Russell Brand

[Meenzer 14145]

I'm career minded insofar as I wouldn't mind having one if only I was a bit less lazy.

[The Fish 9271]

I think it's just a matter of having a bit of thought and conpassion for other people. My sister was ill throughout most of her 20s and into her 30s, which thankfully coincided with a Labour government being in charge. Even then it was a struggle for her to qualify for DLA etc.

 

I'm fairly certain that if this lot had been in charge at the time, she would have been amongst those that they are attempting to force out of benefits at a time when her life was more than shit enough. I know that she had some pretty dark thoughts during that time, that would have been a lot darker if she'd had a government telling her to man up and get back in the game. Setting aside anything else, there's no way I could vote to support these cunts putting other people in that position.

 

Also, I don't have kids, but the idea of raising a young child in the NE and voting these wankers in to continue their programme of disproportionate cuts in the area makes absolutely no sense. It's genuinely idiotic because THAT is the stuff that affects you personally. If you're not prepared to look out for others, then at the very least look out for yourself, but if you're voting Tory in Boldon, you aren't even managing to do that.

 

By the way, I haven't been career minded since my mid 20s. I get annoyed at work by people that are interested in what they/we are doing from one day to the next.

 

Lass I know complained she had to pay more than the average household income in tax so that "lazy arseholes could watch Jeremy Kyle on their flat screen". Even I after I explained as best I could the real cause of the deficit was not the minority of fraudulent benefit claimants and was in fact the corporations and super-rich minority who avoided taxes, she said "well you and I are never going to agree on this."

 

I can't make it simpler than "If everyone pays their fair share, everyone pays less", but apparently we have to agree to disagree.

[NJS 4017]

I see it as a combination of upbringing and experience. I'm proud that my parents were socialists and that certain my rubbed off on me but alluding to what Gemmill just said, I find it incomprehensible that anyone who's lived in the NE for any of the last 35 years can have anything but contempt for the Tories. Of course I don't think that necessarily means you should support labour especially the blairite version but pro-tory is beyond the pale. It might be somewhere in the politics thread but I do think people like ct have this strange attitude that being Tory signifies "progression" through the classes which is something the bitch thrived on but I don't get it.

 

Talking to a few people over the last week or so I do think following your parents voting history is a bit on the wain with most trying to make "informed" choices which is good. Of course if that choice is Tory it still makes them cunts.

[Gemmill 35660]

I was actually brought up in a Tory voting NE household. My dad is from Cornwall and so I suspect he was following in the voting footsteps of his parents. Not sure what happened to my mam as she was raised on Biddick Hall estate, although she's been a Daily Mail reader ever since I can remember. I think they're voting UKIP this time around. I know my mam is. *insert facepalm here*

[Dr Gloom 20198]

I was actually brought up in a Tory voting NE household. My dad is from Cornwall and so I suspect he was following in the voting footsteps of his parents. Not sure what happened to my mam as she was raised on Biddick Hall estate, although she's been a Daily Mail reader ever since I can remember. I think they're voting UKIP this time around. I know my mam is. *insert facepalm here*

 

i think you're a rare breed, gemmill. most political views are so entrenched and are established at such a young age, usually through a parents' influence, that they're unlikely to be swayed by any argument, no matter how convincing.

 

my old man came from a poor working class family in liverpool. he grew up in a tiny terraced house, shared with two other families - he shared a bedroom with his parents till he was 13, outside loo etc. unbelievably, my grandad, a scouse fishmonger, always voted tory. he was a great man - never missed a day's work in his entire life and had brilliant war-time working class values of generosity and community. despite all that he saw the tories as the party for social mobility and aspiration and would never be talked around. my dad went away to uni (the first of his family to get a degree), and came back after his first term a true red socialist, looking like a scruffy version of john lennon in post-beatles days, determined to talk my granddad around. he never managed it.

 

for what it's worth, i wish all the mainstream parties would just be honest about what their traditional values are. for labour it's social justice and collectivism, for the tories it's free markets, small government and individualism. more people would engage with politics if both parties stopped trying to be all things to all people.

[NJS 4017]

Thing is its hard to sell social justice and collectivism in the face of demonization of the unions and the lower classes in general and 35 years of thatcherite individualism.

[Alex 30835]

 

i think you're a rare breed, gemmill. most political views are so entrenched and are established at such a young age, usually through a parents' influence, that they're unlikely to be swayed by any argument, no matter how convincing.

 

my old man came from a poor working class family in liverpool. he grew up in a tiny terraced house, shared with two other families - he shared a bedroom with his parents till he was 13, outside loo etc. unbelievably, my grandad, a scouse fishmonger, always voted tory. he was a great man - never missed a day's work in his entire life and had brilliant war-time working class values of generosity and community. despite all that he saw the tories as the party for social mobility and aspiration and would never be talked around. my dad went away to uni (the first of his family to get a degree), and came back after his first term a true red socialist, looking like a scruffy version of john lennon in post-beatles days, determined to talk my granddad around. he never managed it.

 

for what it's worth, i wish all the mainstream parties would just be honest about what their traditional values are. for labour it's social justice and collectivism, for the tories it's free markets, small government and individualism. more people would engage with politics if both parties stopped trying to be all things to all people.

Doesn't your dad fit into a similar category to Gemmill then? I.e. not influenced by his parents. I don't think politics is discussed much in your average home tbh and I don't think voting differently to your parents is particularly rare irrespective of whether those discussions are common.

