...to start a thread about a Mumsnet thread? Russell Brand......

[Hakluyt]

...........why?

Yes, if you want to have a web chat with a pretty comedian, then go for it. It makes us all look a bit trivial, but hey ho.

But treating him like a serious social and political commentator? Really??????

Ah, thanks Nancy.

And Cameron and Clegg and Milliband are "thanking heaven fasting" for Brand because he is taking people's minds and eyes off them

I really don't see that ^^ . RB may be on MN but a quick scan of today's media shows that he's not on the front page of the BBC news website (that would be Cameron, and this morning it was May and Yvette Cooper). He's not on the front page of the Sun - that would be some women in bikinis

The people looking at RB are not the people looking at Cameron, Clegg or Milliband. That's rather the point. There was an interesting interview with him in The Guardian and the journalist made the point that all the young people who came up to talk to him were talking about politics. He may be some kind of populist agitator but he's not detracting from the current political leaders. What an odd concept! As though there's only a limited amount of political currency to go round and we should ensure it's centred on the current elite.

I mentioned the illuminati because apparently his ex-wife is one of their princesses.

I feel it is unfair to ask the question as it is about his ex-wife, something he probably doesn't wish to discuss.

Seeing as we are living in a democracy and MN have allowed the likes of John Hemming to push his political agenda and fear monger I do think RB should be given the opportunity to get his point across.

I just hope he's easier to follow using the written word. I find him incredibly inarticulate, I don't know if it's me being thick but to me articulate people can make a complex subject accessible for all, RBs use of flowery language smacks to me of someone who doesn't actually know what they are on about.

I'm no iykist (if that's what they are called) but he has been talking about JS and an establishment paedophile for years, so he maybe is more of a political thinker than people are giving him credit for.

Paedophile ring even

Agree APlaceInTheWinter

I suppose that Katy Perry is viewed as an illuminati (sorry I don't read the populist press) though maybe she gives him reflected glamour, to keep the media interested .

RB...lowest point for me in his treatment of women was the moment he went on stage at an awards ceremony and said to the room "I had a go on (Rod Stewarts) daughter"....he he he he. Till Mr. Stewart who was in the room collared him.
He talks about ordinary people, yet submerges himself in the language of first year philosophy students who have discovered this other land full of shit dressed up as meaningful.
Ordinary people in the course of their day will be unlikely to use "hegemony, patriarchy...and other shit". Declined to talk about a graph, said graphs were of no use to him....or mores to the point, he didn't understand the relevance.
Political opinion is everyone's prerogative, we soak it up on the news in the newspapers here there and everywhere. It does not belong to anyone, just because you can crowbar the language it is couched in, does not make you a serious commentator nor option for election.
Does he see himself as the leader of the modern version of Cromwellian simple thought. Politics is as diverse as the people it represents. Which is why it is difficult and not solved overnight by this pompous oaf who read a couple of pages of Marx, Engles and Spinoza or something.
Do not let him vomit up anymore of his nonsense. Pleas

A champagne socialist.
Sick to death of him already.

Is Radio 3 Russell Brand free?

I have known many people with extremely good qualifications who fail as communicators and human beings, quite a few seem to be in positions of power; I like the way he has no respect for anyone in power. Just because they are there.

The powerful child abusers are still getting away with it and it needs someone with a big mouth who doesn't care what he says to try to cut those people down to size. All power to him I say.

I am interested to know how people know RB is engaging people who aren't usually interested in politics, especially young people. I'm not saying he is or he isn't, but I would like to know what the evidence is. It seems to be almost taken as read that his outreach is working. I don't know.

I do know that he, and Farage/UKIP get very much more media attention and exposure than many other less 'sexy' or entertaining figures, groups or movements (the Greens, Nationalist parties, smaller hard left parties, all kinds of campaigners) and I think that is fundamentally unfair.

There is a sense in which he is being promoted because he's good telly, and a celebrity, not because he necessarily has a coherent message or any support, and that makes me uncomfortable.

