Yep. I think the ''Don't vote' is a red herring. Brand should get some credit for raising some big issues, like the illuminati/very rich families dominating the financial agenda rather than castigating him for being a knob head. Traditionally the masses are 'given' their football, booze and dope and wander through life like sheep. It's time to wake up but I have to admit it's mighty weird having someone like Brand banging the drum!
Thought the journalist on Question time was very good.
For years I have wondered why the youth of today have not gone ballistic about the way society has developed.
Because they are distracted by X-factor, Premiership football and anything else that can be monetised for them to consume. That is, until they become old, cynical, a mountain of debt and too worn down by the 9-5 grind to have any fight in them like you and me.
I don't really get the he has no solutions argument. Is it wrong for someone to stand up and say this isn't right? We all do it. I'd wager that few of us actually have any real solutions to the problems we highlight. Essentially this is why we elect people to parliament so they can come up with solutions for our problems (obviously in reality that is rarely the case). Saying he should stand as an MP is like throwing the same response at anyone who posts in this thread.
Spot on. The idea that people can only speak out against the way things are run if they have a 'solution' is bullshit.
It's yet another way of stifling debate that questions the status quo.
This is a strawman. I have no issue with people raising problems, however when Brand is highlighting issues that others have been highlighting for decades, unless he has something to add to the debate (which he doesn't) he shouldn't be given free publicity through the legitimacy of state-funded broadcasters and be elevated to bring some kind of modern day Buddha when he is literally bringing nothing new to the table. Might as well give a Nobel medal to the next physicist to reassert the proof that the Earth is round.
And who decides whether he "adds something to the debate"? You? QT has always found space for non serving politicians with interesting views. John Lydon for example. And regrettably, Nick Griffin. You may not like Russell Brand and I not sure I do either. However it is unarguable that he speaks for a large number of people, in a way they respond to. As does Nigel Farage
It's a demonstrable fact he has added nothing to the debate, due to the fact that pretty much everything he raises has been raised countless times before, by people a lot smarter and better informed than him. I don't have a problem with non-politicians on QT, in fact they're usually the best guests, but the points Brand raises are nothing new. Honestly, Joey Barton was a more insightful guest on QT.
It's your opinion. That is not the same as a "demonstrable fact". Politics is full of people who gain support by their presentation rather than the novelty of their ideas. Farage for example. I've been able to hear his poisonous anti-immigrant crap since the days of Enoch Powell but he's found the knack of packaging it up in matey saloon bar knockabout, rather than 'rivers of blood' polemics. Just my opinion of course.
I don't think you're actually reading my posts, I never said anything about the presentation of issues (not ideas as you said as Brand doesn't have any), but the difference between Farage and Brand is that Farage is actually putting forward concrete ideas to deal with issues (whether you agree with them or not, he has at least made suggestions such as leaving the EU and capping immigration). I'm bored of hearing people moan about the cosy establishment stitch-up between big business and the main parties, I want to hear how people propose to resolve this. If Brand wants a platform to moan but not actually make any useful proposals, he can sign up to CL.
The difference between Farage and Brand is that Farage is a politician, it's his job to put forward concrete ideas.
Brand has become a social/political commentator, it's his job to comment and point out inconsistencies or unfairness as he sees it. Not to come up with a whole Brand new world system. If he really was a maniac he just might. He adds value by being a voice and a voice alone.
Look back through history and you'll always see strong opposing voices, and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
For all the criticism I've seen of Brand on this thread, apart from when he said "don't vote" (which he's now retracted), I've yet to see one person disagree with one of his views. Could that be because he just wants a fairer deal for everyone? And a world system based on morality and human interests rather than the mass accumulation of wealth?
"How will you do it Brand?"
"It needs to be a systemic change over generations, I can't just come up with a few steps on my ow--"
I've warmed to Russell Brand, he's got some balls and speaks his mind. I like that in a person
Well Greenie it depends how you view it, after all what is he really risking by speaking his mind? He isn't jeopardising his career on the contrary he is generating a lot of publicity for himself and from where I am sitting he is doing it from a position of safety.
The real game changers are people like the late Jimmy Reid who galvanised the Glasgow Ship workers and kept those men in jobs pushing back against closures of the ship yards. Now there was a man with principle and boldness to be admired.
To me Russel Brand is a skinny comedian who speaks gobbledegook and I place him alongside Bono as the two most irritating fuckwits around.
