax?

Wouldn't it be better to spend our taxes on giving people a decent education? (Recent funding cuts have forced up class sizes in secondary schools across England).

To actually try to stop people drinking too much, smoking too much, taking too many drugs, eating too much unhealthy food or having unprotected sex by increasing taxes simply doesn't work and arguably (see below) even has the opposite effect.

The fact is that the UK has one of the most interfering nanny states in Europe. We have the highest taxes on cigarettes, the highest taxes on wine (at a staggering 55%), and the second highest levied on beer.

If we take a look at the website Nannystateindex.org and have a look at the index (for 2019 when I started writing this) you find the UK in a lofty 4th place out of 23 countries. I need to point out that having a high position in this Index is NOT a good thing! Only Finland, Lithuania and Estonia score higher than the UK. The countries with the least nannyish states are Italy and Spain. Maybe you can now figure out why I moved from the UK to Spain.

You see, and I quite pride myself in this, I have discovered an inverse correlation between the Nanny State Index and Life Expectancy. The countries with the worst nanny states have lower life expectancies and vice versa.

Go to Wikipedia and search for a list of European Countries by life expectancy and you find that Spain comes in a very healthy 4th place and Italy in 6th. The UK languishes in 18th position.

4) Invented Racism:

James doesn't know the definition of racism. In fact lets prove it. I am going to do a search on google for "definition of racism" and I will take the first definition on the list that comes from a household name dictionary.

OK so the first entry that comes up is from the dictionary Merriam-Webster and here is what it says:

Definition of racism : "a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

Now in order to prove that James doesn't know the definition we only need to check his conversation with a caller called Sean:

Sean says "I've been here for 30 years and when I walk into Uxbridge I swear to God I don't know where I am. I've got Polish, Romanians, Bulgarians sitting outside coffee houses doing sod all, all day. When I go into hospital, I walk into A&E and out of 120 people I'm lucky if I see three or four white faces.

James replies "Now, that is racist."

Sean goes on "No it isn't. It's realistic."

And finally James says "It really is. That last bit is because you're forming an opinion of people, of their value, based on their colour. There are people who don't have white faces who are just as British as you and me, Sean."

Let's focus on why James thinks Sean is being racist. He says he's forming an opinion of people based on their colour. Where exactly is this opinion? I can't find it. I can see observations but not opinions. Observing a non-white person is not racist! Check the definition again. Racism is a belief that one race is superior to another. Noticing Eastern Europeans drinking coffee all day is not saying they are inferior in any way. It is just an observation.

Then James talks down to him in his last sentence. I am sure Sean knows that not all British people have white faces. That's a good observational example of James being condescending.

I will give you an example from my own life. After a gap of around 15 years, I visited my old house in London in 2018. I went shopping in Morrisons in Stratford. There were only two people (working and shopping) in the whole supermarket with white faces and they were not speaking English. I am guessing Eastern European. Am I saying something racist here? No. It's an observation. It did shock me though. During 15 years this part East London has become over 90% non-white, non-English speaking. It was unrecognizable to the Britain I had left 15 years earlier. My Asian wife was confused as to which country we had come to. She was (quite reasonably) expecting a country of white, English speaking people.

According to James, I am (and my wife too) racist. But I haven't said that the people of Stratford are inferior in any way. I am just stating facts and making observations.

I will however say something a tad controversial now because beating James is just ridiculously easy. It seems that certain parts of Britain have undergone an "invasion by stealth." If these changes had happened overnight we would probably have to declare war! The fact is they have happened slowly and nobody has really noticed (certainly not the bone headed James). Britain now is not what Britain was. Right or wrong it's just a fact.

Personally I am happy I left a country that is fast becoming non-white and non-English speaking. I just don't recognize the place anymore. And I certainly don't feel safe walking the streets of East London at night.

Callers 2 James 0

5) Terrorism:

Terrorism is predominantly committed by non-white persons in Britain. Deal with it how you like. It's a fact, nothing to do with being racist or not. In fact we can expand terrorism to include pretty much any crime here. I do not feel safe in certain parts of Britain anymore and it's quite obvious to me why the population voted in favour of Brexit.

Let's quote some more stuff from James's book.

" Just a month before the Westminster attack (Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, drove a car into pedestrians on the pavement along the south side of Westminster Bridge and Bridge Street, injuring more than 50 people, four of them fatally,) and following the London Bridge attack which left eight dead (The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack,) the bestselling newspaper in the United Kingdom, the Sun, carried a comment piece under the headline "If We Want Peace... We Need Less Islam". I'm pretty sure there were people in my hometown of Kidderminster in the 1970s who would have said that if we want peace, we need less Catholicism or by clear implication, fewer Catholics, but thankfully I never heard them and I certainly never had to see their bigotry emblazoned across a national newspaper."

So let's break it down. The Sun said we need less Islam (Islamists) which seems to me to be a fairly mild thing to say after ISIS committed their terrorist attack. Less Islam, Less chance of ISIS getting stronger. I agree! Not sure why he brings Catholics into this but yes, why not? Less Catholics, Less Catholicism, Less Paedophiles. Completely agree with that one.

Just a note to end on.

He admitted in the book that he was best mates with Jamie Oliver (most famous recently for the collapse of his restaurant chain that caused the loss of 1,000 jobs). On the back cover we have a nice bit of nepotism with Jamie quoted as saying "A simply brilliant read...I love this book!" Pukka.

Emily Maitlis, who should know better, said it was "Forensically brilliant..." She should have done her research before saying that.

At least he had the comedic value of quoting The Sun (who are actually spot on) : "James O'Brien is the epitome of a smug, sanctimonious, condescending, obsessively politically-correct, champagne-socialist public schoolboy Remoaner."