The comedian Russell Brand has been lambasted in the past for lacking solutions for the obvious sources of discontent he has made it his mission to point out (to paraphrase Private Eye editor Ian Hislop) and for his questionable stance on voting.
Since saying on the Beeb’s Newsnight that he saw little point in the ballot box, Brand has clearly regretted casting himself as a political refusenik, spending much of the past few years campaigning for community-driven politics. Now he has come out as an advocate for Labour, encouraging his million-strong viewership on YouTube to vote Ed Miliband into government (about 11 minutes in):
“What I heard Ed Miliband say is if we speak he will listen. So on that basis I think we’ve got no choice but to take decisive action to end the danger of the Conservative party. David Cameron might think I’m a joke but I don’t think there’s anything funny about what the Conservative party have been doing to this country, and we have to stop them.
“So my view is this: If you’re Scottish you don’t need an English person telling you what to do, you know what you’re gonna to be doing [presumably voting for the Scottish National Party]. If you’re in Brighton I think it would a travesty if we lost the voice of [Green MP] Caroline Lucas in Westminster. But anywhere else you’ve gotta vote Labour. You’ve got the get the Conservative party out of government in this country so we can begin community-led activism.”
Vive la revolution, as they say.
Image – Russell Brand at People’s Assembly demonstration on June 20th 2014, by DB Young
