by Jonathan Todd
It would take a heart of stone to be unmoved by some of the songs that Morrissey has sung. It’s also necessary to be drunk on this emotion to not cringe at some of the daft things he’s said. Whether his friend, Russell Brand, has reached equivalent comedic heights to those scaled in musical form by Morrissey is debateable. But I’ve enjoyed all the Brand gigs that I’ve been to.
When Brand outraged America by calling George W Bush “that retard and cowboy fella”, I appreciated the joke on Uncut. When his phone jinks with Jonathan Ross went too far, I bought tickets for his next show. When he went to the Home Affairs Select Committee, I thought he spoke powerfully and perceptively about addiction.
But – Morrissey pun alert – that bloke isn’t funny anymore. He is a comedian who seems no longer able or willing to be so. While others, such as Mark Thomas, have made the dreary journey from a comedian with political content to an unfunny activist, Brand is a pied piper with wackier ideas and more followers. He’s telling them to not vote, that no established politicians or parties care about them, and that there is a grand collusion between this politics and the media and business – to such an extent that we should keep an open mind about what really happened on 11 September 2001.
Of course, politics has its problems – Adam Lent of the RSA gives a good account of them. But is every single member of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties – hundreds of thousands of people – part of an establishment stitch-up? Or are they, while divided on what this constitutes and how it might be achieved, all united in wanting the best for UK and the wider world? In this sense, are they really any different from the Occupy protestors that Brand applauds?
As for business, does anyone really think that markets cannot fail and that business is always beyond reproach? Even – as it backs TUC calls for pay rises – the Institute of Directors?
Perhaps I think this because my mind has been addled by a pernicious media? That same media that, at least it seems to me, continues to provide a plurality of opinion as circulations decline in the face of upstart rivals? If all these different channels are in on a conspiracy, it is a highly organised and complex conspiracy. Maybe that cowboy fella wasn’t really so dumb and has been the evil genius behind it all?
Or maybe – just maybe, let’s keep our minds open – there are other explanations. Maybe voters vote and activists get active amid a flawed political system but with the best of intentions. Maybe journalists largely do all they can to hold the powerful to account and have succeeded in contributing towards more knowledge, information and transparency more readily available than ever before – even if some people remain less well informed and engaged than we might wish. Maybe businesses sustain themselves through the choices of consumers and the hard work of workers and sometimes these choices may be ill-judged and this work poorly focused but that’s just people for you.
It saddens me to see someone who I’ve liked and laughed along with become someone peddling arguments so obviously inadequate that they can be shot down like fish in a barrel. When Robert Webb did some of this shooting last year – arguing for the importance of voting – the Labour twitterati piled in behind him. But Owen Jones – a frequent speaker at CLP fundraisers – has “a lot of time for Brand”. And the Brand pitch is a supercharged version of something that Jones can encourage into Labour’s narrative: what Bertrand Russell called “the fallacy of the superior virtue of the oppressed”.
While Labour should have more time for Bertrand Russell than Russell Brand, Brand seems supremely sure of himself. He was addicted to drugs. Then sex. Now he seems high on politics. Or at least throwing political shapes that please what he is revealing to be a sadly more closed mind than it seemed when he was intentionally funny. As much as I now struggle to not laugh at him and worry about more impressionable minds, not least in the Labour party, getting caught in the webs that he weaves, in happier days, I laughed with him. But the joke was always on him. Him and his drugs. Him and his sex. Him and his tabloid hell.
Now it’s Him and his revolution. He seems even more certain of it than Nigel Farage is of throwing over the Westminster applecart on the way to Brexit. But what will become of Brand and Farage when those things don’t happen? Farage will nurse a pint and fart fitfully at the TV. I worry more about Brand. He might not have reached the heights of Morrissey but I fear he has a similar capacity to mine the depths of deep, dark, self-absorbed tunnels.
It doesn’t have to be this way, Russell. Open your mind.
Jonathan Todd is Deputy Editor of Labour Uncut
Tags: Jonathan Todd, Morrissey, new politics, Occupy, political engagement, Russell Brand
So, the author of this piece decries a Russell Brand who believes that our representative democracy is failing but applauds him for making misogynistic and abusive phone calls, and approves of RB throwing the word “retard” about.
As Deputy Editor of Labour Uncut doesn’t Jonathan Todd need to have a good look at his own set of morals.
I don’t like Russel Brand personally or as a comedian.
I treat anything he writes or says on politics as froth.
He’s unworthy or more than three lines comment.
Brand is right. I agree with him. Politics is fucking bullshit, there is no Democracy, and you’ve all been conned.
p.s.
He’s right about 9/11 too, anyone with half a brain can see that it was an inside job.