I don't even think that's his fault, it just seems to be the way the media works. But if you wanted to make sure that radical ideas and challenges to the status quo could be easily dismissed because they were being espoused by a controversial, odd, not very politically adept sleb, you really could not do any better than give Russell Brand a platform on mainstream media...

Uhh yeah - I just did a quick search on Katy Perry and the Illuminati - I think it's safe to say she hasn't got a scooby what it's all about!

I do, however, completely agree with ppeat about this -

The powerful child abusers are still getting away with it and it needs someone with a big mouth who doesn't care what he says to try to cut those people down to size - Wish it wasn't him though.

Thanks OraProNobis

Does it really matter who it is if they make those pieces of shit frightened?

And this is how the Parklife thing spawned, after he appeared on Newsnight
twitter.com/danbarker/status/528963278819831808

Perhaps someone should ask him where the shimmering tit temples are.

David Icke, Illuminati, Katy Perry and Phil Daniels - it's got it all, this thread!

I think a lot of the people who are disenfranchised by the current political system have problems with politics, and in life, that are a bit more real and serious than the flippant waffle that sesquipedalian airhead of a boy comes out with.

I think it's nice that someone is trying to articulate thoughts (and getting away with it on the beeb!) beyond "I fink we really ought to be spied on for our own good lol because terror lol!", and he does seem bright, but if Russell Brand really wants to do some good, he needs to grow up a bit, drop the Student Union politics and possibly even speak out about some of the nasty and rather totalitarian bogeys that really threaten people in the UK, the things that threaten to stop them having food, the persons in authority that work against the physical safety of their children, the interests that invade their freedom of speech, association, spy on them when they've done nothing wrong, etc.

I think people would respect him a lot more if he was prepared to chuck his careful media persona on the bonfire to say things that are actually dangerous to say, that might attract some real flak, rather than these... facile tidbits of easy, compliant lefty applause fodder and half-understood philosophy.

Listening to RB I found some of his thoughts familiar - they were mine when I was 14 years old and knew F-all about the world.

Mind you, you have to admire the fact that if they handed out world records for stringing the longest series of cliches together RB would walk it.

I read an interview with Mick Hucknall of Simply Red a couple of years back - another champagne socialist - who said he did not let his money inform his politics.

It would be refreshing if these celeb put-the-world-to-righters did the honourable thing and reversed that belief i.e. did let their politics inform their money. Then the RBs wouldn't be sitting on piles of cash, making oodles more by selling their tripe to the gullible. But like most champagne socialists, socialism is fine as long as it is confined to the "plebs". As long as RB appears on the street waving a banner and spouting he can pretend he is a socialist. He's simply having a laugh.

Champagne socialists make my teeth itch it really smacks of 'I'm alright jack I've got nothing to lose by telling you to say 'fuck you' to those in charge ha ha ha'

sesquipedalian what a great (and sesquipedalian) word :)

Yes I agree he really comes across like a very clever and mouthy teenager. It's not enough just to rant about revolution and make some astute observations. He's intelligent, but seems be very naive about the complexity of what a state is and even what a revolution entails. I also think his own wealthy lifestyle and poncing about makes him look even less credible.

Blah blah blah; it's so easy to talk down your noses about people, who 'talk in cliches' That doesn't make them stupid or less than you. It's refreshing to hear someone who ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS IMO.

And he answered every one of Paxman's questions. That must be a record for anyone in the public eye.

Also have to admit what I've seen of his attitude to women doesn't inspire confidence.

to answer a question with a rambling poorly constructed waterfall of mental mush is not a political triumph. I am reminded of the horse who could count....

What occurs to me is that anyone of us, given a brazen enough streak could let lose on Newsnight on any number of topics. But we don't do we? We find people like RB to tell us what we already fucking know and call it somehow ground breaking. It isn't. He is shamelessly surfing along on a wave of notoriety. This is the man who dressed up as Osama Bin Laden after 9/11, denigrates women he has shagged, proclaims himself the Messiah of the Disenfranchised.
Really?
Not in my name sunshine