Russell Brand talks revolution with Owen Jones – follow it live
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Version 0 of 1. 9.05pm BST21:05 And some Vine reactions too Thanks, you two new revolutionaries! And thanks to everyone for following along. Keep up with Guardian Live events too - next up we have James Ellroy, Nick Hornby and Richard Ayoade in the offing. Bye - I’m off to hug some strangers. 8.59pm BST20:59 The Twitter reaction I like him. He's very well intended. Just not sure why people expect him to have all the answers... #GuardianLive #GuardianLive I'm in islington cinema watching this and fully feeling part of the movement. This will happen #revolution Inspirational stuff from @rustyrockets and @OwenJones84 #GuardianLive #makeconnections #revolution Buckminster Fuller's gonna get some Wikipedia hits tonight #guardianlive And one perhaps quite fair criticism: #GuardianLive Russell inspires.People from the floor suggest change.And he diffuses the impetus by a joke or confession You can read all the tweets by following #guardianlive on Twitter. Updated at 9.07pm BST 8.45pm BST20:45 And we are done “Let’s sort out the world and get rid of injustice!” reiterates Jones to great applause. Well, we maybe didn’t get concrete ‘actionable’ plans but that’s not what tonight was about. It was about rabble-rousing (not that Guardian readers are a rabble) and instilling some much needed humanity amongst the squabbling that the climate movements and the left can easily descend into. Kudos to Brand who didn’t let his verbosity get the better of him: this was a clear manifesto based around common appreciation of one another, and grassroots organisation. He’s off to Newsnight now so you can catch him there. Audience reactions to follow soon... 8.38pm BST20:38 The next guy saw Brand filming Arthur in New York. “That’s embarrassing,” says Brand. The man says he has fear: how do you prevent evil, corruption, greed? He gets a Brand cuddle for his efforts. “Don’t get distracted and deluded by your selfish nature!” shouts Brand from the floor. “We know what’s right! Help each other when you’re in need! Start within, change within, tune into this frequency we’re bound together in.” A huge cheer for these last words from Brand. 8.35pm BST20:35 A man talks about the Zeitgeist project: the idea of no politicians, or money, and everything is run on a resource base, using only what we need. Brand says “we have the mechanics” when we remove selfishness. “People know what to do - people just need to be empowered... the way we deal with resources must be the priority.” 8.33pm BST20:33 Someone who looks like Vivienne Westwood (and may be) says “I’m an activist and proud of it.” Whoop! She asks about runaway climate change, and promotes linking up activists in networks, and asks for suggestions on how to better link up. Jones says we “face oblivion - what should we do?” Brand says energy firms have got the guns, the loudest voice - the obvious answer is we have to provide the facility... for a true global movement,” pointing at the potential of online. “Do I have to come up with it now?” Well, at least one idea might be nice, but his passion is still totally infectious. “The film Pride is the document for evolution,” he adds. 8.28pm BST20:28 India from Brighton introduces herself IMMACULATELY. “I’ve not got the emotional maturity not to fall in love with you,” Brand swoons. She wonders whether people attack Brand and Jones on their personal qualities? Jones replies, “It’s usually people asking: shouldn’t you be doing your paper round? Should you be up this late?” Brand continues: “We’ve got to get rid of looking for traitors, picking up on people for not being perfect... we get into piety and condemnation.” He adopts a condemnatory Guardian voice, possibly mine: “’Get back in your box.’ I’m out of the box!” Updated at 9.09pm BST 8.24pm BST20:24 Another woman asks how the Conservatives potentially cutting investment in wind technology could affect the UK, and asks Brand to campaign on it. Jones says fossil fuels get subsidies, while renewables are seeing theirs cut, and laments the lack of greentech jobs that are being chased. “I don’t agree with modest reform,” says an angry Brand, warming to the subject. “I’m fighting hard to endorse things that aren’t silly... we don’t give up on tenacity, on vision... we’ve got to organise... do your fucking job or we will.” Updated at 8.34am BST 8.20pm BST20:20 A woman asks how he squares his rejection of government with the promotion of wider drug addiction initiatives and organisations. Brand says he gets more out of close personal help as it makes him feel better - well, yes, but what of helping as many people as possible? “Be human,” he says. Not a particularly strong response. 8.18pm BST20:18 A man says Brand has been a huge inspiration, and has driven him towards political action by Brand’s news series the Trews. Hurrah! But, he asks, what is the alternative to supranational organisations? Brand says we need to treat each other better, so that new forms of governance can emerge. “If the dominant imperative is profit, it’s going to interfere with other imperatives.” He quotes Buckminster Fuller: “Remove systems... how do you work against it? Work locally, and move out from there.” 