Russell Brand Coursework

WE DESERVE MORE FROM OUR DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM

In his interview with Jeremy Paxman, Russell Brand talks about most of the problems we have with our democratic system. He brings to light ideas we all already know but are maybe not too bothered about to express. In this interview he talks about the elite leaders that are brought into power through family. They do not work for their power but are instead voted in by the people that they rule over. It may be clear now that I am indeed in favour of Brands argument.

Lets first of all talk about the people that take power. You don’t see anybody with any real power coming from working class backgrounds in Parliament. Instead we see people who’s families live far out in the country with expensive estates. They send their Sons and Daughters to schools like Eton and Oxford. Children from these kinds of families are taught that they are the elite and that they are going to have a job high up in a business or in politics from the day that they walk through the doors of their boarding school. People like this grow up not caring about what happens to the people less fortunate as long as they have money and land to give to their successors.
In the article Brand wrote in conjunction to the interview he speaks about a friend who went to one of the parties that the elite hold on their estates.
‘David Cameron… was in attendance. Also present were members of the opposition and former Prime Minister, Tony Blair’
The point he is trying to make here is that they are all together in the end. No matter what party they belong to they are the ruling class. It’s all they know how to do and it will always be like that unless we stand up for ourselves. This moves me onto my next point.

What is the point of voting?
In the article Russell Brand makes a very strong point of if we know that the people we vote for are corrupt why on Earth do we vote for them?
‘Every four years we get to choose what colour tie the liar who leads us gets to wear’
If all the leaders are false then whats the point in voting for them. They are all in the same boat and by doing this the poor will stay poor and the corrupt will stay corrupt. If we don’t vote then others will. Not everyone in the country wants the same thing which is of course natural. The government run media will turn on the people that don’t vote just like they turned on the students when their tuition fees were cut by Clegg.
‘When students, perhaps students who had voted for him, rioted they were condemned.’
If people do not vote they are portrayed as lazy and that they don’t care about what happens to our country or what happens to it.

A point that Brand makes is that spoiling ballot papers may be more effective that not voting.
‘He didnt agree with everything that I said. He prefers the idea of spoiling ballot papers to show we do care’
I think that this is better than just not voting because it’s easy for the government and media to turn the idea on us. If you don’t vote you will be blamed for being lazy or not caring. If we spoil ballots it shows that the people do care and that maybe we want change. I don’t think that not voting would make a difference to all the rich boys in the country because their votes count a lot more than ours if we don’t vote.

In conclusion I agree with Brand. We do need change and it’s not going to happen all by its self. We live in an unfair democracy and it’s about time we changed it because the poor will always poor under the rule of the elite. In the article he explains what we can do to change and why we should. He argues that we should stop voting all together but Paxman argues that spoiling papers is better. I think that Paxman is right because otherwise we will be victimised by the media.