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A magnificent reply to an appalling letter We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or try to earn a living from doing so. Singling out an individual and demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble. We don’t agree with the behavior of many Rumble creators, but we refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.
Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be a violation of our company’s values and mission. We emphatically reject the UK Parliament’s demands.
– Official Rumble response to this appalling letter.
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Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Ah yes, of course, Russell Brand is a deplorable and thus not entitled to the benefit of human rights.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
In the mind of “Big Brother/Sister/Person/Pronoun of Choice” this quaint old fashioned idea is long past its use by date.
Never let someone else’s crisis go to waste.
Guilt doesn’t matter, because this isn’t really driven by his past sexual behavior. He has said things that progressives do not like. This is an opportunity to pile on Brand and shut him up. It’s really more of an extension of the “fake but accurate” theme – even if he didn’t do these bad things, he has still said unwoke things, “and so deserves every bad thing that can happen to him.” *
(* – Quotes to mark sarcasm. 😉 )
A magnificent reply indeed.
I’ve used this quote several times, and I’ll use it again:
“What the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.
~ Thomas Sowell”
Dame Caroline Dinenage is a Conservative MP – but like so many others appears to be an upholder of the Establishment, and the Establishment veers Leftwards nowadays. I wonder if being a virtuous person encourages her to ‘judge’ Russell Brand without the need for due process?
It’s my understanding that he has recently said some quite uncomplimentary things about Obama. So, perhaps that’s the cause of his purging?
The initial Channel 4 programme prominently featured the completely legal (and carried out with the full knowledge and presumably the approval of her parents) sexual relationship between “Alice” (as in innocent young girl – geddit?) and RB. A pertinent fact almost entirely ignored by the media is that 15 years on “Alice” is now a researcher for, you guessed it, channel 4.
Channel 4 for the past 7 years has been screening “Naked Attraction” – a dating show where contestants are initially judged on their genitals before their faces are seen. It also recently featured a stunning and brave performance by a strange man playing the piano with his penis.
Stay classy channel 4.
Very few Conservative Party MPs are conservative.
The reply from Rumble is tremendous but I think people need to be wary of extending the ‘innocent until proved guilty’ principle from the criminal law, where it properly applies, to the reactions of civil society. The principle has never applied in that context and although I don’t approve of You Tube’s decision it seems to me that they were fully entitled to make it. Of course many others have also rushed to judgement in this case; it may be a glimpse of the obvious but to my mind social media has encouraged both people and organisations to rush to judgment in a way that the relatively slow moving media of the past did not.
Te letter from Dinenage is indeed appalling; particularly the last paragraph. There is real pleasure to be had from seeing Rumble tell her firmly to foxtrot Oscar.
As others have stated – this Member of Parliament, on behalf of her Committee of other Members of Parliament, has a Presumption of Guilt – she assumes Mr Brand is guilty and has decided his punishment, so she is both judge and jury.
Parliament takes it upon itself to “make the laws” – originally the High Court of the Monarch in Parliament was supposed to decide what the law was (clear up confusions and disputes) not “make” laws (an important distinction), but at least since Blackstone in the mid 1700s it has been generally held that Parliament can “make law” – now we see that Members of Parliament do not understand the principles of law (of jurisprudence) that they have no grasp at all of the principles of natural justice.
Now such things as the “On Line Safety Bill” and the “Energy Bill” (now, I believe, both Acts of Parliament) are understandable – such measures violate the basic principles of law, but as Parliament (in spite of having so many lawyers in it) does not have a clue what the basic principles of law are, it will pass these measures, and many other measures, that violate the basic principles of law (happy with that are you Blackstone?).
As for Mr Brand….
It was well known that Mr Brand was sexually promiscuous – but when he was an establishment leftist (on the BBC and so on) this was not considered a problem, indeed anyone who suggested that Mr Brand treated women badly was laughed at, as it was considered fine for a leftist to treat women as “sex objects”. But now Mr Brand is questioning establishment collectivist narratives, suddenly what he is supposed to have done many years ago (which the establishment CELEBRATED at the time – it was what made Mr Brand “edgy” and so on) is now considered a Bad Thing (TM).
Think about this – and understand the implications.