I've warmed to Russell Brand, he's got some balls and speaks his mind. I like that in a person
Well Greenie it depends how you view it, after all what is he really risking by speaking his mind? He isn't jeopardising his career on the contrary he is generating a lot of publicity for himself and from where I am sitting he is doing it from a position of safety.
The real game changers are people like the late Jimmy Reid who galvanised the Glasgow Ship workers and kept those men in jobs pushing back against closures of the ship yards. Now there was a man with principle and boldness to be admired.
To me Russel Brand is a skinny comedian who speaks gobbledegook and I place him alongside Bono as the two most irritating fuckwits around.
Brand's RBS protest was absolutely disgusting. Most of the staff he harrassed were probably low-level admin staff who, like the people Brand claims to be standing up for, are just trying to make ends meet.
Now he's decided to upload an ill-timed rant at Australia's handling of the Sydney siege, claiming that the perpetrator was just some mentally ill guy and that the real terrorists are Tony Abbott and the Australian government & media for manufacturing a terror crisis in order to instill fear and order to keep the population controlled. Think it's time his loyal disciples woke up and realised what a cretinous oxygen thief he really is.
Afternoon Greenie yes you are correct Jimmy Reed (my spelling was wrong) was a communist no doubt and I don't subscribe to that particular ideology but he stood up and was counted in a mainly positive manner and at the same time made sure that the protests and sit ins were non-violent and in the end saved a lot of jobs. Maybe a bad example to throw out but I guess what I was trying to do was give an example of somebody who really made a difference. I have always respected people who have a set of principles and stick to them (within reason I exclude Hitler, The Taliban and Pol Pot for example) regardless of whether I agree with them or not.
I see Russel Brand as a self publicising numb nuts and agree with Fiish the more peple listen to him the more he will go on.
Brand has made a number of concrete proposals in his book "Revolution".
He proposes the end of the nation state - no United Staes, England, no border controld. INstead we live in small autonomous communities
He believes that all companies with revenues of $37m or more should be closed and their assets confiscated without compensation by the new revolutionary communites. That would, of course, include West Ham, not to mention his multi-billion corporate publisher. I think that the three companies he is a director of would be safe though.
He believes that the new communities should be religious/spiritual. In Revolution , his most hated figure is not Jeff Bezos or Nigel Farage but Richard Dawkkins, founder of the "atheistic tyranny" that we labour under.
The man is a narcisstic idiot. His ideas are ridiculous. His writing is atrocious. The fact that he is being discussed by us is a sad indictment of the shallowness and stupidity of political thinking.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
Everyone gets it, you like Russell and will do everything in your power to promote him and attempt to shoot down those that, quite rightly, highlight his hypocrisy and 'do as I say, not as I do' mantra.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
If highlighting the hollow views that Brand promotes is crying then my cheeks are soaked.
Amusing, so Brand got the wrong building. Perhaps he was actually upset because he thought RBS was an acronym for "Russsel Brand Sucks". Come to think of it, he got not just the wrong building but the wrong fecking planet.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
There is an irony to suggest using facts that only rubbish Russell Brand as a person. This letter does exactly what you are suggesting of Callumcafc, it only attacks brand the person rather than the points he raises.
It completely dismisses his argument with a few glib lines about his cold lunch and some sexist thoughts about the company he keeps.
The author clearly places the suffering he has faced by his lunch getting cold as much worse than suffering caused by inequality and greed.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
There is an irony to suggest using facts that only rubbish Russell Brand as a person. This letter does exactly what you are suggesting of Callumcafc, it only attacks brand the person rather than the points he raises.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
There is an irony to suggest using facts that only rubbish Russell Brand as a person. This letter does exactly what you are suggesting of Callumcafc, it only attacks brand the person rather than the points he raises.
I thought it did both.
I must admit, so did I, and after QT I had been warming up to Brand.
Unfortunately the guy's reference to a bullying demeanour by Brand reminded me of the Andrew Sachs affair.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
Everyone gets it, you like Russell and will do everything in your power to promote him and attempt to shoot down those that, quite rightly, highlight his hypocrisy and 'do as I say, not as I do' mantra.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
If highlighting the hollow views that Brand promotes is crying then my cheeks are soaked.
