To think Russell Brand could buy this building himself

[Rebeccaslicker]

rather than asking the Council to give it to charity - essentially making tax payers do it. He's worth about £10m himself; he could afford it...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-berkshire-42751825

Are you sure you understand how commercial property works?!

If it's a council property, the council owns it, so it either lets it and raises money, or it sells it and raises money. Brand is saying that instead of doing that, the council should "donate" the building to ONE charity (is that fair on other charities in the area?), which may then have a knock on effect for tax payers in the area, as the council will be facing numerous cuts and doubtless that money will already be factored into a budget somewhere else, from which it would have to be cut.

If Brand really is calling for the council to transfer a building, it's pretty disingenuous to refer to it in the petition as "signing a bit of paper and just a "change of use", I think. And if he's since dropped the actual donation idea, then what is he actually asking for? There's nothing to say that the landlord is happy to have SHOC as a tenant etc etc...

I know nothing about how commercial property works but if there is an empty building that could be put to good use by a charity, I'd rather that than it stay empty. Too often huge buildings are bought up and left empty often from buyers abroad unless you are arguing your council ought to be flogging it to an overseas investor? is it really going to have a huge effect on your council tax if one building were to be donated?
And I don't see it as an issue that Brand is campaigning. On World Homeless Day he did a fundraising event for Shoc. He has worked with them for a while. Also did awareness raising and fundraising for charities at his gigs over a decade ago before his fleeting film career.
He has done more than most. It annoys the fuck out of me when I see people spurt about champagne socialists and so on. Even when Gary Neville paid 150k to enable homeless to temporarily live in his property, you had people saying Well, he can afford to give it away.
How many of these critics would have the largesse to do that themselves?

Don't let your desperation to be right get in the way of a good debate Rebecca!
Your argument all rests on the idea that the govt/council own this building. There's no confirmation of that.

If they own the building

1. There's no suggestion that the charity wouldn't pay the bills.

2.it might be empty- there are schools/libraries that could be used.

1. Donate (in this case) doesn't mean "give everything for free"

He's talking about giving them the use of the building. It is a bit ambiguous because he says donate in his YouTube, but the petition says change of use.

If they don't own the building, then "change of use" is literally a signature from the council.

And what if, just imagine for one second, that because of this publicity, that one council member persuades the council to give it to them, disadvantaging no-one, how amazing would that be?!

Disregarding all of that why should any one individual take on board a £1-3m charity project with their own money when the council have a suitable building.
Because there probably is an empty building somewhere

Why criticise him for actually trying to do something

How do you know he hasn't given a substantial donation? It's not a celebrity's job to prop up the government anyway!

And how does anyone know what celebrities do or don't do for charity, unless they publish their accounts or declare it?

How strange to suggest that just because someone may have cash in the bank, that they ought to pay for a service which shouldn't need to exist in the first place so the government don't have to.

The sad thing about this is that people have paid TV and other fees to Russell Brand and bought his book, so that he has the amount of money he has.

Because people are so stupid as to pay him attention, some young people do not vote, and as a result we have Brexit. He is as much to blame for this act of economic self-harm which will put more people on low incomes as Michael Gove, Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage.

Yes he could but it's not his responsibility, he may well donate large sums of money. The royal family could also buy it but they wont

Mmm, you've jumped to some massive assumptions in your frenzy to defend brand - but I'M desperate to be right?! lf you say so

I don't think you're reading my posts properly. I'm saying that he needs to explain what he is proposing otherwise what are people actually signing for? It's very nebulous. A "change of use" is meaningless by itself. The word "donate", however, has very strong connotations and I am left wondering why he dropped it from his petition.

If the council doesn't own the property, then who does? It would take more than a change of use for any property owner other than the council to give it away to the charity (or let it on a no rent lease), so if they are on board already, why not say so? That would make his petition much more compelling.

You do realise that the biggest "bill" by miles is rent? The tone of his petition is hardly "come on let's help this landlord give a market rent lease to this charity", is it?!

