Sign of the times. (Claire Greenway/Getty Images)
Back in the Noughties, pop culture was hard and nasty. The internet was corroding the mystique of fame, and the public wanted to read — in the words of Jessica Callan, one of The Mirror’s original 3AM Girl gossip columnists — about “fighting and fucking”. It was a period of viciousness and excess, where cruelty was the norm and misogyny was celebrated. And Russell Brand was at its centre. He didn’t fight. But as a self-confessed sex addict, he fucked a lot, and he talked a lot about fucking in his comedy act.
This was a time when invasion of privacy was de rigueur. Sex tapes made headlines, and no one considered whether their subjects wanted them in public or not. Phone hacking made headlines, too, although journalists rarely admitted in public that this was how they got their stories. Brand, who appeared to have no boundaries at all, was perfectly adapted to the demands of this environment.
Lad culture, which had once seemed like a corrective to smothering Nineties niceness, flourished into a full backlash. Second-wave feminism had spent decades explaining why porn, objectification and rape jokes should be unacceptable. Now they came surging back, this time with a protective sheen of irony.
On stage and on screen, Brand broke taboos that were already being pushed to breaking point by the indecency the internet was feeding into every home. In stand-up footage from 2006, Brand talks about liking “them blow jobs where it goes in their neck a little bit… them blow jobs where the mascara runs a little bit”. He was talking about the “choking blowjobs” that were being mainstreamed by gonzo porn.
He was also telling us about his own sexual preferences, according to one of the women interviewed by The Sunday Times. She met Brand the same year that he performed that set, when she was 16 and he 31. Towards the end of their relationship, she alleges that he sexually assaulted her by forcing his penis down her throat; after she fought him off, he told her he had “only wanted to see your mascara run”. (Brand denies committing any criminal acts.)
It wasn’t just his predilections that made Brand right for the Noughties. It was also his talent for making himself into an easily recognised caricature: the priapic man-child with the dandyish wardrobe and the sky-high hair. A cartoonish distillation of Byronic swagger and Kenny Everett nerve. Amy Winehouse was probably the only figure with a more distinctive iconography, and people would sometimes joke that they looked alike.
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SubscribeSo, George Monbiot was a Brand fan. Owen Jones and Brand were in a bond of mutual admiration. Helen Mirren was a Brand apologist. The Guardian retained Brand as a columnist for many years. That august journal of left wing thought The New Statesman invited Brand to guest edit. Both the BBC and C4 used and encouraged Brand’s notoriety. None, it seems were concerned about his reputation as a sexual predator. They probably admired the uninhibited libertine (as creative types always do).
It looks as though it was the Left-liberal world of the media elite which provided the true enabling environment.
Yet Sara Ditum would have us believe It was just the noughties that enabled him – a supposedly misogynist era we can now view critically from the moral highground.
Sarah Ditum would like us to believe he is a conspiracy theorist… this appears in almost all articles in MSM slagging him off. Have these people ever watched his podcasts? Apparently not.
Groupthink and conformity in our political/managerial class are perfectly commonplace but draw unwanted attention to their negative effects and you invite the charge of conspiracy theorist.
And as we all know, conspiracy theorists are of a piece with misogynists, racists, and tradesmen in white vans.
In this world, and in this weltanschauung, of course, sadomasochists are approximately the same as pedophiles and rapists, which are about the same as heterosexual men, and Brexiteers, and in the States, Donald Trump supporters as well. Perfect villains for the bien pensant, as society needs its criminals.
This view is also why it’s difficult to see the cries for equality, pluralism, and tolerance as sincere or even coherent, when views like the author’s lump together wildly different and morally unequivalent acts, and wildly different types of people, into one intellectually cheap stereotype. These views are unmistakably formed by the narrow channels of feminized, midwit university educations, and are nearly a requirement for most mainstream journalists.
At any rate, false allegations – particularly against the politically outspoken or politically active – have now proven to be so widespread, that one wonders whether the real victim isn’t Russel Brand.
Spoken like a true blue misogynist (feminized (?), midwit university educations) and conspiracy theorist (whether the real victim isnt Russell Brand). Hoist by your own petart like a true half wit.
There is no need to be so hard on yourself
A comment that’s an example of the sort of meaningless verbosity that Brand would have been proud of. Like many who have sprung thoughtlessly to the leery old lag’s defence, it proffers a joint-the-dots bullsh*t bingo of buzzwords – ‘mainstream’, ‘midwit’, ‘feminised’. You can tell whoever wrote this thought they were being awfully clever. Sadly, those who believe in the deep state conspiracy have egos that are in inverse proportion to their intellectual capacity.
Andrew starts by amalgamating the language used by the feminized midwit mainstream media – ‘misogynists, racists, white vans’. He tries to counter this power-bloc, which includes the most important tech company in the world, Murdoch’s media, the Mail, the Guardian, and Channel 4, by insulting them. And your response is to insult him personally.
People who believe in what you call ‘the deep state conspiracy’ don’t necessarily have egos inversely proportional to their intellectual capacity. In my case, my ego is as massive as my IQ.
You’ll think different when Computer Says No for any purchase you wish to make.
The annoying thing is that I’m sure he did all that stuff,he actually says so in the record. Maybe we need a public discussion on how “consensual” is consensual. I mean if you’ve spent an evening with a lewd man,probably engaged in lewd conversation with him,laughed at his lewd jokes then gone back to his dwelling,taken all your clothes off and got in his bed,how is that not consensual. Of course the thing is as one learns as many a Catholic priest in the confessional did,that sexual activity covers a wide range of actions and body parts. So as a female you may have consented to what you assume is one particular process but the other person may have something else in mind. As it seems most of these females found out,to their horror. I think this dispatches should be shown to all teen girls for their sex education class. This is actually what most sex is like,for most people,all through history and all over the world. A lot of sex is nasty,brutish,intended to demean and humiliate,and many relationships are about power and control over the other. “Falling in Love” is a myth to sanitize and romanticize a commercial transaction. (I’ve lived too long in this wicked world). The fact is the new redeemed Russell was spotlighting the corruption in high places better than anyone else except Redacted,so they had to come for him. Even if he’d lived a life of shining purity they’d set something up. I do not believe about Huw Edwards either. That wife she’s ugly and looks nasty. Why is she not loyal. The statement she read was exactly the wording used in the old Soviet Union.about dissidents being in psychiatric units. They had him marked down from when he questioned the news agenda,who decides it always has to be bad. And while I’m at it THEY bumped off the Queen so they could get Charlie installed now rather than wait another four/five years.
What a sad, joyless, defeatist perspective you have on sex and relationships. Love the conspiracy theorizing, though.
Ha ha well in romantic novels and in coffee break magazines that guy comes along just after you broke up with the bad guy who you had the bad sex with and he shows you just how it SHOULD be and,lol,he owns a Tudor farmhouse and hes got a recording studio in the barn so suddenly you’re in with all the IT people. But only in stories,not in real life! Now you know what is the difference between a conspiracy theory and the facts. Six months.
