It is amusing that Polly Toynbee attacks Russell Brand on the grounds there is a real difference between Labour and the Conservatives, on the day Ed Balls argues immigrants must be kept out by amending the EU treaties – in the same paper!
I have never been a great fan of Russell Brand’s media persona, and for a revolutionary to be shacked up with Jemima Khan’s millions is perhaps some kind of extended exercise in post-modern irony as performance art. But Brand’s perception that the neo-con political parties are all the same is absolutely correct, and his is almost the only voice the media will broadcast saying it. When I have been saying precisely the same thing for a decade it is not news. News, apparently, lies not in what is said, but whether or not it is a celebrity who says it.
Not voting is a perfectly reasonable choice. I would prefer that people voted Green, or independent, or SNP in Scotland or Plaid Cymru in Wales. But Brand’s option of not voting is also valid – the entire system of corporations, media and politicians is designed to block real change.
Polly Toynbee is a very rich woman compared to the rest of us, with a great deal of inherited wealth and a Guardian salary well into six figures, for writing a constant stream of tribal pro-Labour drivel. She quotes with approval John Lydon’s observation:
it’s clear, if you’ve got a pile of money in the bank, you vote for people with piles of money in the bank
Which is absolutely true, and why Polly Toynbee votes Labour. Another irony which flies over the head of the humourless old moneybag-toting harridan.
Toynbee is delighted to discover that the rambling Lydon is not really a revolutionary. The rest of the world had known it was only a money-spinning pose for forty years, and he is pretty right wing.
Extraordinary that Toynbee points out the strangeness of treating Russell Brand as a political guru, and then sets up John Lydon instead. The silly old bat really, really doesn’t get irony, does she? Or is Polly Toynbee in fact herself some kind of monumental performance art installation, designed on every level to project the futility and hypocrisy of New Labour?
Ishmael: I heard Lydon being interviewed on the radio the other day. He said they were never interested in anarchism, it was just something to beef up their songs with. He said anarchism was just table-talk for the middle classes, or words to that effect. Cynical for sure but perhaps not confused.
RE Pete. “Don’t vote it only encourages them” is all very well, but what does he suggest people do instead???”
He has made many suggestions and advocated on many specific issues of late. I take it you haven’t actually been following the ideas. Maybe your more into smells?
Malcolm McLaren once said that rock n roll died the day Elvis joined the army. That’s the trouble with radical celebs. They’re only in it for the fame and the money and they all join the army in the end. Lennon may have been an exception but look what happened to him.
Also regarding Brand, Just like with Craig, it’s not my business to like them or not. It’s really not the point.
Habbabkuk
I meant former ambassadors in general, not Craig specifically.
RE Mj.
yea, sounds about right.
“Here’s a new word, sounds a bit like antichrist, don’t know what it really means, all chaos and stuff?….upper classes don’t like it, fuck it we’ll use it….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Bv2MKY7uI
Having an objectionable berk like Brand pushing an alternative agenda is positively advantageous for the status quo. That’s why he’s feted so much, in my opinion. He’s useful for discrediting serious ideas. I know every time I hear Brand say something I agree with, I get a red face – and I’m sure I’m not alone. John
Deep roots.
http://strike-the-root.com/3/gillespie/gillespie1.html
I think Brand’s articulating what an awful lot of people have come to think; and that’s his, er, brand. I don’t think he’s offering anything new – he just shouts louder and (admittedly) more entertainingly, if not quite as intelligently as he would like people to think. He’s a clown (and the ringmaster can have him dragged off if he starts endangering the status quo). His actions speak louder than his words, for me. Jemima Goldsmith, pmsl.
Toynbee’s just an op-ed hack. Money for old rope, and generally erroneous rope at that. Not worth worrying about, Craig: no-one else does.
And what John Spencer-Davies said. Exactly.