Mr Brand is not being punished for his sexual activities many years ago – which were CELEBRATED at the time by the Progressive establishment, he is being punished because he has recently started to question establishment narratives – on Covid “vaccines” and other matters.
This is the “Free World” we live in.
YouTube is owned by Google. Google has benefited a lot from taxpayer’s money over the years so ultimately the decisions of Google and it’s subsidiaries ought to be subject to public scrutiny, especially if they are trying to deprive people of a living.
I read that at least one of Brand’s accusers has said that they’re coming out about the claims now because of Brand’s current politics. Which makes me think they were perfectly fine with Brand when the actions took place because his politics were more agreeable. Now Brand is more on the fringe, they’re conveniently reinterpreting it as abuse.
Timely reminder to all men. You can be strictly monogamous or as wild as Brand with the ladies. But don’t ever shag a leftist woman.
Perry of Wiltshire.
“Very few Conservative MP’s are Conservative”.
The number of MPs who voted against the “Equality Act” (a key point in the rejection of the old principles of a free society, Polly Toynbee called it codifying the principles of socialism, – although there were many previous pieces of legislation) in 2010 was six – 6 (out of more than 600).
How many Members of Parliament voted against the “Energy Bill” which allows the government to drive a coach and horses through the rights of ordinary people, in the name of the environment. About a dozen Members of Parliament voted against it.
So it is rather hard to argue with Perry on this matter.
We can blame officials and “experts” for writing these dreadful “Enabling Acts” which allow the bureaucracy to persecute ordinary people (the sort of “legislation” that Lord Chief Justice Hewart rightly denounced way back in 1929 in his book “The New Despotism”) – but Members of Parliament do vote for these measures. And “we would be called racists or climate deniers if we did not vote for it” or “I did not read the Bill, I had no idea what I was voting for” are not good excuses.
The “On Line Safety Bill” is yet another example – with the cry “we have got to protect the children” being used as a smokescreen for the real intensions of the people who wrote the measure.
A very old trick – Sir Robert Walpole (back in the 1700s) justified a Act of Parliament censoring plays, on the grounds of an obscene play that celebrated rape and murder. Yes, you guessed it, that play was paid for by Prime Minister Walpole himself – it was a smokescreen for his real objective, which was political censorship.
An official of the UK government is writing to companies and asking them to censor someone accused but not yet convicted. If that isn’t a violation of the presumption of innocence then nothing is.
Are you suggesting, then, that if someone is accused of rape or murder that it is entirely fine for every bank to refuse to do business with that person, for every shop and supermarket to do likewise, and their home to be compulsorily purchased by the council (an entirely civil matter) so that ultimately that person might starve and die of exposure before a trial has ever occurred?
If the presumption of innocence has no place in civil matters then all I need to do to ruin an enemy is accuse them of a crime. Even criminals have civil rights.
Look at the voting record on the ‘Energy bill’, the whole of the commons but nineteen MPs voted for it.
Of those nineteen, about half were DUP, one was Andrew Bridgen expelled from the Tory party for having a concern for the health and welfare of his constituents, so of the rest, only eight or nine represented Tories.
The rest of the commons have been captured by either the WEF or Big Pharma.
If someone that has connections accuses you…. you will be okay that the store next door will refuse to sell you food, that utilities cancel your water, energy, electricity, that you are fired from your job next day…etc?
John,
Excellent point about “Naked Attraction”. This had occurred to me also. C4 is an utter cesspit. They also made Brand a star. This of course enabled him access to girls and women that he wouldn’t otherwise have had – let’s face it he looks like a scarecrow who slept in a dumpster.
Some folks here seem to think the change in some of Brand’s political views have motivated this witch-hunt (or whatever*). Maybe. And maybe not. Two things occur to me. The first is that big media want’s to be seen to be getting harsh on sex-offenders because they don’t want another Jimmy Saville debacle. Note it is C4 that is leading the charge. C4 that made Brand. C4 that is on a very dodgy financial footing…
But perhaps there is something else. Perhaps it isn’t Brand who has changed but the “culture”. Brand became a star at the arse-end of the lad/ladette cultural thing of the later ’90s. Sex and stuff was pretty free-wheeling back then. It isn’t now. It likes to think it is but it isn’t. A society (like our’s in the 2020s) that can throw a fit over someone being addressed by the wrong pronoun is going to yell blue-blazes over an inappropriate touch or kiss. Just ask the former Spanish football boss.