Ok. I don't think he's without fault and even if he did stand for election, he wouldn't win my vote. But I do admire him using his position get behind smaller campaigns that otherwise wouldn't get the same coverage from the media.
Just because I'm presenting the other side of the argument doesn't always mean I'm promoting it - at least, I don't mean to. I'd just rather we talked about some of the points being made, and not the person making them.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
There is an irony to suggest using facts that only rubbish Russell Brand as a person. This letter does exactly what you are suggesting of Callumcafc, it only attacks brand the person rather than the points he raises.
I thought it did both.
It just repeatedly suggests he is a hypocrite and that the RBS bailout is going to benefit us in the long term without addressing the suffering it caused. Also that he is some kind of public servant whose only motivations are to return a profit for the tax payer and a hot lunch.
What suffering did the RBS "bail out" (actually nationalisation) cause?
And what suffering would have been caused if RBS had not been nationalised? Millions of people would have lost all their savings and tens of thousands their jobs. There woudl have been a massive financial crisis from whcih we woudl never have recovered. The management of RBS was a disgrace and it sticks in the craw that Fred the Shred can't be prosecuted but it is infantile to suggest that the nationalisation of RBS was not the obviously right thing to do and it is pathetic to doorstep ordinary working people many years afterwards.
Brand accused this guy personally of being paid by the taxpayers. The guy responded that Brand is being paid by license fee payers and that Brand has taken every opportunity to avoid paying tax. If Brand wants an elevated discussion he should stop flinging monkey poo around himself.
What suffering did the RBS "bail out" (actually nationalisation) cause?
And what suffering would have been caused if RBS had not been nationalised? Millions of people would have lost all their savings and tens of thousands their jobs. There woudl have been a massive financial crisis from whcih we woudl never have recovered. The management of RBS was a disgrace and it sticks in the craw that Fred the Shred can't be prosecuted but it is infantile to suggest that the nationalisation of RBS was not the obviously right thing to do and it is pathetic to doorstep ordinary working people many years afterwards.
Brand accused this guy personally of being paid by the taxpayers. The guy responded that Brand is being paid by license fee payers and that Brand has taken every opportunity to avoid paying tax. If Brand wants an elevated discussion he should stop flinging monkey poo around himself.
It has become increasingly evident during Brand's drawn-out meltdown over the past few months that he has decided to keep himself as ill-informed as possible on the following issues:
- tax - the economy - religion - politics - business
And if anyone dares to question him when he is spouting his propaganda, instead of listening and bettering himself, he throws all his toys out of the pram and then cries 'I'm a comedian so I don't have to know anything!'.
What suffering did the RBS "bail out" (actually nationalisation) cause?
And what suffering would have been caused if RBS had not been nationalised? Millions of people would have lost all their savings and tens of thousands their jobs. There woudl have been a massive financial crisis from whcih we woudl never have recovered. The management of RBS was a disgrace and it sticks in the craw that Fred the Shred can't be prosecuted but it is infantile to suggest that the nationalisation of RBS was not the obviously right thing to do and it is pathetic to doorstep ordinary working people many years afterwards.
Brand accused this guy personally of being paid by the taxpayers. The guy responded that Brand is being paid by license fee payers and that Brand has taken every opportunity to avoid paying tax. If Brand wants an elevated discussion he should stop flinging monkey poo around himself.
I agree with most of your points and I also think he is a hypocrite, but I think most people are. It is the duality of man.
I actually meant the suffering caused by the irresponsible actions of RBS management and financial sector as a whole before the bailout. I just called it the RBS bailout because that is what everyone knows it as. I think there was plenty of evident suffering from this.
I've avoided posting in here as my views on Brand have been conflicted ever since he emerged as a political commentator.
On the one hand he's clearly motivated by values of community and egalitarianism which have arguably been lost in sections of UK society. He's been successful at shedding light on and engaging new people in political issues.
But then I'm put off by the way he will blanket huge groups of society as corrupt (the "city", the "media") as if they're all one homogenous, monolithic entity. It's the kind of uncritical, simplistic thinking he (fairly in my opinion) attacks groups such as Ukip for when they talk about immigrants.
What's more is that the content on his show - which he has the audacity to tell his huge number of viewers is unequivocally "TRUE" news - is all based on second-hand sources. The media is one big shadowy entity in the grip of the corps when he doesn't like what he's hearing, but when he finds journalistic work he likes, he's happy to take it to further his argument.
