The Brand Backlash (Or How I Learned Never To Criticise The Liberal Elite)

Earlier this week, a freelance IT contractor currently working at RBS published a tongue in cheek "open letter" to Russell Brand on their blog. The recurring comedic theme was that the closure of the building precipitated by Brand and his camera crew's unscheduled visit had resulted in his lunch going cold.

Within the blog, the writer points out that Brand's grandstanding and theatrics were unlikely to achieve anything as he didn't have an appointment, and therefore was never going to get into the building uninvited. It also accuses Brand of being confrontational both with building security and those stranded outside by his antics. It examines the taxpayer investment in the banks during the financial crisis. 

At no point does it attempt to defend RBS or any other bank. It makes clear that the writer is not an employee of RBS, right from the very outset, and that what follows is not intended to be any sort of statement from the bank itself, the banking industry or bankers.

On the whole, it's a pretty well-written, lighthearted piece. You can read it here:

http://blog.squandertwo.net/2014/12/an-open-letter-to-russell-brand.html

After it hit the internet, the blog went viral. Lots of people sharing it online, having a giggle at the concept and the content.

Well today came the backlash.

Driven on by some high-profile Guardianistas - for whom Brand seems to have acquired some sort of Messiah status of late - the writer has been attacked as variously a banker, an employee of RBS and a symptom of all that's wrong with Britain today, the rich complaining about being inconvenienced by those campaigning for social justice.

Accuracy seems to have taken a back seat to the need to protect Brand's reputation as some sort of crusader for the poor. This is a man whose appetite for equality has seemingly enjoyed some kind of Lazarusesque recovery, the kind of man who turns up to a masked protest and takes his mask off so the press can find - and of course, record for posterity - his presence.

He is, what we in sporting circles like to call, a bandwaggoner. The sort of person ripe for a bit of a satirical sideswipe. That his fans/acolytes feel so threatened at any criticism of him that they need to unleash their attack dogs on a blog is in equal part nauseating and bemusing. Whatever they expect to achieve as a result, it only leaves one set of people coming out of this looking like arrogant, petty little crybabies. Them.