@Craig “Polly Toynbee is a very rich woman compared to the rest of us..for writing a constant stream of tribal pro-Labour drivel.” Lucky so=and-so. She must be a talented writer, to have become wealthy doing it. Perhaps if she were poor, you wouldn’t bother attacking her. 🙂
Comparing WIKIPEDIA PAGES
Whereas the page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Johnson_(writer) for Stanley Patrick Johnson
does mention that he was the Head of Prevention of Pollution Division at the European Commission from 1973-1979, then MEP;
the page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Balls for Professor Michael Balls CBE somehow forgets to mention Ed’s dad’s working for the Commission – we have to look at places like John Hopkins University to find “My perspective and my focus have not changed since I work for the Commission which is responsible {for} administering Directive 86/609/EEC, with its great articles 7 and 23.”
John Spencer-Davis
Are people fixed identities in you mind? I did not like what brand did at all, but following what he’s been saying recently on his youtube channel, he seems calm, balanced, and not utterly foolish.
He’s made me re-think a few things. Not that lots of people don’t do that for me. If anything it’s others who still make him out to be this totally evil persona. His past hasn’t helped, but I judge peoples actions in an ongoing way. I think that’s only fair.
Are people fixed identities in your* mind?
I see her Gran was a Murray Craig. LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Toynbee
Ishmael
Are people fixed identities in my mind? No, not at all. People are complex, and people can certainly change, and learn from their mistakes, as I have, and I’m sure he has, and everyone here has.
I never said anything about his past, and I never said he was evil. I said he was an objectionable berk, and I stand by that. Although I’ll modify it slightly. Craig Murray made reference to his “media persona”. I don’t know him personally, of course. His media persona is undoubtedly that of an objectionable berk, as far as I can see. If you don’t agree, well and good. I have watched Brand on YouTube, lecturing us from the back of a limousine or something. I have no idea if what I watched was on “his” channel or not, but what I’ve seen has not encouraged me to seek more of his wisdom.
I think the best favour Brand could do the people he purports to speak up for would be to shut up and stick to comedy. He’s not very good even at that, but at least he wouldn’t do any harm.
Perhaps you are right, and Brand is charm and thoughtfulness personified in his personal life and even in his public life now. But it is certainly not the impression I get – and I’m in sympathy with a lot of what he says. If I feel like that, how do you think people who don’t initially agree with him feel? Kind regards. John
“I judge peoples actions in an ongoing way. I think that’s only fair.”
Come to think it, I’m trying not to do that. Grrr.
I think it’s good to work with people who’s actions you agree with. Or work on similar actions yourself. Ie, not just illustrate agreement or not, Or hold them in mind really.
But like it or not Russell is doing something, a hell of a lot more than most within his pay bracket. I can’t see many other privileged doing anything to be honest. A couple maybe.
John, would you like to take up an actual issue he has spoken on lately, Or something he has advocated? Gaza Palestine maybe? Or are you just going to name call.
I really don’t care about his individual personality.
Yet another post-vote post? Give it a break Craig. Other civilizations need some exposure. Can you perhaps say something about other issues? Maybe a 1 to 1 ratio?
Christ knows where Craig gets the idea that Lydon is ‘pretty right wing’ – he’s never voted Tory in his life, and his dig at Ukip could have come from the keyboard of our host himself.
I would guess his current political leanings are tinged by nostalgia for the Old Labour he ineffectually railed against in his 76/77 heyday. In recent interviews he’s expressed admiration and affection for his hard working London Irish parents, both now dead. They almost certainly voted for Michael O’Halloran (Jeremy Corbyn’s predessesor) when John was a wee lad, and as he’s got older he’s probably seen virtues in that political tradition that were invisible to him as a younger man.
As for Russell Brand, my views on him are probably best expressed in this delicious bit of white soul from Mr Rundgren-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKwPwgi_a6Y
I have always thought Brand is a narcissist, who will say and do anything to get attention. Polly Toynbee is a waste of time as well. I am not a fan or admirer of either of them. Brand is as much a revolutionary as John Lennon was. They both profess(ed) to be revolutionary, but really they were just trying to get attention.
I remember back in 1982 when la Toynbee wrote a story called “Vote, vote, vote for Poly Toynbee” in the Graun. She was in the SDP back in those days and stood for a council seat in London which she failed to get.
