Some books are peculiarly review-proof. I don’t mean that whatever one says will have no effect on their success, though in the case of James O’Brien’s How They Broke Britain, which comprises an extended “charge sheet” of the nine men and one woman its author believes set the UK on a course of unnecessary decline, this is indubitably the case. The book is already a bestseller; a recent event promoting it required a venue change, so great was the demand for tickets.
No, what I mean is that some books, at least in the current landscape, are hard to criticise; to argue with them is to incorporate yourself, however unwittingly, into the framework they purport to stand against. A critic from the right who picks a fight with How They Broke Britain may be dismissed by O’Brien as just another hateful ideologue or client journalist, any review further evidence of the incestuous, corrupt and heinously biased world he works so hard to decry. But a sceptic who belongs (as I do) to the other side may end up having it even worse. Break ranks with the man once described as the “conscience of liberal Britain”, and you risk being seen as a useful idiot not only by him, but by the 1.1 million people who follow him on X. (While O’Brien has always seemed perfectly nice whenever I’ve met him – three times, and only ever in the course of work – I’d be lying if I said I like the way he behaves on social media.)