8.16pm BST20:16 Jones wonders about women’s issues: pay gaps and other problems. “I don’t know how to handle women’s issues,” replies Brand. “Someone asked me to help with Black History Month. ‘As a black man’... But these issues all affect us. “I probably have a bit of sexism left in me: I’m from Grays, I support West Ham. I’m learning... you get an instinct from where you’re going wrong. I’m trying to be decent. On issues that affect Muslims, I listen to Muslims. I’m open to [sexism], I’m awake to it.” Updated at 9.11pm BST 8.13pm BST20:13 Another one: Page 3 - yes or no? “I’m a human heterosexual male [making wolfish panting] but I’m trying to be the person who doesn’t want Page 3.” He rails against Disney sexualisation, and segues into a story about accidentally reading page 3 in a mosque. “I’m against Page 3”, he asserts, to applause. 8.11pm BST20:11 Matt from Ninja Tune records (of all places) asks one. He says “we need aims and actions” and says we should have a big protest, tackling inequality, tax loopholes, and creating pledge banks to fund environmental activism. Real solutions! What does Brand make of it? “That’s the sort of idea we usually have to have people tell us from on high,” says an excited Brand. “If we were running a community... it seems to be where actual democracy is where we all get to take part. Democracy isn’t a dry hump in a ballot box, it’s a penetrative process,” he adds, ever the swordsman. Updated at 9.11pm BST 8.07pm BST20:07 “I’m old enough to be your grandmother,” one begins. “Sexy enough,” zings back Brand. She asks: what would you say about what Gandhi said about making ourselves the change we want to see in the world? “In your own actual life, you’re a viciously authorative, controlling man... but now I want to be the people’s narcissist,” he says of himself. He talks about his big event work for Comic Relief, but said he gets more from one-on-one interactions with those with addiction. “That Gandhi maxim, it’s a good one to remember... we do have secular saints, people we can look towards.” Updated at 9.11pm BST 8.03pm BST20:03 Audience question time First up: a question on nuclear energy, to be used instead of renewable energy. Brand “doesn’t like the sound of it” and points to renewables being a real possibility, but admits he might as well have asked the crying baby. Jones argues for the green economy. Brand hugs the questioner. Awwws all round. 8.00pm BST20:00 Brand mentions how our anger against the News of the World “dissipated” once the Sun on Sunday opened - so how can we deal with that situation, of dissipating anger? “I want to bring it back to simple humility,” he says, citing a blue plaque that read “always a friend in need” affecting him. “The better aspects of our nature should be brought to the fore... I’m funny, I’ll show off, I’ll bring attention to the New Era estate mums.” He tells the audience “you’re fucking lovely, you’re going to be ok... they can’t beat that.” This is very sentimental stuff, but it’s honestly delivered. Updated at 9.12pm BST 7.57pm BST19:57 Why do you think many people are so scared to express their opinions? #GuardianLive @rustyrockets @OwenJones84 Brand is upbeat. He points to payday lenders and environmental damage as a sign that “change needs to come very quickly... what’s happening now is extraordinary, a transition.... if I can change, you can change and maybe the whole world can change. Rocky IV.” 7.54pm BST19:54 Jones proffers some Twitter questions. #GuardianLive Russell brand surely we should spoil the ballet, instead of not vote at all? Brand isn’t convinced: “I’m going to scribble on my ballot, now hand over the reins of power: I don’t think that’s how it works.” He reiterates that we should ignore it altogether: “Deconcentrate power: wherever power is concentrated, you create a dickhead.” Updated at 9.13pm BST 7.52pm BST19:52 “Socialism is the administrative arm of Christianity: ‘just share’,” he says, after Jones asks him for his thoughts on it. 7.52pm BST19:52 “Why is there no-one to say you can have £300m profit per quarter, but we’re going to take some of that... with a 20% profit tax on Tesco per quarter, you could build a hospital in Leeds,” he argues, rather simplistically. “Of course it’s naive and stupid,” he says, “but destroying the planet is also stupid [paraphrased]”. “We need to start nicking their institutions off them... I’m not the guy to do the admin, look at me, but I’ll talk about it.” Updated at 9.14pm BST 7.49pm BST19:49 “I’m Owen Jones - when I’m cleaning socially,” sings Brand in a George Formby impression. Now he’s wondering if a crying baby is our leader. Bantz interlude. Updated at 9.14pm BST 7.48pm BST19:48 "Fear travels fast, rationale travels slowly” “It’s the way stories are told,” argues Brand, giving the example of the Sun reporting on immigrants eating swans - and pictures showing some random asylum seekers rather than the perpetrators. “if the only time you hear about Muslims blowing up a bus... that story starts to take. Fear travels fast, rationale travels slowly.” Round of applause for Brand as he spits out how annoyed he gets when people expect him, or anyone, to be immediately flawless and have all the solutions to hand and not “improve slowly over time” - which is fair. He surfs the wave: “Starbucks, Amazon, Google, these are the invading forces”. Huge swell of applause - an easy get, though. 