Look, we’ve had enough comedians in politicsalready; here’s one in City Hall London at the moment, another Eddie Izzard flexing muscles in the wings and now this pipsqueak of a foul mouthed clown, given prominence by the NS, thinking he can lead a Childrens Crusade. At least Arnie and Ronnie in the States were actors of sorts and had something to say. But this clwn has nothing, he’s anti IT, just like that Farage bloke, and hoping that the time for Antis and Anarchists and Greens has ccome. well, he’s wrong.
The virtue of the oppressed, not superior for sure…..but what’s interesting now about this question, as your critique of the Brand phenomena displays, is that it’s redundant. In our brave new media driven world, beyond being fodder for study and market based solutions, the oppressed are all but invisible. And what a worry all those impressionable minds must be for you.
Were this blog, others like it and the MSM, willing to tackle the concrete issues which underlie Brands lucrative peddling he might have a harder time pushing his obviously inadequate solution.
Instead you follow the timely marketing efforts of others.
Brand on the now poor excuse for a news program, BBC’s Newsnight, was an absolute car crash. He came across as a kid with some kind of hyperactivity disorder. Incoherent garbage, and if anyone on the left attaches themselves to him and his views, they must have some political suicide tendencies.
I’ve often been critical of Jonathan for his fawning defense of Miliband on many occassions, but i have to say this critique is spot on. There I’ve said it now ;-).
Spot on, Jonathan.
If only Russell would open his mind and realise that Tony Blair is the greatest political leader of the era. And if only, instead of wasting himself on the Occupy movement, Russell would donate handsomely to the Progress Party.
Then we could truly declare Russell to be the greatest of comedians.
Good article and it reminded me of who made the wonderful quote ” The fallacy of the superior virtue of the oppressed” although he was wrong on most other things.
I am also pleased that I’m not the only person who thinks Mark Thomas just isn’t funny.
Also a good take on Owen Jones, someone who has never done a days work in his life and is now an expert on everything.
He never was funny in the first place, just a bit wierd, and foul mouthed ragmuffin in the Bob Geldorf genre.
“Brand is right. I agree with him. Politics is fucking bullshit, there is no Democracy, and you’ve all been conned.”
Nope.
“He’s right about 9/11 too, anyone with half a brain can see that it was an inside job.”
Nope.
@ Dan
Yep
Labour and Tory are two sides of the same coin. No difference between them. The Left-Right paradigm is nothing less than the Hegelian Dialectic in action;
Thesis Vs. Antithesis = Synthesis
The presence of filthy-rich meddlesome unelected bureaucrat Lord Freud in both Labour and Tory Governments is proof enough that Democracy is a sham. Both Labour and Tory support Benefit Sanctions against the Poor. Labour were infiltrated years ago by wealthy middle class intellectuals and pro-Capitalists. Labour as we knew it ceased to exist when they ditched Clause IV.
Study the evidence and think for yourself
http://www.911truth.org/
http://www.ae911truth.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsRm8M-qOjQ
Landless peasant, suprise your lot the greens don’t thave a mass suport of the electorate then isn’t it,
i don’t know about 911 ,but i wouldn’t use soemones blog or a you tube video as proof, anymore that i would believe if someone in a pub overheard that his brothers best mate told him it too be true
That’s like saying ” I don’t know about 9/11 and I don’t want to know, or I’m too lazy to bother listening to the evidence because I have a closed mind”.
Explain to me how, for instance, the plane that allegedly hit the Pentagon was supposedly traveling at 500mph at an height of just 2ft yet didn’t even scorch the lawn.
Explain to me how the hell a terrorist’s passport was found undamaged, not even singed, simply laying amongst the rubble on the pavement. Total bullshit.
Explain to me how the hell the BBC were able to report that Building 7 had collapsed, a full 20 minutes before it collapsed. And why was that report inexplicably interrupted and the feed lost mid-sentence?
9/11 was clearly and obviously an inside job.
I know nothing about 9/11 apart from watching the aftermath that day in real time.
I do know that Americans love litigation and generally distrust government – especially the Federal Government. So given 3,000 died that day, any real evidence of a cover up would surely have resulted in mass law suits claiming billions of dollars – or even trillions of dollars -in compensation.
The fact that there have not been thousands of lawsuits given the avaricious nature of US lawyerdom tells me all I need to know about “evidence” of an inside job.
@ Madasafish
Don’t be ridiculous. How much would such a Law suit cost? How much would the necessary investigation cost? How can anyone bring such a case or even effectively challenge it when stonewalled by the entire weight of the US Federal Government and all its departments (CIA, DIA, FBI, etc.)? It’s just not possible for anyone to do anything about it. Bush himself is on record as saying that he wasn’t worried about the truth of what he’s done being uncovered because he’ll be dead & gone by then.
Brand is right – our Politicians do not serve us and are irrelevant.