Mick Hartley

Matthew Syed in this morning’s Sunday Times – Russell Brand was protected by a cloak of progressive virtue:

They lined up to fête him. George Monbiot, an environmental campaigner who has never been less than certain of his own rightness (about everything), hailed him as a “hero of 2014” and “the best thing that has happened to the left in years”. Ed Miliband went to his home in 2015 to record a podcast. Andy Burnham defended him from claims of hypocrisy and urged him to “keep going”. Caroline Lucas commended him for “rattling people’s cages” in parliament.

He also received eulogies, gushing editorials and guest editorships from the leading left-wing magazines and newspapers, not to mention praise from luvvies such as Paul Weller. Indeed, I could pretty much fill the column with this torrent of admiration.

But let us instead step back and ponder this phenomenon. Russell Brand — whose true character was well and truly in the public domain by this point, whose ex-girlfriend had published a lurid account of his misogyny, who made a depraved series of calls to Andrew Sachs (Brand had slept with his granddaughter), who had urinated into a cup in front of colleagues, who had boasted on air to Jimmy Savile that his assistant would massage anyone he demanded, who had simulated on stage how to choke women — was enabled and eulogised by “progressives” (note the quotation marks) almost across the piece.

Why? How? Well, there is a cogent reason, I think. The perception of progressive virtue is not just a political identity but a shield. A form of protection. A source of de facto impunity. Get on the right side of leftist ideology and one’s fellow travellers will find a way to excuse, cover up, ignore and airbrush almost anything. And the reason is simple. Progressivism is fundamentally good. Fundamentally virtuous. So why would you weaken the cause by exposing the wrongdoing of one of our own? Nothing can or should obstruct the march towards utopia.

Of course, Brand also traded on his celebrity, his supposed “charm” (although I never saw this for a single moment) and “humour”. People laughed along because they wanted to be part of the funny gang (Hadley Freeman’s line about the way he “groomed” audiences was spot on). But I don’t believe he would have got away with such depravity for so long without his calculated shift into politics as the allegations started swirling. He knew it would provide a buffer no amount of fame could touch.

And this is not just about Brand but a phenomenon that sits behind many of history’s greatest evils. It is why reports of mass starvation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s were brushed aside by leftists like George Bernard Shaw (he called the allegations “offensive and ridiculous”); why Stalin’s show trials were rationalised by leading Fabians. It’s why the gulags were invisible to the progressive gaze and Castro’s crimes were airbrushed. Some criminals hide from view by donning a mask or using a fast getaway car. The most heinous criminals hide in plain sight by donning the invisibility cloak called virtue. Is there not, in this sense, a through-line from the Bolsheviks, who killed and maimed under cover of “freeing the proletariat”, to Savile, who preyed on the defenceless under cover of charity?

Owen Jones, a Guardian columnist, made this point in his own words after the Brand verdict with a post as revealing as it was stomach-churning. This is a man who has built a career out of (putatively) defending the weak against the strong but who defended Brand against the “all-too-smug, seen-it-all-before snottiness” of detractors and did a public event with this monster while praising him in columns. “I was willing to overlook, or just not look into, his history of problematic behaviour/statements, including sexism,” Jones wrote, perceiving this as a defence rather than a dagger to the heart of his shtick. “I convinced myself he was on some sort of journey and that was a good thing.”

It’s the journey, you see, folks. The path forward. The “right” way. If the destination is golden — and we alone have the road map — what could be more honourable than getting there? Whatever it takes. Whoever suffers en route. Brand was a fellow traveller with Jones (not to mention the progressive broadcasters who also turned a blind eye), so the women were not victims but collateral damage. I don’t pretend they thought consciously in this way but can you deny the unconscious dynamics, the underlying dissonance? “I was willing to overlook.” “I convinced myself.” The words are almost identical to those who defended the gulags, until it was too late.

The BBC, as so often, has a lot to answer for: “Wossie” and all the rest of the lads. As everyone is now saying, Brand’s sexual predation was an open secret for years.