7.43pm BST19:43 Jones quotes Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” and asks whether direct action forces issues onto the agenda. Brand asks for “creative direct action, wherever it is required... we’re going to create a situation where... it’s going to be so embarassing to kick out those mums who have lived in those communities all their lives.” 7.41pm BST19:41 Jones expands on this, asking how levels of organisation could build. Brand wonders if Nigel Farage could be a “convenient catalyst” to action, if he was elected... and moves on. He says we should start organising at a local level, if there are no parties that you believe in. Again riffing on Klein, he voices his frustration at local farm intiatives not being able to compete with Monsanto and other giants. Jones brings up another example: the Carpenter Estate mums of Stratford occupying and organising. Brand brings up the New Era estate in Shoreditch, whose families are organising and resisting against developers moving in. “All these little cells are supporting each other, all over the country.” 7.37pm BST19:37 Jones argues that voting is important, saying it’s not an either/or - Brand of course has rallied against voting. “David Cameron at his essential nature, is a beautiful man,” Brand begins. “He’s become massively distracted... you know when you get skin on custard, and animatronics were put behind it, and it went to Eton, and ran the country?” He makes his key argument: that “the structures in place aren’t going to provide the necessary change... the people who tell us that change is impossible are the people who benefit from it staying the same.” He says, per Klein, that Exxon aren’t going to move onto wind farms and away from oil, for instance. “Where did we get this idea we’re incapable?” he wonders. He calls for people to “organise, collectivise, collaborate” on a grass roots level. 7.32pm BST19:32 Brand is on a roll, at least in quotable quotes: “Democracy is a gleaming Excalibur - let’s not use it just to mend the toaster.” 7.31pm BST19:31 "Democracy has been taken away from us" Jones asks about political apathy, with low voter turnout amongst young people - and wonders what Brand’s motives are, in his Paxman interview, where he rallied for a revolution. Brand says “I have an ego, no question,” but wonders why people attack him. He said he gave up “noctural pleasures of erotica”; he says “I think I’m worse than normal people... I want attention, women, drugs, I want. I exemplify the problems of our culture... you empty yourself, you drain yourself... when I was on Paxman I was knackered. I was trapped in some pointless spectacle.” He mentions citing Orwell, Chomsky, Klein - and then characterises the response to those citations as people just saying: “Look at your hair.” “Democracy has been taken away from us,” he finishes with, to warm applause. 7.26pm BST19:26 What kind of hope can you give people? asks Jones. “I don’t think anyone gets addicted to crack and heroin for a laugh - I was medicating against illness, pain and sadness,” replies Brand. He describes being on a police drug raid, describing it as “an absurd situation, a criminal economy... making drugs illegal makes [addiction] much much worse... and it works as a perfect emblem for problems on a broader level.” 7.22pm BST19:22 Jones asks about his drug addiction, and Brand explains that it was a process of realising he can be capable of being “sweet and kind and caring”. He rails against the “Hunger Games” nature of culture, plucking those from culture for veneration, but explains that there is an alternative - a deliberate conquering of selfishness. “Don’t like in desire and fear, the worst aspects of our culture.” 7.19pm BST19:19 Our tech ed Jemima Kiss gets the pics in: The sexually charismatic @OwenJones84 grilling some mildly amusing bloke called @rustyrockets etc #GuardianLive pic.twitter.com/vgcUdb8TWi 7.18pm BST19:18 “I felt alienated and alone, very powerless in Grays,” says Brand, outlining his working class upbringing as a “flamboyant weirdo in a paisely dressing gown.” He says he saw fame as power - and became famous. And said he felt fame and fortune would bring “fame, fortune, limitless fellatio if required”, but it never transpired; and also was trying to get clean from drugs. He went back to where he grew up, and at the opening of a new charity shop, he said there was “a sense of despair”: full of UKIP, food banks and poverty. And he wondered if there was anything he could do about it, so he wrote Revolution. The stage is set... Updated at 9.16pm BST 7.14pm BST19:14 Brand has already made an image of sexual congress with Margaret Thatcher. 7.14pm BST19:14 Russell Brand and Owen Jones take the stage Walking down the aisles in the classic everyman stage-taking style, the two enter to great applause. “People of Essex, I love you!” spake Brand. Owen Jones makes a point of supporting the workers in Picturehouse cinemas, who are campaigning for a living wage. Russell is put out that he’s not spending more time complimenting his eyebrows. Updated at 8.35am BST 7.01pm BST19:01 Potential revolutionaries. Who knows what they’re capable of behind their quality knitwear. 