Russell Brand is an advert for improving political education

Of all the “highlights” of this election campaign, the “EdStone”, the exit poll bombshell, the lovely six year old summing it all up for us, none were quite as ludicrous or pointless as Ed Miliband’s excruciating interview with Russell Brand; the self-styled East-End love child of Casanova and Che Guevara.

In 15 minutes of vacuous nonsense you can relive below, Brand bemoans the “powerful elites” that are “controlling things, not in a conspiratorial way, but in an economic sense”, climaxing by unleashing a typically verbose line of questioning. “What are you as a potential leader of the country going to do to take on those powerful forces that we believe is beyond politics?”

And breathe…

Doing his best to stick up for politics, Miliband declared Brand “just.. like.. wrong”. Perhaps a valiant and refreshingly concise effort but for reasons unclear to most in Westminster Brand speaks to a section of society that feels disowned and disillusioned by politics and society more generally. Among young voters especially, this ‘brand’ (boom boom) of anti-establishment tub-thumping resonates.

When ignoring the economic realities that one learns through experience, much of what Brand says seems to make some sense. It is unfair that senior bankers have not gone to prison following the collapse of 2007–08. Merely stripping Fred Goodwin (remember him?) of his knighthood seems a joke in questionable taste considering the consequences of the crisis he did more than most to instigate.

When looking at policies on welfare, taxation, public service provision and just about everything else it is tempting to become frustrated by decisions made by people a long way away in a central bureaucracy of “super-elites” without apparent consideration of the wishes of the public. To some our country is beyond our control, dominated by corporations or the EU or for those in Scotland, by distant, out of touch Westminster.

Summing up, Brand puts his feeling of disillusionment this way:

“it sort of feels like there’s nothing that can be done.. no-one goes to prison, things don’t any gets better, no-one proposes an alternative”

Democracy is not the end of history

This desperation highlights the lack of understanding central to Brand’s analysis. He believes democracy to be a mechanical system that once started inevitably leads to social utopia. A system we as the public can leave alone other than to redirect it with some eloquent whining on YouTube.

This does not focus on his previous call to abstain from voting. It is more than this.

More disturbing is the logic reversal in his argument. In Brand’s view, the public are apathetic because they are powerless, when in fact the truth is the opposite. It is the apathy of the general public that renders them powerless and this — depressingly — has been known and analysed for hundreds of years, by Alexis de Tocqueville among others.

Although better descriptions de Tocqueville’s analysis are doubtless available (two great examples here and here), in a nutshell one of the issues with democracy is this.

In our state of democratic equality we are tempted to shrink away from the public sphere and towards close family units where we retain status; hence Mrs T’s famous “there’s no such thing as society” misquote. By doing this we allow government to centralise decision-making where it is easily administered leading to a fatal removal of local power. With the dangerous “central administration in place” we are treated uniformly from the centre, rather than equally at a local level.

After some time we lose all control of our lives we look to government to solve all our problems but at the same time bemoan its inefficiency and faceless lack of personality. From this position the only forces able to achieve their goals are powerful groups of interests (corporations, lobby groups, trade unions etc..) with all power of the individual removed — precisely the problem Brand has today.

Brand’s frustration and anger therefore doesn’t come from an accurate analysis of the situation but from a belief that things should inevitably be better, that today’s malaise is an aberration of history and democracy has been hijacked by corporate monsters and their political flunkies.

It’s not; it’s a result of our apathy.

Brand isn’t alone

In fairness to Brand, he’s not the only one. Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s sandal wearing former strategist and blue-sky thinker has also suffered a bout of political depression and anxiety. Like Brand he also has a book out ‘More Human’ in which he also attacks “brutal, ruthless corporations” for their overbearing power and influence.

Refreshingly though, Hilton has a plan to restore the humanity to today’s society.

It his view, we should do away with “all-reaching government bureaucracy… vast standardised corporations” and “centralised, uniform way of doing things” — precisely the dangerous “centralised administration” de Tocqueville pointed out 200 years ago. We’re told by Hilton that we should drive power back to the people, to a more local level. By doing this we can restore the personalised, “human” face of government services.

However, this isn’t the whole story. It is all well and good for power to return to local jurisdiction but if people don’t take back this power and get involved all that is achieved is the creation of another layer of politicians, something few people want.

Education — the missing piece

The enabler and missing piece in both Brand and Hilton’s analyses is the public. It is us that need to take back the power and start to make our own decisions. They say that all politics is local but we have forgotten that. We see decisions that directly affect our lives as distant and beyond our influence when in reality they aren’t.

We have the ability today to affect decisions about our local schools and hospitals. All council meetings are open to the public and we can influence them without any devolution of power. Moreover, we are free to form civil associations and lobby groups whenever we wish. If we do not agree with specific actions we can group together to change or amend them.

For example, the “bedroom tax” may be national law, but the administration of it is local and can be influenced. If you disagree with it and live in London you can change the periods of time people are given to leave their properties and the level of housing benefit cuts charged.

All these things are possible but the public simply don’t know it. They have never been taught how our democracy works and therefore are entirely ignorant of their own power. Their powerlessness is therefore self-inflicted. They have strapped themselves into their own strait-jacket and are now complaining they can’t move.

Before any devolution of power therefore we must inform the public that not only are they not powerless to change things. Moreover, the public need to know that it is their everyday responsibility as citizens to defend local administration and to take active part in democracy if they are to win back power from the “evil corporations”.

Ironically, Russell Brand figured this out in his last ‘the Trews’ broadcast before ignominiously retiring from public politics. He said in his election response:

“change does happen.. change is going to come from us, working together… we’re going to stay local to people actually doing things locally.. democracy isn’t something you do, it’s something you live every day”

I couldn’t have put it better.