For a start, Brand is not that young – at 47, he is five years older than the prime minister. Is he really such an influence on the genuinely young? He gets a lot of views on YouTube, but the values of the young, especially in relation to climate change, are closer to Monbiot’s than Brand’s.
What I find interesting is that Brand’s conspirators are just the usual suspects – Nancy Pelosi, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum etc. Monbiot finds this lack of originality “dispiriting”. I find it curiously encouraging. If the conspiracists can’t come up with any new material, they will find their audience tiring of the same old tunes and the same old puppetmasters. Jonathan Allum Amersham, Buckinghamshire
I could not agree more with George Monbiot on Russell Brand’s rants. He has moved, apparently unaware of it, from left to middle (his spiritual phase), to flat-out right. I think a lot of people forget to unsubscribe from his channel, and I suggest all those who stopped watching Brand a while ago (I stopped during that spiritual phase) should unsubscribe. Brand interviewed Jordan Peterson not long ago, and it felt like love. Both expressed that wounded male pride that underpins the exploitation of feelings of sexual inadequacy in (older, white) men by the far right. And it works. See the US philosopher Jason Stanley’s book, How Fascism Works. Dr Helen Hintjens Swansea
I wonder if the bleak arc followed by Russell Brand and his fellow populist online conspiracy theorists is quite so new? The idea of transcending left and right became popular in the 1990s with Bill Clinton’s and Tony Blair’s “third way”, a social democratic theory of mild redistribution and liberalisation that would overcome the staid old dichotomy between the state and the market. In 1994, Blair’s academic guru, Prof Anthony Giddens, published Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics – an imaginative guidebook to the new way of doing things. I remember the hype: as an impressionable student at LSE, I attended Giddens’s lectures. The bright morning sunshine of 1 May 1997 was an intoxicating tonic.
It was as if these former leftists were implying that there was no longer any need for broad debate. “Trust us,” they were saying. “We’ve found the answers, and the old divisions are no longer relevant.” But we couldn’t trust them, and they were wrong. Claiming to move beyond established dialectics imperils democracy. Conflict between left and right endures. It seems presumptuous to declare its demise. Dr Daniel Gay St Jorioz, Haute-Savoie, France
Like George Monbiot, I have been disappointed to follow the career of Russell Brand over the last decade. It’s sad to see what was a rare positive and inspiring voice in the darkness descend into a murky, click-rate-driven negative feedback loop, where “free thinking” meets Andrew-Tate-style “red pilling”. It’s a far cry from the message of tolerance and unity in search of fairness that we used to hear from his corner. Andy Ruff Muswell Hill, London
Opinion: Brad West been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization
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Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
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VICTORIA — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West fired off a letter to Premier David Eby last week about Allan Schoenborn, the child killer who changed his name in a bid for anonymity.
“It is completely beyond the pale that individuals like Schoenborn have the ability to legally change their name in an attempt to disassociate themselves from their horrific crimes and to evade the public,” wrote West.
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The Alberta government has legislated against dangerous, long-term and high risk offenders who seek to change their names to escape public scrutiny.
“I urge your government to pass similar legislation as a high priority to ensure the safety of British Columbians,” West wrote the premier.
The B.C. Review Board has granted Schoenborn overnight, unescorted leave for up to 28 days, and he spent some of that time in Port Coquitlam, according to West.
This despite the board being notified that “in the last two years there have been 15 reported incidents where Schoenborn demonstrated aggressive behaviour.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable that an individual who has committed such heinous crimes, and continues to demonstrate this type of behaviour, is able to roam the community unescorted.”
Understandably, those details alarmed PoCo residents.
But the letter is also an example of the outspoken mayor’s penchant for to-the-point pronouncements on provincewide concerns.
He’s been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization.
His most recent blast followed the news that the New Democrats were appointing a task force to advise on ways to curb the use of illicit drugs and the spread of weapons in provincial hospitals.
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“Where the hell is the common sense here?” West told Mike Smyth on CKNW recently. “This has just gone way too far. And to have a task force to figure out what to do — it’s obvious what we need to do.
“In a hospital, there’s no weapons and you can’t smoke crack or fentanyl or any other drugs. There you go. Just saved God knows how much money and probably at least six months of dithering.”
He had a pithy comment on the government’s excessive reliance on outside consultants like MNP to process grants for clean energy and other programs.
“If ever there was a place to find savings that could be redirected to actually delivering core public services, it is government contracts to consultants like MNP,” wrote West.
He’s also broken with the Eby government on the carbon tax.
“The NDP once opposed the carbon tax because, by its very design, it is punishing to working people,” wrote West in a social media posting.
“The whole point of the tax is to make gas MORE expensive so people don’t use it. But instead of being honest about that, advocates rely on flimsy rebate BS. It is hard to find someone who thinks they are getting more dollars back in rebates than they are paying in carbon tax on gas, home heat, etc.”
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West has a history with the NDP. He was a political staffer and campaign worker with Mike Farnworth, the longtime NDP MLA for Port Coquitlam and now minister of public safety.
When West showed up at the legislature recently, Farnworth introduced him to the house as “the best mayor in Canada” and endorsed him as his successor: “I hope at some time he follows in my footsteps and takes over when I decide to retire — which is not just yet,” added Farnworth who is running this year for what would be his eighth term.
Other political players have their eye on West as a future prospect as well.
Several parties have invited him to run in the next federal election. He turned them all down.
Lately there has also been an effort to recruit him to lead a unified Opposition party against Premier David Eby in this year’s provincial election.
I gather the advocates have some opinion polling to back them up and a scenario that would see B.C. United and the Conservatives make way (!) for a party to be named later.
Such flights of fancy are commonplace in B.C. when the NDP is poised to win against a divided Opposition.
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By going after West, the advocates pay a compliment to his record as mayor (low property taxes and a fix-every-pothole work ethic) and his populist stands on public safety, carbon taxation and other provincial issues.
The outreach to a small city mayor who has never run provincially also says something about the perceived weaknesses of the alternatives to Eby.
“It is humbling,” West said Monday when I asked his reaction to the overtures.
But he is a young father with two boys, aged three and seven. The mayor was 10 when he lost his own dad and he believes that if he sought provincial political leadership now, “I would not be the type of dad I want to be.”
When West ran for re-election — unopposed — in 2022, he promised to serve out the full four years as mayor.
He is poised to keep his word, confident that if the overtures to run provincially are serious, they will still be there when his term is up.
LIVE Q&A WITH B.C. PREMIER DAVID EBY: Join us April 23 at 3:30 p.m. when we will sit down with B.C. Premier David Eby for a special edition of Conversations Live. The premier will answer our questions — and yours — about a range of topics, including housing, drug decriminalization, transportation, the economy, crime and carbon taxes. Click HERE to get a link to the livestream emailed to your inbox.
New York Times reporter and CNN senior political analyst Maggie Haberman explains the significance of David Pecker, the ex-publisher of the National Enquirer, taking the stand in the hush money case against former President Donald Trump.
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