Not during elections they don't.... In a democracy to change things you need to vote.
At other times you can campaign, protest and lend your support in as many ways as you wish, but if you don't put your cross in a box on poll day it counts for nothing.

I 100% disagree. One can start businesses , creating jobs, creating wealth and incomes for families, spending 10000s of pounds on fellow local businesses....encouraging and helping other start up businesses too
this has enormous impact on your community , far more than ticking a box for an mp who offers the same broken promises as the previous failure.
however in addition to creating businesses and jobs, one can write to ones mp about specific issues, which I and many others do all the time and in fairness I always get responses and in some cases some significant action

raising money for specific charities is highly effective, Ive been involved with that , writing well thought out letters, concisely and specifically to address key problems has huge impact. so too does blogging, writing aricles and so on
even the way one lives ones life. missionary work is hugely effective as the local Christian churches who do staggeringly amazing work in impoverished nations, recently proved with more trips to Kenya. this should be highlighted more in mainstream news. the vast majority of Church goers are terrific people who worldwide do staggering amounts of work and raise billions too


on a personal note, Ive also dealt with the nhs trust many many times and in effect change the way they operated with home care in my area.

there is more to life than ticking a box. Id say those who vote in the same clowns from the same complacent self serving party are the complacent ones, not the people who do all sorts of other community work, campaigning or enterpreneurs and charity workers etc etc

good interview its interesting how brand has used the english language and uses every big word he can think of. a bit too much though , sometimes plain speaking with afew big words gets the point over much better.
rare to see him rattled but i like the way he uses humour to win people over the desperate need to be loved.

he has great points but politics is rocky ground for celebs .agree with him 100% though

if people don't understand big words they simple have to look them up. even there hes doing a service in educating people and allowing us to learn some new words. better than the downward spiral of twitter and text speak etc

take portillo hes a wordy fellow, in reply to Andrew neals rather curt question as to what did portill think of an mp referring to him as a badstard, portillo replied "I don't believe I merited that appellation"

lol thats a good response from him.
i find speaking to people in their own language though works best, brand uses to many in order to dazzle and bewilder people which is ideal if he wants to go into politics lol
funny i was just thinking about text speak and lack of real writing. my spelling and writing is shocking to what it used to be. the more we text etc the worst we will get.

That is all very noble, but again if you don't vote those whose ideology most resembles your own into power everything you stand for, work for, build up means nothing.

Absolute rubbish....how can creating jobs for 100s of people, creating wealth for 100s of families, raising money for sick poor and disabled people, helping people around you, writing to councillors, politicians, business communities, mean nothing>? what the heck are you on about?

No need to get rude..
To have an impact on the country from a political not a social perspective...
Government make the decisions that impact on the whole of the UK. My point is if you want to stall the flow of bad policies you have to vote out those who you oppose, and vote in who you support.
Yes you can totally do all that social responsibility stuff, but it won't change the political landscape will it?

whos rude? If I think something is rubbish Ill say so, if I think something is captivatingly brilliant I will say so

You are now making a case you haven't previously stated.
What does your last sentence mean? social responsibility stuff? what on earth are you talking about?


creating jobs, wealth , businesses, investing and spending significant money in a local community isn't social responsibility stuff?

Joining campaign groups, Writing letters to nhs trusts, civil servants,charity work, voluntary work, chief executives, mps, councillors, am's, newspapers, yes they can change the world....

If a bad practice occurs in a local hospital which waste 100s of man hours and if something actually endangers lives or costs the nhs a fortune , all of that does change society and lives and economies. what you achieve also inspires those around you too. that's just one aspect.

if you are also now talking about a very narrow agenda to change the political landscape....then yes what Im talking about does affect the landscape more than 1 vote. I know the man who basically invented the lower stepped curb for disabled people and wheelchair users in this county. he banged so many heads together , he formed his own charity organisation which was a club for disabled people where everyone met. he inspired everyone, built a home for his disabled daughter and the organization has now been running 30 years......hes created a wonderful environment, hes helped 1000s of disabled people, hes improved peoples quality of lives, hes also jelp create well probably 1000s of jobs over 30 years.....in turn he inspired other people and other organizations to make things happen in the community....hes a wonderful man

pls list me the great list of achievemnts of any mps in recent years that even compare to this? though I would say that some backbenchers do achieve some things that are not highlighted enough on mainstream tv which concentrates on the sensationalized stuff......then again the media is spectacularly complacent in the Uk. we think were great yet we all follow the exact same stories in the exact same way