His show is also guilty of confirmation bias of the worst kind. For the most part the way he takes one line of argument and feeds it to his followers just annoying. After all, it's mostly stuff that's easy to support.
But occasionally it's dangerous and irresponsible. Today he posted a video arguing that the best way to respond to the Taliban after they massacred school kids is to talk with them. Basically, you massacre kids, so let's listen to what you have to say. Let's talk it out.
He cites Imran Khan as a Pakistani political figure who has called for discussions with the Taliban. He makes references to US drones, inferring them as a contributing factor. Does he mention that drones - for all their obvious ills - pretty much exclusively target Afghan Taliban hiding in Pakistan? Does he mention that huge swathes of the Pakistani population actually see Khan as a facilitator, an apologist for the group that terrorises their society? Does he make any disclosure to his personal connection to Khan? Of course not.
That's an unbalanced take on a very sensitive situation. It's potentially dangerous.
OUCH! I must admit, a truly magnificent rant against Brand from someone whose lunch he spoiled when he invaded the RBS building. Got me rethinking...
"Hello Jo, thanks for your open letter, I do remember you from the melee outside RBS and firstly, I’d like to say sorry for your paella getting cold. It’s not nice to suffer because of actions that are nothing to do with you. I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off.
I can’t apologise for the RBS lockdown though mate because, I don’t have the authority to close great big institutions – even ones found guilty of criminal activity.
The locking of the doors and your tarnished lunch came about as the result of orders from “the faceless bosses” upstairs after I wandered in on my own while we secretly filmed from across the street - then security swarmed, all the doors were locked and crowds gathered outside. I must say Jo; it felt like RBS had something terrible to hide. But more of that in a minute.
Neither was I there for publicity, although you could be forgiven for thinking that; for many years I have earned my money (and paid my taxes) by showing off. If I needed negative publicity (and, believe me, that’s all talking publicly about inequality can ever get you) I could get it by using the “N word” on telly, or putting a cat in a bin, or having a romantic liaison with the lad from TOWIE.
I was there with filmmaker Michael Winterbottom making a documentary about how the economic crises caused by the banking industry (RBS were found guilty of rigging Libor and the foreign exchange) has led to an economic attack on the most vulnerable people in society. I don’t want to undermine your personal inconvenience Jo, I’d be the first to admit that I’m often more vexed by little things; iPhone chargers continually changing makes me as angry as apartheid - so I can’t claim any personal moral high ground, but a chance to make a film that highlights how £80bn of austerity cuts were made, punishing society’s most vulnerable during the same period that bankers awarded themselves £81bn in bonuses was irresistible.
The mob upstairs at RBS who exiled you with your rapidly deteriorating lunch have had £4bn in bonuses since the crash. Do they deserve our money more than Britain’s disabled? Or Britain’s students who are now charged to learn? Is that fair?
They were some of the questions I was hoping to ask your boss – but we got no joy through the “proper channels” so we decided to just show up.
Not just to RBS, but also to Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays. I know that the regular folk on the floor aren’t guilty of this trick against ordinary people; they’re like anyone, trying to make ends meet. As you point out though, it’s hard to get to the men at the top so we were forced into door-stopping and inadvertent lunch spoiling. The good news is that this film and even this correspondence will reach hundreds of thousands of people and they’ll learn how they’re being conned by the financial industry and turned against one another - that’s got to be a good thing, even if it makes me look a bit of a twit in the process and the national dish of Spain is eaten sub-par.
Now I’ll be the first to admit your lunch has been an unwitting casualty in this well-intentioned quest but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask new RBS boss Ross McEwan if he thinks it’s right that he got a £3.2m “golden hello” when the RBS is sellotaped together with money that comes from everyone else’s taxes. I wonder what he would’ve said? Or whether it’s right that Fred “the shred” (he shredded evidence of impropriety) Goodwin gets to keep his £320k a year pension while disabled people have had their independent living fund scrapped.
And it’s not just RBS mate. Lloyds, Barclays, Citibank and HSBC have all been found guilty of market rigging and not one banker has been jailed.
Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted. Remember in the riots when disaffected youth nicked the odd bottle of water or a stray pair of trainers? Criminal, I agree. 1800 years worth of sentences were meted out in special courts, to make an example. Some crime doesn’t pay, but some crime definitely does. My school mate Leigh Pickett, a fireman is being told that he and his colleagues won’t be able to collect their pension until five years later than agreed, five more years of backbreaking, flame engulfed labour – why? Because of austerity.