‘Midwit’, I love it. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
He is not a conspiracy theorist. He is a motor mouthed exploiter of the gullible. Society would be safer if it applied a large dose of scepticism to anyone from left or right, establishment or counter establishment (those like Brand who want to be the new establishment) who claim to have the answers. He is no more than a huckster with an evil line in sexual predation. A long way short of the sort of person you would trust with your daughter, or your car keys, let alone rely on for your understanding of the truth about .. anything.
If you watched his podcast he doesn’t even voice a point of view. He references articles and builds cases then lets his audience decide. Quite refreshing. He is also fiercely intelligent in his summations. I was very impressed when I happened on his channel.
Same
Predation? Do you think that woman who suddenly became offended when RB pushed his organ deeper into her throat was an innocent little girl scout, selling cookies when this act took place? Don’t women have any agency at all when they agree to play with fire?
I personally find it hard to comprehend why some women throw themselves at celebrities, as some of them indisputably do, and then are emotionally crushed, later, when said celebrity denies them a committed relationship, or denies them whatever was hoped for.
What did these ladies imagine would occur?
Insofar as abuse, assault, and criminal activity, of course that should be punished. I’ll head off any “rape apologist” accusations at the pass, by stating the morally obvious.
But are abuse and assault the exact same things as infidelity, insensitivity, rough sex, S&M, or B&D? Both men and women often do consent to, and even request, S&M or B&D. Both men and women are equally capable of being unkind to their romantic partners. Both can be unfaithful, or emotionally abusive.
Do we need to ban all of those things as well, somehow, to prevent harm to women? It’s very unlikely a ban on bad girlfriends or termagant wives could ever occur, but is it now unlawful to simply be a jerky boyfriend?
“I’ll head off any “rape apologist” accusations at the pass, by stating the morally obvious.”
Shame that you also unequivocally defend rape and sexual assault.
Don’t take all your clothes off and get in the bed.
All these women needed to go to Specsavers. The young Brand with his backcombed hair and stubble looked demented (he was) those women were exploiting him as much as he them. They were encouraging his depravity by their own lack of boundaries and self respect. The permanent 16 year old was a dimwit,learning disabled or whatever the term is. Sadly the necessity for women to be moral policemen is never going to go.away. Anyway it’s a true as it ever was that men like RB go out with lots of fun,laughing ,great to be with girls then marry some sour faced termagant who keeps them in line and is totally not fun. I’ve exaggerated a bit there but d’you knows what I mean.
I think it’s actually unlawful to be male
Female persons spent decades demanding to have their decisions respected then want to go all pink and girly-whirly when it goes wrong.
She wasn’t expecting that,ha ha ha.
He took the libertarian ideas of the 1960s to their logical conclusion and was enabled and encouraged as long as he made money for other people.
I am pretty sure he constantly claims he does NOT have the answers. But you would have to actually listen to him to know that.
He is indeed a conspiracy theorist. And he’s right.
He’s a theorist.
That’s the way a t**t thinks. Don’t kid yourself. It is all lies orchestrated to defame someone who turned conservative. f**k all libs, progressives, etc. hey are total degenerate garbage.
Back in the 1990s George (Sir Lord) Monbiot made a BBC documentary about the traffic congestion and air pollution in that “city of screaming tyres” Oxford. Every camera shot was of gridlocked streets uglified by lines of non-moving cars farting out black polluting smoke and poisoning the air.
No one else seems to have seen this TV show except me. In the very last shot the camera zooms in on Georges face and with mad stary eyes he says to camera,in an uncannily chilling voice,” we have to CONTROL people”.
Seeing that put me right off him. Id heard of him and assumed he was ” one of the good guys” but that opened my eyes. I followed his DDN on YouTube for a while but unsubscribed when he told us all to stop eating meat or plants,leaves them in nature,and he wants us all to subsist on Green Goo that his pal makes in a factory he,George Sir Lord,has got shares in.
The other day a DDN popped up and George has seen the danger signs. He’s no longer anti-car! In fact his verbal was very confused,he wanted to blame Big Pharma and Bill Gates and oil etc,the usual.suspects but he wanted to distance himself in our minds at least from that “we must control people” that it seems only I saw. It was like he was trying to say,hey ordinary motorist,white van man,I’m your friend,I’m on your side.
But I still want to take your car away as long as I can outsource your anger onto someone else.
Yet another woman takes agency away from other women. Whether the accusations against Brand are true or not, the majority of women with whom he had sex consented. Why? Because at the time so many young women aspired to be a ‘ladette’, who when not binge drinking was having promiscuous emotionless sex. None of that justifies sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape. However the ladette culture plays an important part in explaining why Brand was able to behave as he did.
Also Brand is a ‘celeb’ – the ultimate achievement in life today. The women concerned would have been collecting celebs – a bit like philately but spelled differently.
I had a friend who boasted about her ‘encounter’ with a famous footballer on his stag night. She was 17 at the time. He was about 30. I said nothing but pitied the woman he was to marry the next day. Her behaviour mirrored that of Virginia Guiffre when she boasted about her encounter with Prince Andrew.
She was triumphant. It was a conquest.
Men are told that all interaction with women must be consensual.
The problem for men seems to be that women frequently withdraw consent a decade later.
Other women, scenting blood in the water and a chance to destroy a prominent man, eagerly pile on with their own withdrawal of consent.
The man is left with the impossible task of proving innocence against a social media assassination attempt.
Bravo!
Just what I’d expect from you.
My god but you really do hate women!!
Recanted consent years later does not at all appear to be the case for any of the events written about in the Times article. I really, really recommend actually reading it. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve overheard or been part of where people have made incredulous or damning comments about evidence, behaviour or context that are explicitly covered in the original article.
When one continually ventures into the deep dark woods at night, how can they be surprised if they are confronted by a grizzly bear at some point?
Yes I often get drawn back to G K Chesterton’s argument about not tearing down fences unless you know why they were built and why they’re no longer needed.
The problem seems to be with consent. No one knows what they are actually consenting to. Maybe a long discussion should take place in which the women makes it clear what she is not giving consent for and the man explicitly states in a legally acceptable way just which body parts he intends to place where. After that both parties have gone off the idea!
Got to wait until they’re rich enough to be worth sueing.
Careful now. I recall one of our regular commenters boasting about some famous names on their roster.
Ah you remembered that did you. Guilty as charged!
I was at school with girls like that
How do you know this? Where is your supporting evidence? Yet another misogynist.
‘Unlike in the Noughties, production staff would be less inclined to turn a blind eye. Runners and assistants would be more likely to refuse to act as procurers, if asked.’
My comment yesterday: I watched the documentary and was struck by the complaint from those who felt they were being forced to act as pimps by Russell Brand. Following Brand’s instructions/requests, they approached young women, 18+, and asked for the young women’s phone numbers to pass onto Brand or gave them the name of the hotel where he was staying. The complainants are representing themselves as Brand’s victims as well. It is the mindset of the underlying Marxist doctrine being exposed. He had the power so they were his victims too. They could have refused, it is called free will, it is true they might have lost their jobs but that would have been unfair dismissal. Also, sometimes doing the right thing costs. The person voicing the complaint was a woman which was necessary because if it had been a man, then he would probably have been accused of enabling, or colluding with, Russell Brand. Was just doing my job considered an acceptable excuse in N*** Germany? It’s clear that the left protect their own and seek to bring down/silence dissident voices.