I would even say a man like billy Connolly has changed this society for the better more than most recent british politicians......these people are morons. the hs2 project is yet another moronic project to enslave us to the rich, yet the severn barrage scheme which is clearly an obvious must do scheme that will supply as vastly more energy FOREVER is not carried out , even though it costs about 20% of the hs2 project....why? because the barrage benefits the poor masses and hs2 benefits the rich tiny minority

I do vote but unless they find a candidate or party they truly believe in, I wouldn't encourage anyone else to vote just for the sake of voting.....Nor would I necessarily encourage them to go into politics.....I believe the system is now so rigged and the class system so bigoted and the education system so fixed against the poorer areas....that this is a rigged game you cannot win.. would you give up the next 20 years of your life, your health your happiness your family time everything so you could try and convince the most selfish people on the planet the most basic tenements of human decency, do these sick selfish people ever listen? They've been raised by birth to maintain the hierarchy of power ....Can you find another Lloyd George ? .they should build a 100 foot statue of that man and aneurin bevan , alas most people in schools don't even know who they are? what a sad society

the change at this moment in time in the UK must come from the outside.....

tragically a Lloyd George may never happen again in dumbed down Britain, not even an Obama candidate could never happen in the UK....not for many decades

If you don't understand my posts don't insult me, ask me and I will happily explain.

Since Kizzy brought this up in another thread and it's a follow up from this, plus I also read it this morning in a lesson :suspect: I thought I'd post this here

Russell wrote a column for the Guardian on Tuesday about the response he'd received to this interview, and it's fantastic. I'd recommend anyone that watched the interview follows it up by reading this. If you prefer to read it on the site itself, click here, but I've copy/pasted it for anyone that doesn't mind

Source

Jesus christ..I didnt realise it was that bad.

My father in law is currently being chased for around 5k tax debt..he (or his accountant) made a mistake when doing the tax return forms. His business went bankrupt not long after the smoking ban came in(because of it I think...) and he doesn't have the money to pay as it as a long time ago..and they are completely hounding him. Shame he didnt owe millions, could have been left alone then :bored:

Yes but as we keep being told tax evasion is a crime... tax avoidance isn't.
That's right isn't it?

Making a (small) mistake is evidentally more of a crime than purposely avoiding (very large amounts of) tax too. How lovely.

£1.2 billion? no tax? WTF? why has no politician brought this to jo publics attention before? for this alone I applaud russel brand

Fair? where does fair ever come into anything these days?
Centrica shareholders each got a slice of a £800 million pie, and yet they bleat it's the renewables levy that keeps bills sky high... :crazy:

Btw, thankyou jack for posting the article.

starbucks and many more billion dollar industries barely paid taxes for years, when there was a public outcry they VOLUNTEERED to make a donation VOLUNTEERED? THESE CORRUPT SCUMBAG POLITICANS ALLOW A SYSTEM TO BENT WITH SO MANY LOOPHOLES ACROSS EUROPE AND BEYOND THAT ENSURE THESE BIG CORPORATIONS ARE ABLE TO PAY ALMOST ZERO TAX? literally the cleaners who clean phil greens office on their £6 an hour, are probably paying a bigger proportion in tax than the billionaire?

This angers me the most..........Companies like Starbucks who say they are a Corporation and because they are not registered in the UK then they are not subject to it's Tax laws....

UTTER BOLLOCKS.........every transaction every cup of coffee they sell in the UK needs to be taxed and the Govt should be able to collect that Tax, the full amount

Drives me mad the way rich and powerful companies can dodge their Tax commitments by playing the system...........!!!!!

They are not Dodging Tax
they are within UK laws and legal.


Tax Laws need to be changed



Life In The Fast Lane

Is it just me or does anyone else that things in this country aren't that bad?

There's always going to be some injustices or whatever but those are the things that are highlighted so much by the media, and brought to our attention.

Injustices or whatever? What does that even mean, you're unhappy with the information that the media wants you to know.
would you prefer to remain ignorant to the decisions made by the powers that be that directly or indirectly affect every aspect on your life now and in the future?

The UK equivalent:

Can't see those till my lass comes in with her magic phone :(

Well I have never been a fan of Brand but he owned Paxman in that interview. I can't help but agree with a lot of what he says, and his strong and genuine feelings on the subject were obvious. Voting changes nothing - so why vote, Paxman actually came across as quite naive in his insistence that contirubuting to a failing system by simply voting was in any way productive.

Maybe if enough people stopped voting - they would have to listen. Who knows.

The newspapers (and TV) report on the things that go wrong more than the things that are right because that makes more interesting news. That is fair enough because it what people want to know about - it is driven by public demand. I doubt anyone wants to remain ignorant.

But when you are making decisions about the future direction of the country you have to look at the whole picture.