Put simply Jo, the banks took the money, the people paid the price.
I was there to ask a few questions to the guilty parties, now I know that’s not you, you’re just a bloke trying to make a crust and evidently you like that crust warm - but again, it wasn’t me who locked the RBS, I just asked a few difficult questions and the place went nuts. The people that have inconvenienced homeowners, pensioners, the disabled and ordinary working Brits are the same ones who inconvenienced you that lunchtime. They’ve got a lot to hide, so they locked the doors. You said my “agro demeanor” reminded you of school. Your letter reminded me of school too, when the teacher would say, “because Russell’s been naughty, the whole class has to stay behind”. I’d never knowingly keep a workingman from his dinner, it’s unacceptable and I do owe you an apology for being lairy.
So Jo, get in touch, I owe you an apology and I’d like to take you for a hot paella to make up for the one that went cold – though you could say that was actually the fault of the shady shysters who nicked the wedge and locked you out, I’d rather err on the side of caution. When I make a mistake I like to apolgise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
OUCH! I must admit, a truly magnificent rant against Brand from someone whose lunch he spoiled when he invaded the RBS building. Got me rethinking...
And it’s not just RBS mate. Lloyds, Barclays, Citibank and HSBC have all been found guilty of market rigging and not one banker has been jailed.
Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted. Remember in the riots when disaffected youth nicked the odd bottle of water or a stray pair of trainers? Criminal, I agree. 1800 years worth of sentences were meted out in special courts, to make an example. Some crime doesn’t pay, but some crime definitely does. My school mate Leigh Pickett, a fireman is being told that he and his colleagues won’t be able to collect their pension until five years later than agreed, five more years of backbreaking, flame engulfed labour – why? Because of austerity.
If there is a truth in what he is saying, does it not make you angry, even if he is a twat? The criminal negligence has nothing to do with political ideology, like benefit cheats anger both the left and the right. His door stepping was no more pathetic than the way everyone rolled over in this country.
Decent and enjoyable come back from Brand, but I think Jo is still clinging on to a 2-1 lead, because Brand hasn't addressed the inconsistencies in his own financial affairs. He will need to do that if he wants to progress with his project.
Comments
Traditionally the masses are 'given' their football, booze and dope and wander through life like sheep. It's time to wake up but I have to admit it's mighty weird having someone like Brand banging the drum!
Brand has become a social/political commentator, it's his job to comment and point out inconsistencies or unfairness as he sees it. Not to come up with a whole Brand new world system. If he really was a maniac he just might. He adds value by being a voice and a voice alone.
Look back through history and you'll always see strong opposing voices, and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
For all the criticism I've seen of Brand on this thread, apart from when he said "don't vote" (which he's now retracted), I've yet to see one person disagree with one of his views. Could that be because he just wants a fairer deal for everyone? And a world system based on morality and human interests rather than the mass accumulation of wealth?
"How will you do it Brand?"
"It needs to be a systemic change over generations, I can't just come up with a few steps on my ow--"
"F*** off then"
Well Greenie it depends how you view it, after all what is he really risking by speaking his mind? He isn't jeopardising his career on the contrary he is generating a lot of publicity for himself and from where I am sitting he is doing it from a position of safety.
The real game changers are people like the late Jimmy Reid who galvanised the Glasgow Ship workers and kept those men in jobs pushing back against closures of the ship yards. Now there was a man with principle and boldness to be admired.
To me Russel Brand is a skinny comedian who speaks gobbledegook and I place him alongside Bono as the two most irritating fuckwits around.
Now he's decided to upload an ill-timed rant at Australia's handling of the Sydney siege, claiming that the perpetrator was just some mentally ill guy and that the real terrorists are Tony Abbott and the Australian government & media for manufacturing a terror crisis in order to instill fear and order to keep the population controlled. Think it's time his loyal disciples woke up and realised what a cretinous oxygen thief he really is.
I see Russel Brand as a self publicising numb nuts and agree with Fiish the more peple listen to him the more he will go on.
I'm assuming the above video is the moment that sparked this whole article from the other fella involved.
Looks like he tried to be a smart ass and make a snide comment and got called up on it. Now he's crying.
