Russell brand

Monday

Steerpike

Charlotte Church takes her anti-austerity message to Glastonbury

Last week festival goers were disappointed to learn that Foo Fighters had cancelled their headline slot at Glastonbury. While bookies were quick to offer odds on the different musical giants who could take their place at the music festival which takes places this weekend, the organisers ended up simply moving Florence and the Machine, who were already performing at the festival, up to the headline slot. However, fans who were keen for a new act can at least take heart that another artist has been added to the line-up. Step forward Charlotte Church. The classical singer turned anti-austerity ‘prosecco socialist‘ will now appear at the festival on Sunday in a Left Field debate to

Friday

Steerpike

Jemima Goldsmith: my Tinder has ‘loads of Pakistanis and people with beards’

Jemima Goldsmith’s love life has been well documented by the red tops in recent years, with her former loves including Imran Khan and Russell Brand. So Mr S was pleased to hear that – in the name of research – she has been adopting a new approach and experimenting with the dating app Tinder. Goldsmith took to the stage at Vanity Fair‘s digital summit to conduct a Q&A with the app’s founder Sean Rad. Things started off politely with Jemima, who is the sister of Zac Goldsmith, quizzing Rad over why he had come up with the idea for the app, which has over 50 million active users: ‘I think meeting people should be

Monday

Steerpike

Lucy Powell: the campaign genius behind the ‘Milibrand’ interview

Lucy Powell’s list of PR blunders reached epic proportions through the course of the election campaign, with the Labour campaign chief messing up several media appearances: However, Mr S understands that one of her biggest cock-ups remained unknown until this weekend. Writing in the Sunday Times, Tanya Gold revealed that it was Powell who helped organise Russell Brand’s much mocked interview with Ed Miliband. ‘The deal was brokered by Lucy Powell, the now equally discredited vice-chairman of the election campaign, and Mr Eddie Izzard.’ The interview attracted ridicule from all sides, and since the election a parody video of the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which stars Brand, has been made about the duo’s short-lived love

Friday

Brendan O’Neill

The biggest loser of the night? Russell Brand

Forget Vince Cable. Forget, if you can, Ed Balls (and I know that’s hard, because what a joyous result that was). Expel from your mind the image of Nick Clegg crying into his cornflakes this morning while texting his old pals in the Euro-oligarchy to see if they will give him a new plush job that involves no contact with pesky plebs. For last night there was an even bigger loser than those guys. Russell Brand. Or ‘Rusty Rockets’, as his politics-packed Twitterfeed has it. Rusty being the operative word, for now we know that the much-hyped ability of slebs like Brand to sway public sentiment is in a serious

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 7 May 2015

Bees vs Belgians Sir: To answer Rory Sutherland and Glen Weyl’s question: yes, everyone should vote and no, just because someone is more interested in politics, his opinion should not count more heavily (‘Plan Bee’, 2 May). Belgium has had compulsory voting for over a century. The troubles that follow every general election may seem to make it a strange example to follow, but those troubles are a consequence of the fragmented political landscape and not of the polling system. Compulsory voting motivates people to stay informed and care about what is happening to their country. It is, however, only compulsory to show up at the polling station, not to

Taki

High life | 7 May 2015

If any of you sees Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, walking around with a begging bowl in his hand, it’s because he took me to dinner recently. I sort of went a bit nuts with the wine and the VF chief ended up with the bill. We went to a new Bagel restaurant, Chevalier, a futuristic marvel with great food and wine and even grander prices. New York is no longer elegant, and there are no longer society types dressed to the nines sitting on the banquettes and downing Manhattans. The Jewish ascendancy that downed the Wasps was as elegant as the one it replaced. William Paley, John

Tuesday

Ed West

Unfortunately celebrity endorsements really do matter

Whoever comes top on Thursday, Labour has won the only poll that really matters – that of Britain’s beloved celebrities, with recent endorsements by Steve Coogan, Delia Smith, Robert Webb, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Jo Brand, among others. The Tories in contrast can only muster a few self-made businesswomen and Peter Stringfellow. Labour’s most important conquest, however, has to be comedian-turned-people’s poet Russell Brand, who previously suggested that voting was a waste of time, but now backs Ed Miliband. When it comes to this 21st-century political colossus, no one can better Rod Liddle’s words from a few months ago: ‘That’s why I enjoy my mornings in bed with Russell. It’s like a