As letters have been added to LGBT+++ it has become a “movement”** that is increasingly working on increasingly byzantine rules. Rules that can be changed instantaneously and arbitarily just to catch people out. In the first sense it is bizarrely puritanical. In the latter it is utterly Orwellian. C4: “We have always been at war against sexual assault”.
It is a deranged culture. If a non-muslim quotes the nasty bits of the Qu’ran they can find themselves before the beak for “Islamophobia”. If an imam does the same and rants about “killing sodomites” not a chance he’ll be in trouble despite the fact that if I do I’m also for the legal high-jump. If I were to wear a poncho and sombrero then that’s “cultural appropriation. If a guy with a dick and a beard wears heels, lippy and an ’80s fright wig then that’s “self-actualising their true identity”. Navigating the numerous rank incoherence of this is impossible. And maybe, up to a point, those are the shoals that SS Brand has foundered upon. Maybe. He is also an obnoxious git and about as funny as haemorraghic fever. God knows about the sexual assaults but he definitely ought to be tried before The Clown Court for crimes against comedy.
*I mean he’s a despicable scrote but that isn’t against the law. Otherwise we’d have one Hell of a prison over-crowding problem…
**Or rather people think of it as a “movement”. It is deeply fragmented. Just ask your local TERF.
Does that applies to progressives like Joe Biden?
Nick. The C4 explanation is as follows:-
Naked Attraction Is broadcast after the watershed. It may be in bad taste but it is absolutely legal. No-one is forced into watching it. Even the biggest idiot should know what it’s about and what they’re going to see. Most importantly no one is forced into being a contestant (and incidentally do channel 4 have a minimum age for contestants?).
How much of that also applies to a 16 year-old girl (and remember the other accusers are much older and by definition more worldly) responding to the unmistakably sexual advances of a famous celebrity shagger.
It’s all right when they do it.
Russell Brand was safe so long as he was a “progressive”. Now he is challenging vaccine mandates and CBDCs, he has become an unperson.
Of course. Though we’re fully entitled to denounce them for it, as are any competitors.
That too. I’ve mostly given up on defending the actions of any private corporation large enough that I’ve heard of it, because of how often I can find subsidies & sweetheart deals in their pasts. That, plus the fact that I’m still mortal, and thus have a finite measure of time to spend asserting defenses, researching corporations, etc.
JohnK: It’s far from a new development – I noticed the exact same pattern forty years ago when it happened to Kenny Everret.
On the other hand, not everyone who flip-flops is part of a conspiracy, or even merely an emergent pattern, of political partisanship. The cynical partisans are surrounded by a much larger penumbra of Biedermänner belatedly recognising Schmitz and Eisenring once it becomes conventional to do so.
An even better reply might have been: “The writ of the British Parliament does not run here, we settled that back in 1776 by force of arms, a right to bear which we retain, along with our right to free speech. Your miserable government has already suppressed free speech and taken the Protestant birthright of arms. Remember that by our might, ingenuity and wealth, we saved your miserable backsides from Germany twice last century, and shielded you from the Soviets for over 4 decades. If you are seeking to induce us to deprive a man of his income and us to breach a contract with him, then tell us what law you seek to rely upon.
Not really, Mr Ed. That kind of reply is posturing, and posturing can just be dismissed. The actual reply was perfect, the sort of thing that can get published without it causing people to roll their eyes.
At least in the USA, to hold over someone’s head the threat of reporting their criminal behavior unless they do as you wish constitutes one of the definitions of “coercion”, and also of blackmail. “If you behave in a non-progressive manner, I will report you for your rape of me” would fit that definition.
But, as stated above, the accused is non-progressive, so I doubt there will be any such charges.
It’s a shame they didn’t use the old Private Eye retort, “We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye
@bobby b
“If you behave in a non-progressive manner, I will report you for your rape of me” would fit that definition.
Right, but it isn’t a threat… it is a promise as the old saying goes. They aren’t trying to extract something from Brand, which would be one thing, they are trying to destroy him to bolster their political agenda, or something along these lines. (Now of course if Brand did these things then the hell with him, but TBH, I strongly doubt any of it is true.)