He proposes the end of the nation state - no United Staes, England, no border controld. INstead we live in small autonomous communities
He believes that all companies with revenues of $37m or more should be closed and their assets confiscated without compensation by the new revolutionary communites. That would, of course, include West Ham, not to mention his multi-billion corporate publisher. I think that the three companies he is a director of would be safe though.
He believes that the new communities should be religious/spiritual. In Revolution , his most hated figure is not Jeff Bezos or Nigel Farage but Richard Dawkkins, founder of the "atheistic tyranny" that we labour under.
The man is a narcisstic idiot. His ideas are ridiculous. His writing is atrocious. The fact that he is being discussed by us is a sad indictment of the shallowness and stupidity of political thinking.
Instead of looking to rubbish the man that wrote the letter, try scrutinising the facts he lays out in the letter whereby Brand is shown as being a supporter of tax avoidance schemes so long as his film production company can benefit from them.
If highlighting the hollow views that Brand promotes is crying then my cheeks are soaked.
Perhaps he was actually upset because he thought RBS was an acronym for "Russsel Brand Sucks".
Come to think of it, he got not just the wrong building but the wrong fecking planet.
It completely dismisses his argument with a few glib lines about his cold lunch and some sexist thoughts about the company he keeps.
The author clearly places the suffering he has faced by his lunch getting cold as much worse than suffering caused by inequality and greed.
Unfortunately the guy's reference to a bullying demeanour by Brand reminded me of the Andrew Sachs affair.
Just because I'm presenting the other side of the argument doesn't always mean I'm promoting it - at least, I don't mean to. I'd just rather we talked about some of the points being made, and not the person making them.
And what suffering would have been caused if RBS had not been nationalised? Millions of people would have lost all their savings and tens of thousands their jobs. There woudl have been a massive financial crisis from whcih we woudl never have recovered. The management of RBS was a disgrace and it sticks in the craw that Fred the Shred can't be prosecuted but it is infantile to suggest that the nationalisation of RBS was not the obviously right thing to do and it is pathetic to doorstep ordinary working people many years afterwards.
Brand accused this guy personally of being paid by the taxpayers. The guy responded that Brand is being paid by license fee payers and that Brand has taken every opportunity to avoid paying tax. If Brand wants an elevated discussion he should stop flinging monkey poo around himself.
- tax
- the economy
- religion
- politics
- business
And if anyone dares to question him when he is spouting his propaganda, instead of listening and bettering himself, he throws all his toys out of the pram and then cries 'I'm a comedian so I don't have to know anything!'.
I actually meant the suffering caused by the irresponsible actions of RBS management and financial sector as a whole before the bailout. I just called it the RBS bailout because that is what everyone knows it as. I think there was plenty of evident suffering from this.
On the one hand he's clearly motivated by values of community and egalitarianism which have arguably been lost in sections of UK society. He's been successful at shedding light on and engaging new people in political issues.
But then I'm put off by the way he will blanket huge groups of society as corrupt (the "city", the "media") as if they're all one homogenous, monolithic entity. It's the kind of uncritical, simplistic thinking he (fairly in my opinion) attacks groups such as Ukip for when they talk about immigrants.
What's more is that the content on his show - which he has the audacity to tell his huge number of viewers is unequivocally "TRUE" news - is all based on second-hand sources. The media is one big shadowy entity in the grip of the corps when he doesn't like what he's hearing, but when he finds journalistic work he likes, he's happy to take it to further his argument.
His show is also guilty of confirmation bias of the worst kind. For the most part the way he takes one line of argument and feeds it to his followers just annoying. After all, it's mostly stuff that's easy to support.
But occasionally it's dangerous and irresponsible. Today he posted a video arguing that the best way to respond to the Taliban after they massacred school kids is to talk with them. Basically, you massacre kids, so let's listen to what you have to say. Let's talk it out.
He cites Imran Khan as a Pakistani political figure who has called for discussions with the Taliban. He makes references to US drones, inferring them as a contributing factor. Does he mention that drones - for all their obvious ills - pretty much exclusively target Afghan Taliban hiding in Pakistan? Does he mention that huge swathes of the Pakistani population actually see Khan as a facilitator, an apologist for the group that terrorises their society? Does he make any disclosure to his personal connection to Khan? Of course not.
That's an unbalanced take on a very sensitive situation. It's potentially dangerous.