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

I’m not voting on Thursday — but don’t you dare call me apathetic

With just 48 hours to go before we get to vote in officially the most boring election in history, the great and good are fretting over the apathy of the little people. We’ve seen the emergence of Poets Against Apathy — a group of northern scribes keen to shake the public out of its anti-political stupor — and numerous newspaper articles bemoaning the apathy of the masses. A whole section of the Guardian website is devoted to ‘Voter apathy’, featuring Owen Jones, Polly Toynbee, Charlie Brooker and others shaking their liberal heads over the disengaged. Brooker even refers to them as ‘idiots’ who say ‘Bah to everything. BAH BAH BAH.’ This

Monday

James Forsyth

Comedian Brand u-turns and urges people to vote

There’ll be satisfaction in the Labour leader’s office today as Russell Brand has done a reverse-ferret and urged his voters to vote and vote Labour. Or, to be more precise, to vote Labour in England—with the exception of Brighton where he wants them to vote Green. He seems to be implicitly urging a vote for the SNP in Scotland. To win Brand over, Miliband channelled his former US grassroots adviser Arnie Graf and talked about community politics and how the idea of a living wage came not from a policy seminar but activists in the US talking to low-paid workers. But Brand’s endorsement is of limited value given that it

Friday

Steerpike

Russell Brand says vote (but not for Ed Miliband)

At a recent screening of his new capitalism documentary the Emperor’s New Clothes, Russell Brand, the revolutionary who refuses to vote, said he was too angry to say nice things about today’s politicians: ‘When I watch it [the Emperor’s New Clothes], I sort of think come on Russell people really want to hear you say something about the election like Caroline Lucas is lovely, or Natalie Bennett is lovely, or Tom Watson is lovely or Ed Miliband is really trying his hardest, but when I watch this I think “nooo! Justice!”’ However just a week later and the comedian has changed his tune. After Ed Miliband paid a late-night visit to his

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 30 April 2015

Home The British economy grew by 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, the slowest quarterly growth for two years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out many absurdities in party election promises, noting that most people would see tax and benefit changes that reduced their income; it said that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat plan to increase the personal allowance to £12,500 would not help the 44 per cent of people who now pay no tax, that Labour’s promised 10p tax band would be ‘worth a princely 50 pence a week to most income-tax payers’ and that it could not be sure whether the reintroduction of a

Ed West Ed West

The cultural significance of Ed Miliband’s mockney accent

I’m mildly posh – nowhere near David Cameron posh, for example, let alone the Olympian heights of Brian Sewell, but I’m unlikely to ever play a football hooligan or an East End gangster in a Guy Ritchie film. And I’m better spoken than I was as a teenager, when I used to affect a slight Mockney accent with a mild Jafaican inflection, as is the case with most Londoners born after about 1976. Not as bad as some of my contemporaries, but enough to sound like a bit of a berk. One day, as our gang was walking down that notoriously deprived inner city street, Holland Park Avenue, I heard an

Carola Binney Carola Binney

Young people want a future, not freebies

Ed Miliband wants the youth vote enough to have spent an evening with Russell Brand earlier this week. My generation could decide the election next Thursday, and politicians seem to think there are two ways to win young voters’ hearts: celebrity endorsement and self-interest. The battle for the youth vote has hinged around promising to save us money. Now they’re done bickering about tuition fees, the party leaders are busy telling students how we would personally benefit from their governments: Labour would ban unpaid internships, the Tories would help us buy our first homes and the Lib Dems would cut our bus fares by two-thirds. But when it comes to

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Russell Brand is the future, like it or not

I write at a difficult time. The balls are in the air, but we know not where they will land. Perhaps, by the time you get to read this, more will be clear. Right now, however, we know only that Ed Miliband has been interviewed by Russell Brand. We do not yet know what he said. Or what Brand said. Probably he said more. ‘That was interesting enough, but Russell Brand was a bit restrained’ is something that nobody has said, after any conversation, ever. Most likely he’ll have quite liked Ed Miliband. They’ll have friends in common. Probably even girlfriends, what with them both having such voracious sexual appetites.