Why are runners and assistants less likely to procure? I guess because the climate has changed and it is more advantageous not to. They were acting out of self-interest but now they fear being tainted. Being tainted is not good for the career.
Two verbs: to groom and to seduce, what is the difference? The age of the groomed/seduced I guess. According to the law, grooming becomes seduction at the age of sixteen, if age is the defining factor.
You should try to give some consideration to the power dynamic involved but I suspect you’re too thick.
Power dynamic, and you accuse someone of being thick
Guilty conscience?
Nail on the head. Young ladies were out to prove they could be as bad as any man. Getting extremely drunk and having hard and fast sex with no strings attached was something women were told was empowering. Something to aspire to.
I slightly challenge this. In my mind the key point in the article is this.
‘A predator looking for a niche would probably not now make DJing or presenting or stand-up their first choice. A predator today would choose to be a social-media influencer.’
I may well be wrong, but in these debates it often feels like a discussion of symptom and not cause.
My memory of the 1990s and early 2000s pre social media is that ‘ladette’ was seen not as something empowering in the classic feminist sense but rather as an active lifestyle choice and, as such, a lifestyle choice that could be changed or even reversed. It’s no different to a ‘lad’ who moved into a more adult way of living. Having that agency to make the active choice was I would suggest no bad thing for either male or female. ‘Ladette’ was not about hypersexualisation, rather it was about an active and personal choice where one was NOT subjected to ‘influencers.’
It was really when social media and its attendant social pressures and need for attention-seeking performative one-upmanship came along that things took a turn for the worse. And whilst I have no love of modern feminism I do feel that women were hit worse than men by the downside of social media (which, to be clear, is not to say that men are not badly affected).
I am now in my mid 40s and with hindsight I feel that my generation didn’t do well enough. My generation was the one that was (rightly) sceptical of social media and we didn’t do enough for those who followed and dived head first into the new tech.
Now – of course – people are adults with cognisance of what is good and bad for them and who can and should take responsibility. But to my mind the rise of social media was the real turning point and very few journalists seem willing to talk about it.
Told by who?
Here’s a few for ya.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/05/sex-and-the-single-girl-manual-roe/629868/
https://www.healthyplace.com/sex/psychology-of-sex/sex-tips-for-women-from-cosmo
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/study-how-reading-cosmo-affects-perceptions-of-sex/261955/
https://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/996875/50-crazy-sex-facts-for-the-modern-women/
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4236&context=etd
https://www.allure.com/story/best-porn-sites-for-women
By whom.
Don’t let him hide behind that one. How many women does it take not to consent before you think it’s a problem?
Sounds very much like a misogynistic justification to me.
I’m sure the majority of women who had sex with Peter Sutcliffe consented, too; he surely didn’t rape & murder all of them.
I have enjoyed Brand’s comedy, but the accusations against him are credible. If he were still on the “Left” many of his defenders would be screaming “pervert!” at him.
How are they credible so far after the event? Where is the evidence for such a serious set of accusations?
Justice is surely dependent on something more substantial than whether you think they were capable of an offence or not.
The reasonable position to take is to suspend judgement until/unless credible evidence is presented, and in a court of law too.
Do you really think Brand is comparable to Peter Sutcliffe?
Does it at all strike you as unusual that these allegedly predatory men, all of them prominent, seem to operate with impunity for decades or years, right up until the point when they dissent from the bien pensant view?
I’m puzzled by recently hearing that Germaine Greer who I remember being on TV when I was a kid,(the BBC loved her,she was always good for an outrageous quote) advocated keeping your virginity until you got married,not giving away your sexuality freely,behaving with proper decorum and making sure of the financial security of your prospective partner before going into a relationship. All very good and sensible advice but if she did say stuff like this on TV or radio I missed those bits. I’ve never read her most famous book but I’ve read several others,enjoyed them and she makes good points in them. But all this good advice about proper behaviour. I don’t recall any of it. I’m wondering if some of her fans,her advocates are doing a bit of pre-death reorganizing her legacy. My favourite GG moment was old Question Time when she was inveighing against corporate capitalism and people,shareholders of said,who have money salted away in tax havens like the Cayman Islands. She was in full on righteous mode when another panellist,a young man financial journalist,said,”Is that why you’ve got a lot of money Germaine held in an offshore tax free account then”. No kidding. She was stopped in her tracks. And not that fake outrage face she used a lot. She was literally speechless and her eyes were panicking. It was a classic comedy moment. Shed been exposed for the hypocrite she was. But being ballsy Germaine it took a second or two and she rallied but quickly exited that conversation.
I remember reading an article written by Germaine Greer in which she claimed the menopause was a kind of blessing as she was no longer constantly lusting after (young?) men and trying to bed them.
I recall a quote, years ago, from an elderly nun who had taught Germaine Greer and had very fond memories of “that dear girl”. Looks as if this “feminist” apple did not fall far from the Catholic tree.
The Guardian today is getting very worked up that Russell Brand has been pushing ‘free speech’
He was one of their star columnists a few years ago!
They have a memory hole (for internal use only).
That would be the same Guardian that called the victims of the Rotherham grooming gang “islamaphobes”
The same Guardian that seeks to push transgerderism onto children.
They didn’t give a damn what Brand was allegedly up to, until he went against their narrative.
Exactly correct! As RBrand has moved further and further to the Right, recently passing into downright-conservative territory, our overlords have viewed him with increasing suspicion, and it’s no wonder that his behavior of 20 years ago is only now garnering outrage.
He hasn’t moved to the Right, he’s simply noticed that his ‘open-minded, tolerant, nice’ mates are nakedly authoritarian. Brand himself has always struck me as thoroughly foul, but his current travails are obviously a political kneecapping from the establishment.
“Brand’s pivot to politics has always had more to do with his own self-importance“.
Everything Brand has ever done has been in service of self importance. It comes out of him with every word, every gesture, it’s for this reason I thought he’s was a prat in the 90’s when I was a teenager and have never found a reason to change that opinion.
Why do women find what is obviously a ridiculous egomaniacal clown appealing? Why would you want to be alone with this jester, this cad?
Because a great many women like ego maniacal clowns. Especially rich and famous ones.
Women I know always thought Brand was weird and a creep; someone they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with. It seems like their instincts were correct. The media will destroy him, just like they created him. I feel sorry for some of the younger women who got caught up with him – they needed better protection. As to the more grown up women (and men), they should have called out at the time if something was not right. As (I think) Martin Amis once said to a group of US College students: “you can change your mind before, you can even change your mind during, but you can’t change your mind afterwards”.
Women like Katie Perry and countless others adored him. He’s handsome, tall, wealthy, and famous, if unkempt. He never had any shortage of female admirers.
At bottom, women are either able to freely consent to sex, including sadomasochistic sex, or they’re not really adults. (If they truly are assaulted, which of course can happen to anyone, they need to press criminal charges, or at least preserve some sort of evidence, beyond simple and sometimes vague accusations. And of course sex offenders and the truly abusive deserve punishment.) But the assumption should be that women are capable of desire, and are capable of saying either yes or no, and not changing their minds years later.
Otherwise, we need to sincerely ask if they’re competent adults, or, to paraphrase Chesterfield, children of a larger growth.
