Russell Brand’s interview with Jeremy Paxman on last night’s Newsnight was a fiery affair, with the host interrogating Brand about his desire to see a “revolution” in society:
Paxman doggedly insisted that Brand’s refusal to vote made his political views suspect. Brand, though, responded in style: “It’s not that I’m not voting out of apathy, I’m not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class which has been going on for generations now, and which has now reached fever pitch where you have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that is not being represented by that political system, and voting is tacit complicity with that system.”
However, a bad-tempered Paxman wasn’t entirely on board with this, calling Brand “a very trivial man”. To which Brand replied: “Trivial? A minute ago you were having a go at me because I want a revolution!”
The latest issue of the New Statesman is out now.