GUY ADAMS: Will ‘feminist’ Ed Miliband apologise for pathetically trying to court notorious womaniser and misogynist Russell Brand?
- In 2015, former Labour leader was interviewed by Brand for his Youtube channel
During the heady days when Ed Miliband ran Labour, he tried to court enlightened voters by posing in a designer T-shirt emblazoned with the logo: ‘This is what a feminist looks like.’
Somehow, this PR stunt failed to convince, and with just ten days to go until the 2015 General Election he found himself marooned a significant distance behind prime minister David Cameron in the opinion polls.
There followed an emergency late-night meeting at Miliband’s campaign office, where chief strategist Lord (Stewart) Wood cooked up a last-ditch plan to avoid defeat.
It went as follows: Miliband would jump in a car and drive across London to the Hoxton home of Russell Brand, where he would take part in a half-hour face-to-face interview.
Brand’s career as a YouTuber was taking off. His online show The Trews now boasted more than a million subscribers, while his 9.5 million Twitter following was almost 20 times the size of the Labour leader’s.
During the heady days when Ed Miliband ran Labour, he tried to court enlightened voters by posing in a designer T-shirt emblazoned with the logo: ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ (pictured above)
Miliband would jump in a car and drive across London to the Hoxton home of Russell Brand, where he would take part in a half-hour face-to-face interview (pictured above)
If Miliband could successfully court Brand’s audience, and even secure his personal endorsement, there was a chance he could trigger a ‘youth-quake’ of support from previously apathetic millennial voters that might somehow carry him to victory. That was the theory, at least.
Of course, the scheme was not without risks. No one could predict how the interview might go. And while Brand had a huge fanbase, he also boasted a highly questionable track record.
As far back as 2001, the former junkie had been arrested and charged with criminal damage and indecent exposure when he stripped naked while covering May Day protests for music station MTV.
The following year, he was dismissed from the XFM radio station for reading pornographic material on air on a Sunday afternoon show.
His stand-up routine was riddled with misogynistic gags about sexually exploiting women, including vile and graphic segments about spitting in the face of partners during rough sex.
On his 2013 tour, he had joked about anally penetrating his pet cat, while at a West End show later that year he’d made fellow comedian Richard Herring laugh by exclaiming: ‘I raped someone once.’
Brand’s autobiography had seen him describe writing a ‘victims’ list’ of women he’d ‘wronged as a result of my sexual addiction’, saying the process made him ‘feel like Saddam Hussein trying to pick out individual Kurds’, while his notorious sacking from BBC radio, for conspiring with chum Jonathan Ross to broadcast degrading sexual insults about the granddaughter of actor Andrew Sachs, had been front- page news.
If Miliband could successfully court Brand’s audience, and even secure his personal endorsement, there was a chance he could trigger a ‘youth-quake’ of support from previously apathetic millennial voters that might somehow carry him to victory – but resulting interview (pictured) divided opinion
Only a few months earlier, Brand had used a Newsnight interview (pictured here during a Newsnight appearance in 2012) to say he was ‘open-minded’ about a sick conspiracy theory that the US government was behind the 9/11 terror attacks
Politically, as well as morally, Miliband was also stepping on to dangerous ground. Only a few months earlier, Brand had used a Newsnight interview to say he was ‘open-minded’ about a sick conspiracy theory that the US government was behind the 9/11 terror attacks.
But ‘Red Ed’ was desperate. Ignoring protests from his shadow chancellor Ed Balls (whom Brand had charmingly dubbed ‘a clicky-wristed snidey c***’ on TV a couple of months earlier) and strategist Tom Baldwin (who was said to be ‘shouting and screaming’ that the interview would be a terrible mistake), Miliband arrived in Brand’s candlelit luxury kitchen at about 10pm.
READ MORE: PETER HITCHENS: Trying to have a serious argument with Russell Brand is like playing chess with a squirrel. Why was he given a place in the national debate?
The resulting interview, cut to 16 minutes, divided opinion.
Supporters praised the Labour leader for expressing profound disagreement with Brand over the question of whether it was worth voting, and for agreeing to, as Miliband put it, ‘go anywhere and talk to anyone to put out the message about how we can change the country’.
Critics, for their part, ridiculed Miliband for adopting a nasal mockney accent to declare ‘we gotta deal with that’ when Brand asked whether he could force multinational firms to pay more tax, and for nodding earnestly when the comedian, a vociferous supporter of the celebrity lobby group Hacked Off, started banging on about ‘unelected powerful elites who really control things’ and ‘powerful forces’ who allegedly control the British Press.
Many also voiced concerns about the self-professed ‘feminist’ politician breaking bread with a celebrity who had publicly confessed to sexually exploiting women.
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp wondered: ‘Am I the only one who thinks Russell Brand’s reputation may suggest he doesn’t have the attitude to women I might hope my sons will have?’
A few days later, The Mail on Sunday published an interview with Brand’s former girlfriend Jordan Martin, in which she accused the comedian of making her feel ‘bullied and abused’ during their 2007 relationship.
Many also voiced concerns about the self-professed ‘feminist’ politician Miliband breaking bread with a celebrity who had publicly confessed to sexually exploiting women
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp (pictured) wondered: ‘Am I the only one who thinks Russell Brand’s reputation may suggest he doesn’t have the attitude to women I might hope my sons will have?’
On one occasion, Martin said that Brand had accused her of being sexually attracted to her own brother.
On others, he taunted her for not having had children. In a third ugly incident, he’d invited ‘two lesbians’ around to his flat for a ‘group sex’ session and then refused to let Martin leave when she’d declined to take part.
‘I was physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. I couldn’t go along with this. I said I’d go out for a walk. But he didn’t want me to go so he stood in front of me, blocking my way. So I just gave up and went into the TV room and blocked it out. It felt horrible.’
A mere 24 hours after Martin’s harrowing account was published, Brand formally endorsed Ed Miliband, telling fans to vote Labour on polling day.
‘David Cameron might think I’m a joke. But I don’t think there’s anything funny about what the Conservative Party has been doing to this country and we have to stop them,’ he said.
A mere 24 hours after Martin’s harrowing account was published, Brand formally endorsed Ed Miliband (pictured here in 2020), telling fans to vote Labour on polling day
FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG HERE: Comedian’s jokes about raping a woman emerge amid allegations of sexual assault – and claims that he sent a ‘BBC car’ to pick up teenage girl from secondary school
Cue delight from Miliband’s loyal supporters, with the Guardian’s millennial columnist Owen Jones writing a celebratory comment piece headlined: ‘Russell Brand has endorsed Labour . . . and the Tories should be worried.’
He argued that ‘Russell Brand matters,’ saying that the endorsement might swing the election ‘in countless marginal seats’.
In the event, of course, Russell Brand’s support meant nothing. On polling day, David Cameron won an overall majority, with only 46 per cent of young voters bothering to turn out.
Miliband has since remained almost entirely silent over his brief flirtation with Brand, never once explaining why he decided to court this notorious womaniser whose track record of misogyny had by then been long established.
Now back in the shadow cabinet, as Sir Keir Starmer’s climate change secretary, the former Labour leader is currently sticking to that policy.
He has yet to comment on recent events, and appears to be hoping this increasingly ugly controversy will simply pass him by.
If so, Ed Miliband surely requires a new T-shirt. By failing to apologise for this episode in his political history, he looks less like a feminist – and more like a terrible coward.
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