For a few women, perhaps the types that seek out celebrities and the very wealthy, it may be the latter. If so, then we may now need to bring back chaperones, fainting couches, and ankle length skirts, if not burkas and hijabs.
Wow!! It doesn’t get more patronising and misogynistic than that. If you have daughters let them read this bilge. Shameful.
Nothing is more patronizing than implying, as you do, that women can’t be responsible for their own actions.
Of course not, they need Unheard Reader to come to their rescue.
This is not an accurate representation of what was described in the Times article. This is the third comment I have replied to by a person who has 100% not read it.
Bravo!! and LOL
Wonderful podcast between Camille Paglia and Jordan Peterson a few years back and she discusses what she fought for at university and the young female students to go out and party like the boys. It’s a mature discussion for sure, and she’d have a very interesting take on RB.
It’s lean pickins out there.
It’s bizarre isn’t it. Freud couldn’t answer that one.
To be fair, a lot of women can’t see the appeal either – when they look at Brand they see more or less what you and I see, and they aren’t impressed. But it’s still bizarre that any women actually find him attractive.
One suggestion is that he’s very much like the kind of guru figure that women also seem to go for – narcissistic, full of unwarranted self belief, and spouting word salad that sound impressive to those who aren’t in the habit of thinking very much.
I am reminded of the crash-n-burn fiasco of the saintly Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche. The story got buried in the early days of the pandemic. He had an entourage of adoring female followers while cultivating this aura of spiritual wisdom and celibacy – it was a persona as remote from Russell Brand as you can imagine. He would take a lady acolyte in his arms and explain that “this is not you and me, it is Jesus and Mary…. “
An afterthought.
Perhaps some women are drawn to men who achieve fame, success and money entirely on their own terms. Most wealthy men have had to compromise in some way – in their dress, their speech, their personality. Brand has made it without such compromises, even without much compromise with ordinary morality, apparently.
Ghastly, and even fake, as his personality might seem to people with an an ounce of taste, sensibility or intelligence – some women may be attracted by that image of success entirely on his own terms, without compromise.
One can say that about so many men that women hook up with. Why oh why.
Money. I’m pretty sure the louche Brand was “generous” and splashed the cash around.
It takes two to tango. Lots of men have money, but Brand made it very obvious that he was happy to trade that money for sex. For a woman who has little else to offer that probably looks a pretty good deal. Whether some expected more than just to be used and discarded is hard to say.
Agree with this – but Brand achieved fame early and we had already openly moved away from being a society that valued steady relationships, monogamy – such virtues were old fashioned. Yet sex was then on the surface – the extreme internet porn that exists now is hidden and it is pillars of society – teachers that are teaching our school children about a**l sex – very confusing.
Brand has matured and is prepared to annoy some powerful people – in a way that most of the MSM will not.
For example 4 days ago RB did a piece on B G a t e s and farming on y o u t u b e – here are some extracts:
“to eat meat grown in a laboratory this is not the solution this is just another variation on the problem
in the study the scientists estimated the energy required for stages of lab-grown meats production from the ingredients making up the growth medium and the energy required to power Laboratories and compare this with beef they largely focus on the quantity of growth medium components including glucose amino acids vitamins growth factors salts and minerals they found the global warming potential of lab-grown meat range from 246 to 1508 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of lab grow meat which is 4 to 25 times greater than the average global warming potential of retail beef
again I’m not a person who is pro meat and I’m saying look Pro industrialized meat I Am pro freedom I am aware that there is a Global effort to disempower and Destroy Farmers
there are challenges around Agriculture and areas where agriculture could be improved but I don’t think that the motives of these centralized globalist Endeavours is to improve the ecology I don’t think it’s improve anything I think it’s to gain control and to make money I think those are always the motives
we’ve moved so far away from connected communal models where all of us feel like we are invested in the food cycle that we’re willing to countenance an idea where why don’t we give centralized authority to some lab-grown meat lab-grown fruit patented seeds unelected powerful entities that have been half regulated by other unelected entities that they also fund this this seems to me to be a further advance of globalism that’s plainly taken us in the wrong direction”
Another reason why now – well it means the MSM will not have to discuss other news such as:
In four days’ time, on Wednesday September 20th, our representatives meeting at the United Nations will sign off on a ‘Declaration’ titled: ‘Political Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response.’
The meeting you refer to in your last paragraph is exactly what the newspapers and opinion writers should be concerning themselves with – the allegations re Brand should not be hogging every front page headline and pages within. It is any wonder so many no longer trust the corporate owned ‘newspapers’? Clearly a major distraction was necessary and here it is.
But the public buy media featuring scandalous behaviour and titillation, they don’t buy media containing serious discussions about complex issues. The media don’t create “distractions”, they provide what their users want
Exactly.
But it sells. Here we are talking about it. You do have a choice.
Yes they are tooling up for another attack so we all need to be distracted.
Yet the child groomers in Rotherham, Telford and Oxford mainly got away with it, thanks to the left.
I never understood Brand’s popularity. Dunno, maybe I saw through the facade and just though this bloke is a massive C.
Completely agree. His unfiltered, unboundaried ‘act’ was gold to his promoters – the worse he behaved, the richer they became. His excesses were encouraged. And forget his new-found awareness of current issues – all just attention-seeking b***ox.
Russell Brand is now far bigger than the Channel 4 that made him, and which is the State. As of course is the BBC, which is tagging along. We remember both of them, and specifically Dispatches and Woman’s Hour, in relation to Julian Assange and Jeremy Corbyn. Just as we remember The Times and the Sunday Times. We do not trust any of them as far as we could spit. Whereas Brand has interviewed Stella Assange, The Times still periodically publishes the rape allegations against her husband as fact. Charlotte Wace has form.
Brand should contest a forthcoming by-election. He has not been arrested, and anyway you can stand for Parliament on bail. If you are a British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen, then you can do so from a prison cell, so long as that cell is not in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. Unless one of Brand’s voiced up and anonymous accusers stood against him, then they never existed. But if one of them did, then the verdict of his peers would be which of him and her took more votes.
When Brand was allegedly doing what he is alleged to have done, then he was living exactly the liberal capitalist lifestyle of those who have turned against him because he has turned against them. No doubt they do indeed keep tabs on celebrity types, lest any of them ever go rogue politically, which, while most unlikely, is demonstrably not impossible. Brand remains badly wrong about, especially, drugs, but at least he no longer takes them, unlike some. I have been calling for decades for the age of consent to be raised to 18 with a grace period for teenagers who were close in age, but that is not in fact the law, and if even the present age were enforced, then you would clear media London and its favoured political salons in one raid.
The people wanting Brand banged up for sleeping with a 16-year-old want 16-year-olds to have the vote, and want much younger children to be given puberty blockers and “gender reassignment” surgery even without parental consent. I used to be uncharacteristically agnostic about votes at 16, but this gender identity business is a dealbreaker. Those behind it have already been putting underage girls on the Pill for 40 years, and probably 60. There is only one possible reason to do that. Thank you, Margaret Thatcher, who fought for it all the way through the courts, although it is has still never been put to a parliamentary vote in relation to England, Wales, or arguably Northern Ireland. It is high time to see a Commons Division List on this.