6.59pm BST18:59 Dave’s got the Twirl Bites in and is ready to tear down the black veil of passivity from the comfort of a Picturehouse cinema: @rustyrockets I hope this is as good as forgetting Sarah Marshall #guardianlive pic.twitter.com/zl9K7codx4 6.53pm BST18:53 This meanwhile, hovering behind the stage in the Emmanuel Centre, may as well be Brand’s mantra. You can imagine him saying it draped in silken robes, having grapes fed to him. Updated at 6.54pm BST 6.49pm BST18:49 We’ve bought some new letters on sticks for the occasion. 6.47pm BST18:47 TAKE IT ALTOGETHER MORE SERIOUSLY PLEASE, BIZ K. #GuardianLive Oct 23rd, 7pm. AMARTYA SEN & FATBOY SLIM discuss Constable's THE HAY WAIN. Tickets: £63 https://t.co/nAIGg41eX9 6.42pm BST18:42 The youth are getting energised over in Ipswich. LIGHT THE TORCHES! Sister says to mum as we leave "if we don't come back we've joined the revolution" #guardianlive @OwenJones84 @rustyrockets Updated at 6.43pm BST 6.38pm BST18:38 To give Brand his two pennorth – and then some – here again is that barnstorming interview with Jeremy Paxman from almost exactly a year ago: 6.27pm BST18:27 Of course, there have been those in recent weeks who have been far more vociferous in their beefs with Brand’s brand of tubthumping, not least John Lydon, who said of his call for people not to vote: It’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard... You have to vote, you have to make change. You’re given lousy options, yes, but better that than nothing at all. Feel the wrath in the video below: Brand however does have some slightly unlikely musical allies in Status Quo, who recently said of him: [Paxman] was completely out-punched by Russell Brand. Before that I’d just seen this scruffy bloke on stage trying to be funny. He was just one of those people we’d never found funny. We don’t think he would be a leader, but he would be a damn fine advisor to politicians. We don’t vote either. It doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. Updated at 6.33pm BST 6.24pm BST18:24 T-minus 30-ish minutes until Brand v Jones: Dawn of Justice. To get you warmed up, here’s what Owen Jones had to say about Brand in today’s Comment is Free panel exploring Brand’s new book, Revolution. I have a lot of time for Brand... [Revolution] will be read by an audience who doesn’t, say, read the Guardian, and may encourage them to think about issues such as grotesque inequality, the concentration of wealth and power, and the many injustices that afflict and even define our society. Few of us achieve that. Others though, like Lola Okolosie, were frustrated by his assertion that for young people, voting is pointless: He is advising a constituency already disinclined to engage in politics to forget about it all together. In this vacuum they are instead offered mindfulness. It is a win-win for the political establishment. And others found his lack of solutions troubling, like Emma Howard: He derides a system that is indifferent and apathetic to the needs of the people. But Brand is apathetic to the needs of his readers if all he can do is sprinkle Revolution with a few books or films to explore – George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and Adam Curtis’s The Century of the Self – and some guidelines to setting up a co-op. If he wanted them to revolt, he could at least have given his millions of followers a time and a place to turn up. Is it enough to just merely bang the drum for change, or do you also have to come up with the script too? Hopefully this will be probed by Jones in a little while. 1.36pm BST13:36 Welcome to Guardian Live with Russell Brand and Owen Jones In the red corner: Russell Brand, the Hollywood sybarite and cockney yogi who has travelled a path from drug addiction to enlightment, and now political action. His new book Revolution is a call to arms for the disenfranchised in Britain, those who feel underserved or outright ignored by the powers that be, and aims to catalyse them with a typically manic mix of transcendental meditation, Thomas Piketty and the 12 steps. In the, well, also red corner: Owen Jones, boyish scourge of the political right who shot to fame with his treatise Chavs, an angry lamentation at how the working class is characterised in British culture as a bunch of benefits-grabbing, Sourz-spewing oiks. He’s since become the definitive talking head for passionate defences of the have-nots, including in new book The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It, which examines the disproportionate influence of a small elite on the public life of the UK. Each is angry, each is liberal, and each wants to see an improvement in the lives of ordinary people in this country and abroad – be it financial, environmental or spiritual. But can they hash out a plan to galvanise the left? After all, even the Guardian itself, for which both men write, has been critical of the gulf between their anger and their solutions. The pair meet tonight for a Guardian Live discussion at the Emmanuel Centre, London, with their audience joined by many more watching via a stream to Picturehouse cinemas around the country – but if you can’t make it along to either, you can follow the developments on this liveblog. Join us from 7pm BST onwards as Brand and Jones discuss the ills of contemporary society – and perhaps point a light out of the darkness. There’ll probably be some jokes too. You can also join in the discussion by sharing comments below or tweeting with hashtag #guardianlive. Find out more about Guardian Live events and how to become a member. Updated at 1.37pm BST |