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Election podcast special: eight days to go

In today’s election podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and I discuss David Cameron’s ‘tax lock’ pledge, Ed Miliband’s promise on tax credits and why his interview with Russell Brand was such a bad idea. We also look at the latest opinion polls which suggest Scottish Labour is set to be wiped out next week, and discuss why there might be some good news in store for the Scottish Tories. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer or iPhone every week, or you can use the player below:

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: eight days to go

There will be more promises from the party leaders today — plus a comedic twist. David Cameron will pledge a five year ‘tax lock’ that will be enshrined in law, while Ed Miliband will attack the proposed £12 billion welfare cuts and promise to raise working-age tax credits in line with inflation. And then we have Russell Brand. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. The taxman banished David Cameron doesn’t appear to feel confident that the electorate believes his promises. Pledging to freeze taxes is something new for the Tories, but the Prime Minister is

Steerpike Steerpike

Russell Brand kicks back at David Cameron

Yesterday David Cameron described Russell Brand as a ‘joke’ after it was revealed that Ed Miliband had paid a late-night visit to the comedian’s home for an interview: ‘Russell Brand is a joke. Ed Miliband meeting him is a joke. This election isn’t funny.’ listen to ‘David Cameron says Russell Brand is a ‘joke’’ on audioBoom Brand has now responded and has ridiculed Cameron for claiming to be a football fan when he was once a member of the elite Bullingdon Club. In the tweet, which includes the infamous 1996 ‘Buller’ photo, he suggests Cameron ought not to be too jealous that he hung out with Miliband, as the pair will no doubt bump into one another

Sebastian Payne

The ‘Milibrand’ interview does nothing but trash Labour’s standing

Ed Miliband’s interview with Russell Brand has been released and it’s rather depressing. Not that Miliband messed up — in fact, he is very on message and sticks to Labour’s party lines. It’s simply not very enlightening. Brand comes across as the mad man cornering the boring person in a pub because he thinks he might agree with him. It’s business as usual from Brand, who ranted about the ‘unelected powerful elites that really control things behind the scenes’, the ‘geopolitical influences’ and ‘transnational corporations’. Miliband told Brand he is ‘totally wrong’ on people who pull the strings, pointing out that equal pay, women’s rights and gay rights came about thanks

Tuesday

Steerpike

Why would Ed Miliband even want to woo Russell Brand?

The Sun reports this morning that Ed Miliband recently made a late-night visit to Russell Brand’s £2 million home. Details on what was discussed remain unknown, although Labour has now confirmed that rather than Miliband’s own François Hollande moment, or a pre-emptive mansion tax inspection, it was in fact an interview. A friend of mine lives opposite Russell Brand and snapped this picture of Ed Milliband leaving his house…urm pic.twitter.com/kHGVWFbpVZ — Elisa Misu Solaris (@ElisaMisu) April 27, 2015 However, if Miliband is to appear in an episode of Brand’s online show The Trews, it’s unclear what the Labour leader hopes to gain from it. Is this really an endorsement any serious potential Prime Minister would want?

Thursday

Katy Balls

Russell Brand’s The Emperor’s New Clothes reviewed: ‘uncomfortable viewing’

For the past year Russell Brand – who is worth an estimated £10 million – has been making a film about inequality. You may already know this. The comedian’s antics filming across the capital have regularly made the news. His attempt to storm RBS resulted in a temp angrily blogging that the palaver had caused his paella to go cold. Meanwhile, his visit to confront the Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere about his non-dom tax status came to no avail as he wasn’t home. Not that such a small technicality has stopped the scene from being included in the final cut. Russell instead interrogates a woman over the telecom – a woman who I can only