As always with this sort of thing, why is it only now that these accusations are being levelled? It reminds me of the Brett Kavanaugh fiasco.
If these women were silenced in some way, threatened or paid off, where is the evidence? It’s not okay to destroy someone’s career simply because you feel they’re a wrong ‘un or you regret your past.
And yet Ditum and her ilk are quite happy to make journalistic hay using nasty comparisons to Jimmy Saville and so on.
If Brand is innocent and their is no evidence against him he should sue Ditum and her ilk for defamation – their should be consequences for this sort of thing.
Recommend reading the Times article, it would answer several of your questions.
Have you noticed the number of crazed misogynist supporters or justifiers of Brand commenting on Ditum’s excellent article and trying to ridicule HER?! Ridiculous.
She references Jimmy Saville ffs. If you’re gonna accuse people who disagree with the article of being crazed misogynists, at least give some reasons.
I don’t have a subscription to the Times unfortunately. Any evidence though? Genuine question.
A link to it would be helpful. Also, I don’t know what the documentary is that’s referenced or where it can be seen.
I think it’s the ‘Dispatches’ doc on channel 4
You might want to spell check.
Anyone resorting to the term ‘conspiracy theorist/theories’ might as well stop talking because they have lost me right there.
It’s become a blanket term like ‘right-wing’ or ‘racist’ and has come to mean something or someone who does not align with one’s own preferred outlook.
Brand uses very good sources for his broadcasts and I have found some very powerful journalistic voices such as Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald thanks to Russell Brand’s broadcasts; perhaps MSM rather envy his reach with influential people not on Bill Gates’ Christmas card list.
This entire debacle smells to high heaven of a cheap smear job from a fourth estate who were missing in action when it mattered.
There’s something strangely medieval about this generation’s passion for classification, its illogical conviction that once you’ve labeled something a ‘conspiracy theory’ or ‘right wing talking point,’ your work is done–there’s no need to examine the actual strengths and weaknesses of particular arguments. Throughout much of the Middle Ages the only question that mattered was “Are you Christian or pagan?”–careful how you answer–and the hierarchies of Thomistic metaphysics (God at the top, then angels, humans, various classification of animal, and so on down to demons and Satan at the bottom) provided this mindset with its intellectual backbone. If we commit ourselves to classification of intellectual indebtedness in a logically consistent way, the affinities between Thomism and the victimhood hierarchies of identity politics enthusiasts begin to cast a curiously retrograde light on modern ‘progressive’ thought.
Woke-ism (definitely a generational phenomenon) as religion? Maybe. It’s as if, for the woke, the Enlightenment never happened–which is doubly bizarre since they don’t hesitate to mouth Enlightenment slogans. We might almost say the woke aspire to Enlightenment goals while, alas, having abandoned the Enlightenment’s intellectual rigour.
Not sure how they aspire to Enlightenment goals, your earlier characterization of their behavior as medieval seems much more apt. Intellectual rigor is far beyond them, their sheer stupidity and credulity is truly phenomenal, hence the infantile screaming and ugly ad hominem attacks.
‘Conspiracy guru’ – Seriously? Shitty behaviour is tolerated/celebrated…..but as soon as he ….well changes….becomes a better person (albeit deeply flawed- and who is not?) and starts to question the corrupt MSM and institutions…now only, they decide to take him down.
Articles like this make me less inclined to subscribe to Unherd. I can get this shi*e from the Guardian …or in this case from Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph
Brand is very fond of regurgitating conspiracies. Being morally corrupt he is not a fit person to judge anyone else on behaviour standards.
Are you?
Assuredly he is, just read his posts.
He is not morally corrupt. God,the entity we know as God,has redeemed him. We should be happy. Russell Brand is a new creation. Those slags are still slags. You atheists bang on about how nice and tolerant and non judging you are but you’re far more nasty and judgmental than any people of faiths I know. ( not faith with an s). Tell you what Buster. I once very nearly got shagged aged 17 but it didn’t work out. One time only in my whole life so call me out as a w***e. You have my permission. Since that makes me a w***e according to your ilk. Diss me online then since yours so moral and proper.
How utterly predictable all of this is.
This process of ‘hanging Brand out to dry’ like Assange, Snowden or, indeed, C Manning, appears to focus on the grotesque minutae of sexual affairs.
Russell Brand was always too much, but this push too finish him off as a popular political voice is less a belated slant of the #metoo campaign than a frankly obscene exposee of private sexual behaviour.
Although this doesn’t surprise me at all from the people, the editors of The Times of London must be feeling more and more squeamish about the coverage, however, and their name being attached for it. Anything for their friends (if not paymasters) in Washington it would seem.
Bananas. Utter rubbish.
But he isn’t a very good political voice. He just speaks tosh.
He has an excellent team of researchers who ferret out the most obscure documents that show in words and figures the nefarious way that Corporate America now controls USA politics.
I think it’s actually easier now to hide legal documents online than when they took paper form. You can,if you wish,break in and steal actual paperwork,did they do that in Watergate,but to negotiate the maze of cyberspace takes uncanny skill.
Is Mr Russell Brand related to Ms Jo Brand, the BBC ‘luvvie’ who recently joked about throwing battery acid over someone, does anyone know?
No No No. When leftists do bad things it’s OK. They get a free pass.
Just a they did with Russell Brand, when he was one of them.
What do you mean? Leftists never do bad things, or condone others that do.
I might be related to both Russell Brand and Jo Brand. I don’t know. I’ll never know. It doesn’t matter. I did my family history 20 years ago. Just pre- internet,or rather pre- much info on there. Unlike now. I’m glad it got me travelling around a lot. One of my great-great grandfather’s was a William Henry Davies,a clerk of London town.
Born c.1818 near Fleet st,died 1886 Hackney. His second wife by whom he had 3 children but I only know what happened to his second child my great grandmother Kate,was one Catherine Amelia Brand. She died when her daughter Kate was about 4. It seems like the children were farmed out to relatives to be cared for. The parents of Catherine Brand were William Henry Brand and his wife Louisa (nee Groser). This Brand family was quite spread out and lived around Hackney, Shoreditch,Finsbury,Hoxton and another searcher found indications they came from Essex and at one point was the family at Hyde Hall,now an RHS garden. Indeed I have a definite Essex family,the Branwoods of Writtle married into the Brands which seems to at least suggest an Essex origin.
Further back the Brands farmed at a place called Apps Court at Walton on Thames and their is a picture in the Dulwich picture gallery of the building of the new bridge at Walton on Thames by Canaletto,in the foreground is two figures,a James Brand and his friend. I’m sure this JB is a cousin to my Thomas Brand but I can’t prove it. This James Brand is very interesting person,Google him,he’s on Wikipedia. He advocated universal suffrage and all sorts of contemporary ideas. He was way ahead of his time. It’s not unlikely that both me,Russ and Jo are distantly related through this east end Brand family spider web. Who knows.
They’re all putting the boot in now. Brand had become an avowedly anti establishment figure and his message resonated with many. It’s all very suspicious and sinister.
Isn’t it odd that the left is taken in by cretins like Brand, but demonises ordinary family men who look like “gammon” but have done little real harm in their lives. Is this the result of a rather strange association of the left with pop music culture – all that superficial pap about revolutions of various kinds? Do you get a free pass if you look vaguely like you might have been in a rock band of some kind. And that regardless of the way you have treated your groupies. As if being “left” is just a way of being “cool”.
