A different Brand

So, the boy Russel Brand seems to be in a spot of bother. After the latest Dispatches episode dropped on Channel 4 where numerous allegations have been made about him, Twitter has blown up. Opinions range from he is 100% guilty (obviously from the believe all women far left camp) to, its not fair for someone to have this trial by social media and all this information should have been handed to the police.

And of course there's the conspiracy theorists, these are always the most fun.

Kevin Maguire (affectionately known as Commie Kev) always known for his unusual takes seemed to think that there was a mass movement of cheers and standing ovations for Brand. Yet as much as I looked, I never saw a shred of this anywhere. Kev very often likes to build himself a strawman to attack, and this one was a whopper

Jack Rear of The Telegraph appears to believe that the very left wing, Jeremy Corbyn voting Brand is now part of the "alt-right" I cant quite get my head round that one. Jack Rear must have dislocated a shoulder with that reach!

And, of course, the increasingly bizarre Emily Maitlis puts forward the conspiracy theory that Brand had reinvented himself through his YouTube channel because he knew these allegations would come eventually.

Yes, because YouTube famously cloaks you in an impenetrable shield impervious to sexual assault allegations. I fully expect YouTube to de-monetise Brand in the next few days. The argument that he created this persona purely because he could then claim people are trying to "silence" him has historically never worked. It may galvanise a certain, fringe element, but it won't help you in a court of law, and if you are guilty, it wont help in the court of public opinion either. In fact, the best defence would be to retreat from public life completely, especially if you have young children and a pregnant wife to consider.

The truth is. Brand has always been a raging lefty, the very reason he burst onto the scene was thanks to far left media stations like Channel 4 giving him a massive platform, and of course, the jolly old BBC, no strangers to giving the stage to sleazebags weren't far behind in jumping on the bandwagon in enabling the latest darling of the left.

And of course, the right wingers are no strangers to conspiracy theories themselves because going after Brand now must mean they're trying to distract people from something, much, much bigger, or Brand was close to uncovering something and needed to be silenced. But, truth be told, Brand just isn't this clever. 

Mainstream media on the other hand IS this clever.

If you break the story, you get a certain amount of control as to where the interrogation lamp is shone and who's eyes it is shone into, which is extremely useful when its your own organisation who were instrumental in enabling Brand in the first place.

When Brand first burst onto the scene circa 2004 I was already in my mid 30's so his style of "entertainment" I found utterly dull and rather boring. This dandy lefty who could speak at an almost astonishing rate of words per minute in this strange, mockney, pseudo-intellectual accent really could energise the left and striding across the stage this dapper, very handsome hippy was on the road to mega stardom.

Brand is undoubtably charismatic, and although I wouldn't go as far as to say that men wanted to be like him, women (and especially girls) utterly worshipped him.

Yet nobody could see the danger here. In spite of the mountain of empirical evidence of young(ish) men who have taken advantage of gullible, starstruck young girls over the past 50 years or so, they appear to have missed what was so obviously going to happen.

A self confessed sex and drug addict, given unfettered access to extremely young, impressionable girls is a recipe for disaster, and this disaster was going on right before their eyes

Yet the people who launched him to stardom sat back and did nothing. Its hardly surprising the moguls at Channel 4 want to control this particular narrative.

But Brands star rose at a particularly unusual time for Britain. The Blair years had become a pale shadow of its former self, the horror of the Iraq invasion was in full swing, and culturally Britain found itself at an impasse. The phenomenon of the "lad mag" (essentially a pushback against 2nd wave feminism) was past its zenith due to the rise of the internet plus campaigns by anti sexist groups (also they were bloody expensive) meant that culturally Britain needed something new and Brand (as CH4 hoped) was that something new. With his long, flowing, hippy hair, strange accent, even stranger clothing Brand was the man who was going to kill off the idea of the lad (or ladette) once and for all. 

Here was a "new type of man" here was "metrosexual man" meet the new man, very much like the old man, he's just grown his hair out.

But most importantly (for Channel 4), he was very much left wing and very much a socialist, and women absolutely adored him.

After all, Brand is harmless isn't he, he's got that cheeky chappy twinkle in his eye, he goes on Loose women, he loves Jeremy Corbyn and he is just so open and honest about his sex and drug addiction, Brand is a breath of fresh air!

But he is also childlike, unable to control his urges very much like he is unable to stop flapping his gums. What was desperately needed, was responsible people to keep a very close eye on him, what he got was an adoring army of teenaged girls and nobody willing to stop him. A recipe for disaster, and this disaster may have happened on multiple occasions.

There have been rumours about Brands behaviour over the years of course. In 2006 Danni Minogue blasted him as a vile predator, but he was so much of a cheeky chap none of this put even a tiny dent into his image. 

""He is completely crazy and a bit of a vile predator. I certainly don't think he has cured his sex addiction, that's for sure. He wouldn't take no for an answer"

This is a man who sailed through #metoo in 2017 without so much as a murmur

Now, if any of these allegations are true that must be the most astonishing thing of all!

The only thing that was going to stop Russell Brand, was Russell Brand himself. And true to form on the 18th October 2008 scandal broke out among the liberal elites after the BBC put out a segment of Brands radio show where himself and fellow presenter Johnathon Ross had recorded themselves interacting with the actor Andrew Sachs answer machine. What followed was very much on brand. The segment is interspersed with howls of laughter from both Ross and Brand as they proceeded to humiliate Sachs Granddaughter Georgina Baillie by leaving a string of vile voice messages on her grandfathers answer machine.

Maybe I saw things differently to what the press at the time did. in 2008 my daughter was 18 years old. How would I feel if someone left such vile messages on my answering machine about her? How would she feel?!?

So Brand resigned over "Sachsgate" and Ross was suspended for 3 months, a sign of the times, everyone I knew thought Brand and Ross a couple of wankers, but when you're a darling of the media (whether left or right) a slap on the wrists is apt punishment. I've always thought that the media is just totally out of step with the majority of the public. I haven't bought a newspaper since The Suns disgraceful headline over Boxing legend Frank Bruno's mental health breakdown in 2003.

Brands star may have been waning, but it was still shining, movie and voiceover roles kept coming in, but Brand was always a one-trick pony. What worked so well during his 30's didn't resonate half as well as he approached middle age and the work gradually dried up. Even the liberal elite grew tired of his outrageous statements about women and his desire to have sex with as many of them as possible, a re-invention was needed.

Much as the left try and disassociate themselves from him by labelling him "alt-right" It just doesn't really stick. Brand has always been anti-establishment (or what he perceives the establishment to be)

He remains, to this day, very much a left winger.

Whatever happens over the coming months, I've always been of the opinion that Brand is a sleazebag, I cant see my mind being swayed on that. Was he guilty of all the crimes he's been accused of? Hopefully a full investigation will reveal the truth.

So I'll leave it at that, guilty groomer or the victim of a smear campaign, he'll always be a sleazebag to me.