What I can remember after all these years is the sheer mutual incomprehension that existed between Toynbee and the working class people in that ward. They wanted jobs and decent housing, whereas she wanted to talk about the great constitutional issues that had led to the formation of the SDP.
It was an hilarious piece and I wish I could read it again.
Russell Brand at the GQ awards last year was pretty awesome…
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/sep/13/russell-brand-gq-awards-hugo-boss
I think some of his comedy is infantile – the whole schtick with Jonathan Ross was pretty awful – but his social commentary is sometimes brilliant. This for example:
“When I was poor and I complained about inequality people said I was bitter, now I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.”
His self-awareness is a lot better than most.
Pete 15 Oct, 2014 – 11:48 am
“Russell Brand would presumably have discouraged young people from voting in the Scottish Referendum, would he not?”
No. At the end of this video, he recommends people vote for Scottish Independence, and suggests we get ourselves a new currency while we’re at it.
I guess he’s saying that Westminster democracy is broken and not worth participating in, but it is worth voting when you have a chance to make a meaningful change to the system.
“Give it a break Craig”
I confess it did make me laugh. I don’t know if it’s good but kind of fresh to hear someone lay into what’s meant to be a left leaning side of the establishment.
Democracy, socialism. It’s not as if they don’t see these thing going total extinct is it.
Just like Craig, I think they should come out. Through cation to the wind, Or like Brand do something alternative. Even if it’s totally evil at least it’s something. UKIP may start rounding up immigrants and we can then all see what’s what.
I just don’t think any of them have an idea what it’s like for the rest of us, wages kept below subsistence. As they take off and are largely just fine.
How long can this continue I wonder, how long will they pretend there are no choices.
^^ oops, this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNvfSL8eJLQ
“Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiring in al Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, says he has information about how al Qaeda financed its operations and he wants to provide it to lawyers representing terrorism victims.
After a federal jury in Brooklyn found Arab Bank liable last month for financing Hamas operations during the Second Palestinian Intifada, Moussaoui sent a handwritten letter to the clerk of the court from a super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where he is serving a life sentence. (Moussaoui said he heard about the jury verdict on Fox News.) “I want to testify against financial institutions such as Arab Bank, Saudi American Bank, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia” and several individuals, Moussaoui wrote, “for their support and financing of Usama bin Laden and Al Qaeda from the time of the Eastern Africa embassy bombing, U.S.S. Cole bombing and 9/11.”
http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2014/10/14/zacarias-moussaoui-wants-to-testify-on-al-qaeda-terror-financing/
I think it’s possible he is parroting what the House of Sods has been asking for. The 9/11 report had quite a few pages missing to ‘protect’ Saudis from being falsely accused wrt to those evacuations right after that day. They have also called for those pages to be released. What is the US hiding?
“Not voting is a perfectly reasonable choice. ”
I’m surprised to read this. Not voting means you have no voice, and no business complaining at any outcome. If you voted for the opposition, you are entitled to complain about the incumbent. If you voted for the party in office, you are certainly entitled to complain that they are inadequately representing you.
Voting for a minor party – Plaid, Greens, whatever – makes the main parties sit up and take notice: “Hang on – those are thousands of votes we could have had! We’d better make ourselves more appealing in that direction.”
Not voting indicates you don’t care one way or any other, and will attract little interest. People died to give us the right to vote, and this “Don’t vote – it only encourages them” is utter nonsense, a falsehood favoured by the political elite, who are very happy with disenfranchisement and apathy.
Ed. 2 05pm
Great quote.
No prizes for guessing what matters more, our opinions about Russell Brand’s character or the fact that he gets these embargoed issues an airing and, no doubt, generates ripples of regognition and conversation through our society.
I’ve not heard anyone say he’s wrong. It seems to me what jams in the intellectual partician gullet is that he’s as common as muck and uses a rather vulgar “in your face” style toexpression of his opinions. Not cricket for sure, but certainly engaging, funny and thought provoking.
Good luck to him.
Oops! Again.
Should read…”to express his opinions”.
I renounce “toexpression”. It sounds like some kind of dodgy pharma product.