[Dr Gloom 20198]

Doesn't your dad fit into a similar category to Gemmill then? I.e. not influenced by his parents. I don't think politics is discussed much in your average home tbh and I don't think voting differently to your parents is particularly rare irrespective of whether those discussions are common.

 

yeah, i reckon he's a rare(ish) breed too. most people are influenced by their parents first, in my experience. for example, two of my closest mates in london are tories - both privately educated, from tory families. and yet they're two of the nicest blokes you'd meet who would go out of their way to do anything for you. i honestly don't think are that different in outlook to me, on many levels, and yet i can never talk them around on politics, despite a nagging feeling they agree with a lot i say. their views are so entrenched, they've been hugely shaped by their parents.

[Park Life 71]

If you don't realise your parents are clueless by the time you're about 12 there is no hope for you.

[Dr Gloom 20198]

If you don't realise your parents are clueless by the time you're about 12 there is no hope for you.

 

uncool, yes

 

not sure about clueless as we all pretty much become our parents as we get older. i'm basically turning into my mam in my advancing years, in outlook i mean, i'm not getting a sex change or owt.

[Park Life 71]

 

uncool, yes

 

not sure about clueless as we all pretty much become our parents as we get older. i'm basically turning into my mam in my advancing years, in outlook i mean, i'm not getting a sex change or owt.

I think there are traces or certain characteristics that we're embarrassed when we notice them, but not much more than that.

[JJ 0]

It's funny actually talking about how much your upbringing matters to your voting habits. I have the opposite experience.

 

I grew up with parents who didn't give a shit about politics, but me and my sister got interested in it, and ended up taking completely opposite paths. I vote Green. She votes fucking Tory.

[Andrew 4291]

Has now completely u-turned on his support for miliband. Always thought he was a prat but at least thought he was one with some integrity...

[Dr Gloom 20198]

Has now completely u-turned on his support for miliband. Always thought he was a prat but at least thought he was one with some integrity...

 

I don't think that's entirely fair. I was an endorsement with caveats - he said Scotland should vote for whoever they want and that Brighton should stay Green. His argument was Labour was the lesser evil and most likely to listen to the type of activist groups Brand provides a platform for. Whatever you think of Brand, and there is plenty to ridicule about him, I reckon he made a genuine effort to do his bit to try to ensure it was anyone but the Tories. Sadly, he wasn't successful and has woken up like the rest of the lefties in the UK, utterly disillusioned with the way the majority of the people in the country voted.

 

Now, he does seem to have given up with party politics, which I think is a shame. The left needs more informed, passionate and charismatic figures like Brand on its side.

[The Fish 9271]

 

I don't think that's entirely fair. I was an endorsement with caveats - he said Scotland should vote for whoever they want and that Brighton should stay Green. His argument was Labour was the lesser evil and most likely to listen to the type of activist groups Brand provides a platform for. Whatever you think of Brand, and there is plenty to ridicule about him, I reckon he made a genuine effort to do his bit to try to ensure it was anyone but the Tories. Sadly, he wasn't successful and has woken up like the rest of the lefties in the UK, utterly disillusioned with the way the majority of the people in the country voted.

 

Now, he does seem to have given up with party politics, which I think is a shame. The left needs more informed, passionate and charismatic figures like Brand on its side.

 

 

I don't think it matters that much. There are loads of left-leaning comedians, musicians, and what not, who all speak with varying degrees of passion and knowledge on the subject.

 

There are few right-wing supporters from famousland. Those that do speak of their support are generally awful shits like Andrew Lawrence, Piers Morgan or Sol fucking Campbell.

[ewerk 26871]

He should resign.

[Dr Gloom 20198]

no one like to admit they vote tory, a point beautifully fucking illustrated by how wrong the pre-election opinion polls were. you're basically admitting you're a selfish cunt. the only celebrities the tories have behind them are dinosaurs like brucie forsyth. they have to rely on letters of support from 100 leading business people or whatever. arseholes.

[The Fish 9271]

no one like to admit they vote tory, a point beautifully fucking illustrated by how wrong the pre-election opinion polls were. you're basically admitting you're a selfish cunt. the only celebrities the tories have behind them are dinosaurs like brucie forsyth. they have to rely on letters of support from 100 leading business people or whatever. arseholes.

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

It's motivating the millions who didn't vote to get off their arse and be part of the process.

 

I'd make voting a legal requirement.

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

It's motivating the millions who didn't vote to get off their arse and be part of the process.

 

I'd make voting a legal requirement.

 

What would be the punishment?

[tooner 243]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

It's motivating the millions who didn't vote to get off their arse and be part of the process.

 

I'd make voting a legal requirement.

 

agree, tie it in with passport. If you don't vote you're not eligible to get a passport.

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3284]

 

What would be the punishment?

£20 fine make some extra cash.

[Makom 0]

Hard to say what effect Brand had really. Turnout was the same, suggesting he didn't move anyone to vote that hadn't previously. Maybe his urge to get people to vote only if they see something worth voting for helped the Greens? But since he previously argued that such votes are wasted in the current system, it merely goes on to reinforce his main position of abstentionism, in spite his late switch to milibandism.

 

Contemplating Brand though merely brings me back to the monumental fuckup that was Ed Miliband's campaign - who the fuck schedules a meeting for Ed to try and turn Brand around only after the deadline for voters to register? Stupid wankers.

[ChezGiven 0]

With Labour losing votes to UKIP it seems it might have been an error Miliband getting endorsement from Brand.

[Gemmill 35660]

Has now completely u-turned on his support for miliband. Always thought he was a prat but at least thought he was one with some integrity...

 

What an odd interpretation that is of his latest video.

[Park Life 71]