OK, somebody help me out here, please.
There are currently 198 nightclubs in London. (As per prof Google). Let’s assume each one holds, on average, 500 people. I think that is high, but what the heck.
So roughly 99,000 people a night. But mainly Saturday and Friday right and mostly repeat customers. That was my own experience from working in bars.
So let’s assume 150,000 humans going to clubs in London. With a population of 8.982 million people in London(googled as well), we are looking at probably 1.1% of the population acting as Lads and Ladettes. And of course there can be other places they can come from. Pubs, University parties, private parties, etc. so let’s double it and call it 2.2% of the population. Which assumes all those people are looking for zipless fucks. Which I doubt. But anyway.
Why am I supposed to believe that the behavior of 2.2% of the public are reflective of the sexual mores of the entire population?! And moreover, why should I get bent out of shape about the reprehensible behavior of such a minuscule portion of the population?
I don’t think so. I’ll continue to hang out with my boring friends who practice consensual, loving, and non-abusive sex. And they seem to enjoy it as well—heaven forbid.
And that’s good enough for me, and, I suspect, the vast majority of the population.
But we make for lousy copy or videos.
You’ll never get your own tv series that way!
“She met Brand the same year that he performed that set, when she was 16 and he 31.”
And Papa would’ve shot him if he knew what he’d done…
Boris, Brand, Saville- the list goes on.. why are people so easily fooled by clowning? They were all so obviously sinister from the start. Their smiles are like snarls.
There’s nothing sinister about Boris, he was merely lazy and a slave to his appetites.
I think Brand is more of a narcissistic hedonist than anything else.
Heard his Dad on the radio. Sinister is the word for him. Cracks on hes and environmentalist. I wonder how long before he jumps off that bandwagon like George Monbiot has.
Pissing vast sums of other peoples’ money down the toilet is sinister enough.
No,you watch too much mainstream media. That tells those who watch it ,you all love this one,that one . And we don’t. And now we ignore mainstream media and follow people on YouTube instead. People making and tending gardens. People living in Paris. People messing about on boats in Hampshire and Normandy. People telling us stories from history.
I think the author is somewhat deluded if she believes that things have changed in the media/entertainment industry. It would appear that in recent years that Schofield, and possibly Huw Edwards were able to get others to cover -up their behaviour. I really hoped that the Saville scandal would finally break the cult of celebrity but it didn’t. It is the glorification of someone because they are rich or famous that enables this type of behaviour to be perpetuated.Too many people want their 15 minutes of fame, even vicariously, anyhow, anywhere, anytime. And of course we know have the fame of victimhood.
Nell Gwynne was an actress. Once when her sedan chair was passing a crowd she heard someone say ” There is that Catholic w***e”. Nell popped her head out and said ” No I am a Protestant w***e”. Another time her coachman stooped the coach and became involved in a fight. She poped her head out and asked ” What are you fighting about? “. ” This man called you a w***e .” Well I am, now fight about something else “. Pretty witty and honest Nell.
Restoration England was very merrie and perhaps more honest. As Noel Coward ” Do not put your daughter on the stage , Mrs Worthington”.
I can recommend Andrew O’Hagan’s article which was written in the aftermath of Sir Jimmy Savile, OBE, KCSG. It shows how far the power of celebrity culture goes back. Even the very famous presenter who introduced the 14 year old Princess Elizabeth to her first radio broadcast.
And the innocent program titles now look like massive neon warning signs. Would you let your child anywhere near a show called “Hello children” or “Children’s Hour”? And the footnotes show that some viewers actively detested Sir Jimmy from the start. They could sense something radically unwholesome about him. But who cared, they were obviously benighted peasants.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n21/andrew-o-hagan/light-entertainment
The sixteen year old doesn’t sound like she had any objections to Brand’s p***s being in her mouth, only that he pushed it in farther than she’d like. Is that now how we define sexual assault? It’s just a matter of technique?
I doubt that was the first time he’d done that since it’s a popular thing for men to do. Indeed most men seem to prefer it.
We have exhausted looking down on the 18th Century and the 1970s now even the 2000s were a primitive era. The new year zero will be 2017.
Interesting point. Perhaps, the new year zero will become ‘tomorrow’.
No wonder that an outdated trend is condemned as being “so five minutes ago”. So if you change your mind about some repulsive music or degrading behaviour which you praised to the skies 300 seconds ago….
As has been intimated in other posts here, Sarah just needs to ask herself one question, if Russell remained a darling of the Left would any of this be coming to light? Any reference to an era is just meaningless drivel.
Very valid points you make there about him and his relationship with women, but labelling him as a conspiracist is patronising to those in search of the truth, and undermines your well-argued argument.
Yes. Periods where the left are in the ascendent are often dangerous for women. Picking up where the 1960s left off…
And the fifties?Ask Margaret Atwood.
The fifties. In 1955 , someone whom was 65 could have been brougth up in work house, endured fighting in WW1, had the trauma of seeing many of their loved ones killed,The Depression and in WW2 where their homes were bombed and children killed. Women worked in the factories in WW1 and served as nurses in the trenches.
In WW1, Vera Britain had her fiancee killed, her brother, her brother’s best friend and the man she was going to marry after her fiancee killed.
In WW2 women were killed in combat , SOE, nurses in Japanese POW camps, watched their friends being raped and murdered, were killed while serving on airfields in the Battle of Britain and in their homes. Many never married because male friends were killed. For those who did marry, many had husbands who had nightmares for years after the wars.
Britain was unlike other countries in that women in both wars were in combat and carried vast responsibilities. In particular, in WW2 many women were in intelligence , SOE, SIS, MI5, Royal Navy , RAF , Signals and had th massive responsibility of providing accurate data an knowing their loved ones being killed. In WW2 one of the women providng directions to fighters had the horrible experience of listening to her boyfriend being shot down. Those working in the RN had the experience of knowing relative were being killed at sea.
Many wives had the experience of their husbands dying at an early age due to war wounds.
Three women in the SOE were awarded the GC and two were awarded the GM.The youngest person to be awarded the GM in WW2 was fifteen year old girl in the Blitz.
Western Approaches Tactical Unit – Wikipedia
RAF Medmenham – Wikipedia
Constance Babington Smith – Wikipedia
Britain gave bread to Germany in 1946 and food rationing lasted until 1953. After WW2, the period of 1945 to 1953 was very grim. Bombing meant families were living in Nissan huts. For the vast majority of Britons in the late 1950s , there was an absence of war,hunger and unemployment; there was close to full employment, accessible healthcare and education and the end of slums was in sight. Atwood had a very comfortable life compred to most women in Britain; she never experienced being bombed and seeing her home destroyed.
So much better when they were safe at home.
Maybe it’s bad form to comment on this and leave out the whole Russell Brand aspect of it, but why is it treated as a maxim that the 00s were uniquely cruel and vicious? Ms Ditum isn’t the only writer who operates on this assumption and expects us to just go with it. A decade doesn’t begin in a vacuum. Some of the comments about the “ladette” culture of the time (encouraging reckless drinking, drugs and/or promiscuity and so on) ring at least partially true to me. In the largely female crowds I associated with there was definitely a backlash against both the political correctness that dominated the nineties as well as the perceived sexual puritanism of the Bush administration with it’s abstinence only education, and it’s imperial and morally zealous war on terror.