@Alex
If the presumption of innocence has no place in civil matters then all I need to do to ruin an enemy is accuse them of a crime. Even criminals have civil rights.
Your comment is right on the money. There is a saying — “the process is the punishment.” Even within the context of criminal prosecution, I accuse you of some terrible crime, irrespective of your innocence it is going to ruin your life for a few years and cost you every penny you have to defend yourself. And then at the end, the jury pronounces you innocent, and what? The prosecutor says, “oh well, my bad”? How do I get my life and fortune back? What precisely is the disincentive to accusing someone of some made up crime?
In answer to those who criticised my point that we should be wary of extending the criminal law principle of “innocent until proven guilty” into the civil sphere, I should probably have said that it is mistaken to think the principle has been infringed when people in the civil sphere rush to judgement about a person’s conduct and act against his interests. I am not saying that it is fine for people to behave in that way but making the point that the law, at least in the UK, doesn’t help the victim much. This is surely pretty obvious from the numerous examples of people being ostracised or hounded for their actions or opinions in recent years.
Of course it may be possible to change the law to give potential victims more protection. For example it is being suggested, following the disgraceful decision to close Nigel Farage’s bank account because of his political views, that a legal right to have a bank account should be introduced.
I am not sure what people here will think but I find it difficult to envisage a law existing that protects people widely reported to have behaved in a sexually depraved or arguably criminal way from all actions against their interests such as removing them from social media or not supplying them with goods or services. That would in effect be a new anti discrimination law.
It is hard to fault companies for taking subsidies, because if they didn’t, a competitor would take them and they would suffer a material disadvantage in the market. So in the end the companies which are successful are going to be the ones which did take the subsidies. The problem, as usual, lies with the government who provided the subsidies in the first place.
Colli – what you say may be true. But in that case, corporations need to drop the whole ‘We’re a private company, we have a right to do whatever we want with our property and business’ charade. It’s clearly being said in bad faith.
John,
“Naked Attraction” is garbage TV. C4 is publically owned. It has, in the past, made some pretty good stuff. It was meant to be a sort of funkier BBC2. I guess, up to a point, it was but it is well past that now. I don’t think “Naked Attraction” ought to be banned. It’s just… if I were a commissioning editor I’d tell whoever pitched that to feck off and never darken my towels again. Do I have a problem with “explicit content”?*. I am a man of the World. Alas, that also means I do know a cunt when I see one. In every sense of that much derided word. I watched it once. Mainly because I simply couldn’t believe it. They aren’t? Oh, Gods, they just did!
I really don’t know where I’m going with this and I suspect I shall be misunderstood because of that…
But, perhaps C4 feel they can get away with trash like “Naked Attraction” if they go after Brand and hope people forget they made him a star and enabled his crass sexism (I’m not going to go into the actual rape allegations – that’s for the law). Maybe Brand being demonized is a virtue signalling to cover C4’s collective ass. Maybe he is a scapegoat. He may well be guilty as sin as well but the two are not incompatible.
*Unless you count Davina McCall who ought to be burnt like the witch she is – “Because She’s Worth It”. She just annoys me. Even that fringe is enough to make St Francis of Assissi himself vomit with inchoate rage.
No, they’re going after him because he went after Big Pharma.
@Martin
Colli – what you say may be true. But in that case, corporations need to drop the whole ‘We’re a private company, we have a right to do whatever we want with our property and business’ charade. It’s clearly being said in bad faith.
Although in principle you are right, the problem is that this is the very mechanism that the government uses to spread its poison into private industry. Perhaps first amendment would be nice to spread that way, but what about diversity hiring, “equal” pay, the promotion of equity, climate change agenda, and hate speech and on and on. If you say government contractors (which means nearly all large companies) have to abide by the restrictions placed on the government you have basically made them part of the government. Is that really what you want?
When you have a supposedly private economy heavily controlled by government regulation, we have a name for such a system. It is called fascism.
Carnivorous,
And you know that how? Is it not possible that Brand was a darling of “The Left” (however that is defined) but then became apostate. You know how religions work? A non-believer is disliked. A rebel against the cause is abhorred.
Notice that R Kelly is still on YT and monetized. That dude *is in jail*!