Jeremy Paxman last week challenged Russell Brand for guest-editing the New Statesman when he “couldn’t be arsed to vote” – but revealed yesterday that he once did not make it to the ballot box himself.
The Newsnight presenter offered a rare personal opinion on politics following his interview with Brand, saying that he understood why many people would share the comedian’s view that voting was pointless.
In an article for the Radio Times, Paxman wrote: “At the next election we shall have a choice between the people who’ve given us five years of austerity, the people who left us this mess, and the people who signed public pledges that they wouldn’t raise student fees, and then did so – the most blatant lie in recent political history.”
His comments echoed Brand’s assertion in his essay for the New Statesman that most people “see no difference between Cameron, Clegg, Boris, either of the Milibands or anyone else. To them these names are as obsolete as Lord Palmerston or Denis Healey.”
Brand added: “I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: ‘Don’t vote, it encourages them,’ and, ‘The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.’
“I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned. As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to vote for. I feel it is a far more potent political act to completely renounce the current paradigm than to participate in even the most trivial and tokenistic manner, by obediently X-ing a little box.”
In his interview with Paxman, Brand had said: “You’ve spent your whole career berating and haranguing politicians, and then when someone like me, a comedian, goes, “Yeah, they’re all worthless, what’s the point in engaging with any of them?,” you seem to have a go at me because I’m not poor anymore.”
In response, Paxman wrote: “Russell Brand has never voted, because he finds the process irrelevant. I can understand that: the whole green-bench pantomime in Westminster looks a remote and self-important echo chamber. But it is all we have. In one recent election, I decided not to vote, because I thought the choice so unappetising.
By the time the polls had closed and it was too late to take part, I was feeling really uncomfortable: the person who chooses not to vote – cannot even be bothered to write ‘none of the above’ on a ballot paper – disqualifies himself from passing any comment at all.”
Yesterday, Brand responded to Robert Webb, who had warned him that revolutions often lead to violence, saying: “I’m not saying lets go smash people up and certainly not kill people. Just for the record, I’m not in on the old death camps . . . I’m double, double against genocide. I am talking about a revolution of consciousness. Definitely no killing. I’m against that; I’m a vegetarian, I think we’re all equal. I’m not saying smash people’s stuff up, and definitely no killing.”
In a conversation with Mehdi Hasan, Brand admitted that Marxist revolutions often “went a bit genocidal”.
Contesting Webb’s point that being born in 21st century Britain was a huge privilege because “nobody is going to kick the door down in the middle of the night and take us or our away our children to be tortured”, Brand added: “If you went to Oxbridge, if you went to a private school, no one is coming for your kids. They’re not coming for you if you’re from Oxbridge. That’s my open letter to Robert. I hope it doesn’t go to the other one by mistake – David Mitchell – who I really like.”
Content from our partners
Related