Phew. Rant over.
I can’t apologise for the RBS lockdown though mate because, I don’t have the authority to close great big institutions – even ones found guilty of criminal activity.
The locking of the doors and your tarnished lunch came about as the result of orders from “the faceless bosses” upstairs after I wandered in on my own while we secretly filmed from across the street - then security swarmed, all the doors were locked and crowds gathered outside. I must say Jo; it felt like RBS had something terrible to hide. But more of that in a minute.
Neither was I there for publicity, although you could be forgiven for thinking that; for many years I have earned my money (and paid my taxes) by showing off. If I needed negative publicity (and, believe me, that’s all talking publicly about inequality can ever get you) I could get it by using the “N word” on telly, or putting a cat in a bin, or having a romantic liaison with the lad from TOWIE.
I was there with filmmaker Michael Winterbottom making a documentary about how the economic crises caused by the banking industry (RBS were found guilty of rigging Libor and the foreign exchange) has led to an economic attack on the most vulnerable people in society. I don’t want to undermine your personal inconvenience Jo, I’d be the first to admit that I’m often more vexed by little things; iPhone chargers continually changing makes me as angry as apartheid - so I can’t claim any personal moral high ground, but a chance to make a film that highlights how £80bn of austerity cuts were made, punishing society’s most vulnerable during the same period that bankers awarded themselves £81bn in bonuses was irresistible.
The mob upstairs at RBS who exiled you with your rapidly deteriorating lunch have had £4bn in bonuses since the crash. Do they deserve our money more than Britain’s disabled? Or Britain’s students who are now charged to learn? Is that fair?
They were some of the questions I was hoping to ask your boss – but we got no joy through the “proper channels” so we decided to just show up.
Not just to RBS, but also to Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays. I know that the regular folk on the floor aren’t guilty of this trick against ordinary people; they’re like anyone, trying to make ends meet. As you point out though, it’s hard to get to the men at the top so we were forced into door-stopping and inadvertent lunch spoiling. The good news is that this film and even this correspondence will reach hundreds of thousands of people and they’ll learn how they’re being conned by the financial industry and turned against one another - that’s got to be a good thing, even if it makes me look a bit of a twit in the process and the national dish of Spain is eaten sub-par.
Now I’ll be the first to admit your lunch has been an unwitting casualty in this well-intentioned quest but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask new RBS boss Ross McEwan if he thinks it’s right that he got a £3.2m “golden hello” when the RBS is sellotaped together with money that comes from everyone else’s taxes. I wonder what he would’ve said? Or whether it’s right that Fred “the shred” (he shredded evidence of impropriety) Goodwin gets to keep his £320k a year pension while disabled people have had their independent living fund scrapped.
And it’s not just RBS mate. Lloyds, Barclays, Citibank and HSBC have all been found guilty of market rigging and not one banker has been jailed.
Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted. Remember in the riots when disaffected youth nicked the odd bottle of water or a stray pair of trainers? Criminal, I agree. 1800 years worth of sentences were meted out in special courts, to make an example. Some crime doesn’t pay, but some crime definitely does. My school mate Leigh Pickett, a fireman is being told that he and his colleagues won’t be able to collect their pension until five years later than agreed, five more years of backbreaking, flame engulfed labour – why? Because of austerity.
Put simply Jo, the banks took the money, the people paid the price.
I was there to ask a few questions to the guilty parties, now I know that’s not you, you’re just a bloke trying to make a crust and evidently you like that crust warm - but again, it wasn’t me who locked the RBS, I just asked a few difficult questions and the place went nuts. The people that have inconvenienced homeowners, pensioners, the disabled and ordinary working Brits are the same ones who inconvenienced you that lunchtime. They’ve got a lot to hide, so they locked the doors. You said my “agro demeanor” reminded you of school. Your letter reminded me of school too, when the teacher would say, “because Russell’s been naughty, the whole class has to stay behind”.
I’d never knowingly keep a workingman from his dinner, it’s unacceptable and I do owe you an apology for being lairy.
So Jo, get in touch, I owe you an apology and I’d like to take you for a hot paella to make up for the one that went cold – though you could say that was actually the fault of the shady shysters who nicked the wedge and locked you out, I’d rather err on the side of caution. When I make a mistake I like to apolgise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
His door stepping was no more pathetic than the way everyone rolled over in this country.