The BBC and Brand: what's it all about?

What is it with the Beeb and Russell Brand?

 

Two interviews in fairly quick succession on the flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight. What had he to contribute? Reports suggest that both sessions could only be described as pathetic.

 

Then Question  Time, which the BBC had trailed as being Brand vs. Farage (the other panellists must have been well-pleased with that billing!)

 

Presumably, QT is aimed at a serious and intelligent audience. On neither count does Brand qualify. He has the political nous of a thick 12-year old.

 

Now we hear that he is producing a BBC documentary on drug-rehab (for which he may indeed be well-qualified).

 

And just who is this guy? There is a totally false rumour that he is a comedian. A long time ago I had the misfortune to watch him, but only for a few minutes before nausea took over. About as funny as herpes and worse than his contemporary, the wepellent Wossy.

 

And what are his qualifications for making informed and meaningful contributions to a debate on the state of the nation?

 

He has recently inflicted a book (by a vanity publisher?) upon the long-suffering literati that was rubbished by the critics as being silly beyond words. It seems that his knowledge of economics is slightly short of zero. His political stance is 1960’s agitprop. His beliefs can be summed up in six words – ‘bash the banks, screw the rich’. This is perhaps rather hypocritical coming from someone who is not exactly short of a few drinking-vouchers and who pays an enormous rent to a tax exile.

 

The received view is that he has a lot of political capital amongst the chattering classes in the Westminster village. However much he tries to portray himself a  radical hippie he is a thoroughly Establishment figure. He is against elites, but he is one of them. He claims to speak for ‘ordinary’ people, but, with his New Age nonsense, hairiness, and charity-shop dress style  his real constituency is students at the University of Stretchford, the Green blob, and dystopic liberals.

 

A period of silence would be welcome.