Without commenting on allegations against Brand, I think this is a train of thought that deserves to be considered alongside “the naughties were mean” storyline. Especially since it seems like we’re going to be getting more of that as that decade recedes into the rearview mirror.
Every decade has got the two aspects. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
The Guardian’s chosen gladiator has become entangled in his own net. Will Boudicca deliver the coup de grace?
The Robespierres of the sexual revolution are encountering a ‘Feminidian Reaction’ as the phases of the revolution evolve.
As for the ‘followers’, even kookaburras and hyaenas would have refrained from laughing. Evidently, to perform the function of a bellwether, a creature doesn’t have to be minus a few parts.
A very well written piece, compare it with the one written by Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian.
Just lately I keep hearing on the radio,mostly hearing on the radio how staid,nice,polite,calm,quiet and well mannered life in Britain was 40 years ago. You knew all your neighbours. You could leave your door open all day. TV was wholesome. Life was polite and civilized.You played outside all day and no one worried. Because most of the phone in callers were little kids in the 1980s so they remember it from a little kids perspective. Sometimes however a print journalist will write similar and of course you read it on Facebook a lot. Golden Memories.
I was in my 30s in the 1980s and I recall it differently, probably because I was an adult,although the society around me did not recognize this,but thats another issue. I recall the 1980s being pretty much like now or on the way. Subjects that were previously taboo were now available for comedy at least,that insidious way to get pernicious things into the mainstream.
And in 1985 people were reminiscing about how horrible society was compared to the innocent,crime free lives we all led in the 1960s. And because I was a small child in the 1960s and the radio was always on in our house and as I wasnt taking drugs I remember the 1960s and the radio was a constant litany of problems and issues,the media love “problems and issues”. We were on the verge of economic collapse and the world was going to hell in a Handcart. And my Mum and people of her age and older would converse about how life in the 1930s was the BEST TIME. And so it goes on. Regarding Russell Brand,I was aware of his horribleness all along as he made no secret of it and the mainstream media kept us well informed. Any woman who “didn’t know” what he was like must be thicker than me and that’s saying something. I feel sad that our society is no longer familiar with the concept of REDEMPTION. We are now nasty,vicious people with no forgiveness in us,or we seem to forgive the wrong people it seems to me.
Indeed – I’m even tempted to say that, back in the day we understood nostalgic bias, and criticised those with the rose tinted spectacles through which they reminisced about ‘back in the day’!
The murder rate in Britain has been low compared to other countries. Outside of the rookeries, docks and slums crime was low. Read Orwell’ essaysand listen to Steve Pinkers talks.
Excellent comment. Yes, I remember the 1980s as a great time, probably because I had a well paid job. And the 1960s….well, it might have seemed fun and innocent because I had no yardstick with which to compare it. I had no sense that the Rolling Stones’ behaviour was outrageous in comparison with 1950s mores. And I laughed at “Round the Horne” which was broadcast to millions of families on BBC radio at Sunday lunchtime. The words used by Kenneth Williams, etc were really odd. I had no idea that the scriptwriters were using Polari, the coded slang used in the London gay underworld. But radio was undergoing massive change as the audience had recently moved en mass to TV. Happy days….
Round The Horne is still actually funny and obscure enough that it doesn’t actually corrupt if you don’t already know. Children find Carry On films funny too before they understand most of the jokes partly because the actors all looked funny and you somehow knew it was funny but not why. That’s what Joan Sims,the lovely Joan Sims said in an interview and she was right.
Wholly recommend the article on Russell Brand in the Mail today – penned by Peter Hitchens. Funny but tragic in its conclusions.
Thought it was rubbish. Try to say anything pro Brand on the Mail and your comment is censored. Brand is NOT a conspiracy theorist. The Mail is just like any other MSM.
‘Like trying to play chess with a squirrel.’ HAHA!!
I didn’t know that, and I’m very glad I now do. It’s laugh-out-loud funny.
And George is not anti-car any more. Now the image of nooses and lampposts has crossed his mind.
The Sexual Revolution
Produced, written, directed and starring: Testosterone.
Co-starring: Monthly Estrogen.
Now everything’s a little upside down
As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good
You’ll find out when you reach the top
You’re on the bottom
Bob Dylan
So of course it’s obvious Russell Brand despises women and can’t tolerate being anywhere near them, and that only a deluded conspiracy theorist could possibly have any grievance against his corporate, media and deep state targets. It’s just as obvious that the sun circles the earth.
It is the level of hypocrisy of the liberal media that is most striking because most of what they do has such a pronounced moral inflection.
What newspapers like The Guardian and Times colluded in was the dumbing-down of media culture pursued by trash TV outlets like Channel 4 in the 00s. And Big Brother reality TV on Channel 4 was what made Russell Brand a household name.
I think what’s happened recently is that such newspapers have realised their political weight as partisan campaigning tools for institutions like the Labour Party in the UK, and the Democrats in the US.
Brand was guilty for criticising Big Pharma connections with state pandemc policy and then the blanket media support for the West funding a proxy war waged solely by a troubled, compromised new country against the brutal military capacity of modern authoritarian Russia.
Until that moment he was applauded by the liberal universe in his entirety for being a rock’n’roll wild boy who reinvented himself as an engaged political commentator.
I’m.still trying to figure out what he did that was.fine 20.years ago but is rape today. Do none of these women have any agency (hate the word) in their own lives. That 20 years later they feel.bad about being too sexually available that now they conclude it wasn’t their fault at all. They were coerced. They weren’t. They were promiscuous. They were stupid. They played dangerous games. Same as he. But the metoo movement has infantillised women and allowed them to take.no responsibility for their bad decisions.
The pearl clutching over rape jokes always bemuses me. How dare anyone decide what is and isn’t an acceptable subject for comedy.
You’re part of the problem. You’re one of Brands erstwhile enablers. You encourage depravity by laughing at it,not in a contemptuous way but an approving way. If you pay money to see a show like that then you’re encouraging depravity by making it profitable.
As someone sad earlier, Brand is a creation of the media, ergo he is theirs to destroy.
It’s ever been thus ; whether media of the left, the right, the centre, does it matter ?
If he goes to prison, do you think someone will enjoy making Brand’s mascara run?
LOL
I wonder if he’s got the neck for it?
British misandry as always.
An excellent article ,absolutely spot on.
Exactly my thoughts.
I enjoyed Ditum’s article and thought it said it all. A refeshing take on the whole thing. One wonders why now is everyone’s knickers in a twist? I’ve left comments on another Unherd site that the 16 year old smacks of Viginia Guiffre and Prince Andrew and I wonder when the lawsuit will come.
Why can we sometimes edit and sometimes we can’t, I wonder.
I wanted to add that Brand is a narcissistic hedonist who’s bipolar and has ADHD. He was born that way, and like the rest of us had to make the best of what we’ve been given in the luck of the draw. Brand reminds me of Mick Jagger and Howard Stern. The former didn’t make a big deal out of promiscuity but, apparently, never used condoms. That irresponsibility is perhaps worse than lusting and bragging. Brand at least hasn’t brought a litter of children into the world. Stern was saved by psychotherapy.
