Everybody’s talking about Russell Brand again, as his recent interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight has sparked a debate regarding the importance of voting.
In the interview, Paxman questions Brand’s authority to edit a political magazine after the comedian was hired as a guest editor for the New Statesman, following his admission that he doesn’t vote.
“If you can’t be arsed to vote, why should we be arsed to listen to your political point of view?” Paxman asks, to which Brand responds: “You don’t have to listen to my political point of view, but it’s not that I’m not voting out of apathy. I am not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion, from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations now and which has now reached fever pitch where we have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by that political system, so voting for it is tacit complicity with that system, which is not something I’m offering up.”
Paxman cites that Brand doesn’t want a democracy but rather a “revolution”, before calling him a “very trivial man.” While Brand’s opinions are, as per usual, admirably well-worded, his calling for a society where no one would vote, leading to the UK becoming a utopia where “admin bods” would control taxation and the like, seems more idealistic than it does sensible. Those who listen to Brand and who will likely take his word as verbatim are the UK’s youth, who are the ones whose futures are currently being ruined by our Conservative government. Those who follow Brand’s lead and who do not vote will likely not do so because they believe in his ideology, but because they’re following the words of a comedian whom they admire and whose rhetoric is inspiringly eloquent.
I like Russell Brand, but I don’t like the idea of forever living in Conservative society, so kids, maybe don’t listen to him this time.
Watch the video below.