And if the council does own it, then how can it be given away without disadvantaging the tax payer? I'm a trustee of an educational charity - our biggest donor used to be the council by about 50% of our annual income, but in the last 10 years the donations have totally gone because of cuts. So a valuable building somewhere like windsor simply could not be given away by the council without disadvantaging local taxpayers. is Brand even one of them?

I don't dispute that what he is trying to achieve is good, but he's going about it in all the wrong ways and I think he rubs people up the wrong way. Why not kick off a crowd funder with a decent donation? That would be far more useful and would stand far more chance of actually getting the charity new premises.

He doesn't have to donate. But he's chosen this cause - so therefore it's fair enough to ask what's HE actually doing, other than using a lot of long words!

www.sloughexpress.co.uk/gallery/home/126427/comedian-russell-brand-starts-petition-to-find-shoc-a-new-home.html

Seems to be just help locating and a arranging paperwork for suitable building

He’s a wanker. That’s what he does/is. And worse a bore.

I used to quite like him actually, but when he started bleating on about politics - and when he did the Jonathan Woss prank call to Andrew Sachs - he started to get my back up. I don't see him calling for corbyn to donate the house that's he's made such a massive profit on to house refugees or the homeless because he can easily afford somewhere else, after all!

As for lily Allen, as you said, she's even worse.

I haven't jumped to any conclusions- quite the opposite. That's my point. We don't know anything about his financial situation, nothing about the building.
You keep changing your story as more info comes out, you never said he has to explain himself, you said he should pay for a building!

Are you now suggesting that Corbyn sells his home to house refugees?

Because it's increased in value?

I said I'd rather he pay for the building than get the tax payers to pay for it, yep. I am surprised you have such an issue about it.

Sigh. No.

Please reread my post, if that's what you took from it!

Sigh yourself

It's not my fault if you can't understand plain English! I am saying we don't see BRAND calling for that. NOT that it should be called for.

My charity isn't in that area, but if it were, what do you think it would say about the valuable work that our staff do with severely disadvantaged children if we were told that we weren't eligible for any council funding whatsoever, despite the children being residents of the borough - but another charity had been given a building/lease that was worth a lot of money? Do you think that's fair?

It's not particularly RB that I'm defending, it could be anyone.
The reason I'm so wound up about this is really because of the assumptions that people make reading crappy articles like the one you first posted and come to conclusions like you and others have that RB has loads of money, that he doesn't ever put his money where his mouth is, that he's only in it for the publicity and assuming things that simply aren't there, like an imaginary building bringing in loads of money for the council that is suddenly being given away! Nowhere does it say any of that. It's badly worded, ambiguous, lacking in actual facts. Like 90% of news articles.
I'm frustrated that people can't read between the lines, or see the bigger picture, or actually investigate and read a bit more to get a clearer picture.

Rebecca- if much needed funds are being diverted elsewhere then of course it's not fair, but there is absolutely no evidence that anyone will be disadvantaged on these couple of articles.

Rebecca- if much needed funds are being diverted elsewhere then of course it's not fair, but there is absolutely no evidence that anyone will be disadvantaged on these couple of articles.

With you op totally

And yet when they do investigate, and find that the YouTube channel actually supports the original reporting, and in fact it's the wording of the petition that's ambiguous and that remains unexplained, you accuse them of "changing their story"

What do you think he means in his YouTube clarion call then? When he says that people should put pressure on the council to "donate a building" - how else can that be taken?

I am sick of celebs telling the public to do as they say, not as they do. Esp when it's either hypocritical - see bono and his taxes - or seemingly ill thought out, such as this. I would have had far more respect for Brand if he'd simply said, "here's £1k or £10k or £100k towards a year's rent, how much higher can we get it to help these vulnerable people?"

but he didn't. He chose to use a free platform instead. Which makes me think, "oh piss off you rich twat and put YOUR money where your very loud mouth is!"

Thanks heartoffire!