Since Brand was born with a lustful personality and manic genes, he’s had to battle the dark side that they bring. His task has been to try to control the excesses of that type. He’s managed to conquer his addiction to drugs and alcohol, which is no mean feat, but he’s still addicted to sex. As Ditum says,the times in which Brand lived allowed that addiction to thrive, until now. For better or worse this seems be the time of reckoning. A blessing in disguise.
Would you extend the same generosity to Donald Trump, or indeed to the rest of us who all have our psychological load to bear. Brand is clearly a narcissist, but that does not simply let him off the hook for being a pretty appalling person. Why do we excuse celebs for things far worse than the ordinary person would be damned for?
Jagger is both more likeable and more intelligent and there is so much more to him. He camped it up when doing so was still quite shocking. Off stage (and on in the earlier days) he had genuine style. He could lay a claim to some originality. He was cool rather than lewd and a loud mouth. Brand is like a mash-up.
It’s also believable that Jagger genuinely liked women. He seems to have fallen head over heels a few times. Brand seems to have just used them. He’s a man of wealth, but absolutely no taste.
and is this not related to why Rees-Mogg Sr protested the Stone’s prison sentences for drug possesssion in the seminal essay, ‘Why Break a Butterfly on a Wheel’? Pity his son turned out to be such a t*t.
How odd to not know that your job is being a prostitute when your being paid a wage. And the only man’s name Mrs Giraffe could recall was Andrew Prince.
Feminists use the Motte-and-bailey fallacy. When they abandon allegations of sexual assault (the Bailey), they retreat into ‘lad culture’, or ‘a culture of crassness’ (the more easily defensible Motte).
It’s not until paragraph 5 that the author puts “Brand denies committing any criminal acts” in parentheses.
Unless you’ve good reason to say he’s lying, the rest of this article is just a hatchet job, irrelevant to the serious charges levelled by the scum of the Murdoch scab media in league with the scum of Channel 4.
It is sas that even here in Unherd he is being attacked.
I think that the only solution is chaperones. Unless young girls are accompanied by a mature woman when outside the house that will hopefully restrain their girly instincts they are just bait for the priapic monsters of the world.
The last time we had chaperones Britain ruled the world. So it can’t be all bad.
Something very odd has happened to the voting on this thread. When I try to upvote it adds a negative and vice versa.
Anyway, plenty of Brand supporters here, it seems. Rather missing the point that his current followers are likely to be as disappointed as his former fans on the left. If the recent revelations tell us anything, it’s that Brand is unscrupulous in his use of people for his own ends and that no one should imagine he’s pursuing any higher aim than his own gratification and enrichment.
We live in an era where there is no appetite for redemption. If there is no space to repent, become a better version of yourself, atone, why bother at all? We are all fallible humans after all, and no one can live up to the sublime version the Left upholds……most certainly the Left themselves. May the snake keep eating its tail.
I’d say we’re in an age of E-Z redemption. The age of shamelessness and narcissism. More Me-one than Me-too.
I frquently lament the voting system on Unherd but don’t seem to be heard. I’m unheard on unherd! More folk neeed to start complaining and do the squeaky wheel thing.
Do you think we can’t evaluate the evidence Russell is showing us for ourselves. But then I expect you’re fully jabbed.
I dislike him because I have a daughter.
I never understood what drew Katy Perry to Brand, speaks to his magnetism and power.
https://ayenaw.com/2023/09/18/s**t-shaming-2023/
I am not sure why any of his behaviour indicated he was ‘of the left’.
I wonder why he is so desperate for any sense of significance; what stops him from feeling significant? (Or have I misunderstood his behaviour?)
The left has been pushing contraception for kids, puberty blockers, the ideological sexualization of children….and in the case of many senior members of the 90s and noughties Labour Party (e.g. Harriet Harman)….were members of the Pedophile Information Exchange in the 70s. So absa-f*cking-lutely all that shitty behaviour was ‘of the left’. Andrew Tate is a product of the left. Conservatives are just as sinful and narcissistic. But there is never ideological endorsement and activist encouragement of infidelity, and sexual narcissism, hyper-individualism and personal idolatry. Libertarians certainly. Economic liberals perhaps – but the clue is in the word ‘liberal’ . Conservatives not. Brand was one of your own. Own it. He moves a little in a conservative direction – Christianity, personal responsibility, and changes his behaviour somewhat, quite a lot in fact…and then they pounce and you disown him.
That’s a load of rubbish. Dismissing everything as “left’ or “right” says nothing. Those of us who are classically liberal don’t subscribe to extreme behaviors of any kind.
Unfortunately unherd comments have become innundated by ‘splitting’ politics, from the right-wing. It’s the mirror opposite of silliest Guardian threads.
Germaine Greer was a loudly vocal promoter of PEA (she was loudly vocal about everything) She has had the grace to admit this. She was one of those who held the theory that children have within them the incipient sexuality of their adulthood(this is true). Now denying or not exercising your sexuality is bad for your physical and mental health (bear with me, we’re back in the 1960s now),so as children do become aware of sexual feelings (it is true) they need to be able to assuage them without stigma or shame. (It all sounds so clinical and innocent). So by removing the Age of Consent completely those pre-teens that by now are going mad with their bodies on fire from the raging hormones coursing through their blood (oh yes,the 1960s was big on raging hormones) they can assuage their torment and get peace without any shame or stigma from society. And of course the assuaging is by virtue of penetrative sex and by great good fortune there are kind old gentleman and young ones too willing to assuage. In fact a lot of the young men write songs,catchy music that makes a great sound only the lyrics are often a bit dodgy.
Biology is to blame.
Cobblers of a premise. What creates likes of Brand is the longstanding attitude of so many Men towards Women. Took the MeToo impact to suddenly wake many from behaviour too long accepted and deemed acceptable.
Any Man my age knows the absolutely horrid, abusive underlying attitudes towards women that could percolate around male culture and be deemed acceptable. Game changer is always when you have daughters, if you didn’t grasp it’s poison before.
Get with it. Things have changed, and for the better.
There will be many who fell for his schtick from all perspectives. Personally only listened and saw him on telly once or twice and instinctively thought a proper ‘tool’. Pretty mainstream wasn’t he too despite being smart about cultivating a conspiracy fandom as cover.
Courage shown by those coming forward. And one suspects only tip of the iceberg thus far, so anyone digging in a line of defence here better be ready to be constantly retreating as more emerges.
Regardless of what he did or didn’t do, he is not a conspiracy theorist.
No, he’s just a silly boy, eh?
Excellent. Unfortunately we’re being swamped by the comments of women hating apemen.
You’re being swamped by logic.
Not logic, reactionary emotional reasoning.
JW you really are in the business of writing a load of specious nonsense. Sarah Ditum is neither defending Brand or judging the women involved but the culture that allowed him to thrive, a strange Left wing one. Is it that what’s upsetting you? Both Marina Hyde (The Guardian) and Hugo Rifkind (The Times) writing today have followed Ms Ditum’s premise. Cobblers indeed.