[Kizzy]

'Consider C4 reporter Paraic O’Brien turning up to a Brand-supported, Downing Street-set protest objecting to a group of single mums being turfed out of their homes by the UK’s richest MP and asking Brand, “What kind of rent are you paying?”.


It’s a bit like a journalist today hearing Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and claiming King is racist for not making room in his dream for Native American kids, or questioning peace icon Mahatma Gandhi’s fasting credentials because he’d conveniently spent most of his life eating food. That is to say, who these men are and who they have been is – in this context – totally besides the point. I’m not comparing Russell Brand to Mohandas Gandhi or Dr King, but I am saying you should be focusing not on the man, but on what the man is saying – what he’s actually saying, not what the media is telling you he’s saying – as should surely always be the case.'