Tonight’s debate, hosted by Horsney Parish Church and moderated by Father Bruce Batstone, invited candidates from the five largest parties running in my constituency, Hornsey and Wood Green:

• Suhail Rahuja from the Conservative Party
• Gordon Peters from the Green Party
• Catherine West from the Labour Party
• Lynne Featherstone from the Liberal Democrats (incumbent)
• Clive Morrison from UK Independence Party

The other three candidates were invited to submit questions for the debate.

That’s not what happened though.

Before the debate could even start (to a full church), a man walked up to the front of the room with a chair and set up beside the Tory candidate. Once the introductions happened, he announced he was Geoff Moseley from the Hoi Polloi party and he had a democratic right to attend the debate but hadn’t been invited.

He rambled and argued with the Father Bruce for a couple minutes while the audience booed and heckled for him to leave. He continued to refuse, getting increasingly obstinate until finally Father Bruce capitulated and said his rambles counted as his two minute introduction. We then had the introductory remarks from the other candidates, after which Father Bruce invited Helen Sbipy-Vann of the Christian Peoples Alliance to the stage to present her party. Finally, Moseley argued for another 2 minutes and got to make his introductory comments.

We were promised a 5 party debate and got 2 more candidates for free. Sadly Frank Sweeney of the Workers Revolutionary Party wasn’t there.

Further chaos ensued after the first round of questioning, when Moseley began arguing with the Tory candidate during his attempt to answer the question (which was about protecting local government services). The audience got rowdy and a number of people rushed the stage to encourage Moseley to leave. During this confrontation, Morrison (UKIP) started blowing a whistle.

Finally, Father Bruce asserted control over the situation and calmed everyone down. He reminded both Moseley and the audience that he was in charge and he would allow the debate to proceed if everyone could maintain some level of respect for his chair.

At some point during this altercation, someone called the police because later they were observing the debate from the back of the church.

The debate ended far more peacefully than it proceeded with a moment of silence led by Father Bruce.

So what was actually said during the debate?

Rahuja argued Tory party lines about the dangers of putting a Labour-SNP government in charge and how his government had made necessary cuts. He was condescending to Moseley (who snapped at him too) and West.

Peters argued for action on climate change, inequality and democracy. He was much more passionate during the questions and earned some supportive applause from the audience.

West was articulate and intelligent. She showed compassion for Moseley’s right to present his views. She wants to lobby for local businesses to pay a living wage – a commitment beyond the Labour manifesto. She drew strong support from the audience on numerous occasions. Easily tonight’s winner.

Featherstone talked about her values (live and let live, taking care of those less able, internationalism, civil liberties) and took credit for introducing same sex marriage to England & Wales and a campaign to end female genital mutilation. She wasn’t as strong as West but earned some support from the audience.

Morrison was not your typical UKIP candidate (not just because he’s black). He identified himself as a foster carer, a community activist, a Christian and an immigrant since 1969. He talked mostly about community and his disillusionment with mainstream parties and actually very little about the UKIP platform (though he mentioned it was fully-costed). He complained about having to deal with the perception that UKIP is a racist party and he wanted to cut across racial barriers (as he identified that racism is still a part of our culture). He was a bit soft-spoken and not deep on policy beyond supporting the community.

Moseley started his own party after being disgusted by all the mainstream parties – except the Greens. He gave up on Labour because of Iraq and blamed the LibDems (who he voted for in 2011) for getting into bed with the Tories. Not very deep on policy but very amusing.

Spiby-Vann began with “I’m a Christian and I love Jesus” and her platform stemmed from that. She was very soft spoken, read from her policy leaflet (although to be fair, she didn’t know she’d be invited on stage tonight) and focused on how the breakdown in marriage was the cause of most social ills.

As it’s late and this post is already long enough, I’ll just pull out some of the most amusing quotes of the night (as close to accurate as possible when in quotes, paraphrased otherwise) from my notes.

Spiby-Vann would make sure that our education system teaches men to respect women and strengthen traditional marriage. She would give £10K grants to newly married couples and provide marriage training courses because in her faith communities, she doesn’t see the difficulties of divorces coming up. She also suggested we could solve part of the housing crisis by removing the “stigma” of young adults living at home while starting university through advertising campaigns.

Rahuja seemed to suggest that voting for a Labour Government would mean people would die (based on the people who died in the NHS Staffordshire issue). He also said rent control is a ludicrous idea that would be a disaster – we only had to look to Venezuela or Moscow (where he lived) to see why.

Rahuja to Moseley: “This a democracy, but I guess in your case it’s more dim than democracy.”

In answer to a question about removing legislation around hiring practices for small businesses, Featherstone gave a strong defence of employment law protects us from discrimination and called it “absolutely vital.” She pointed out that under her push to improve employment for black and minority ethnic communities, the Department of Work and Pensions did an experiment where they sent fake job applications to employers – half with British names and half with more ethnic sounding names (all with equivalent qualifications). Unsurprisingly, the British sounding names were more frequently offered interviews.

In answer to the same question, Moseley said “I don’t know what kind of policy you expect me to come up with, I’m not in it to win this election.” To which Rahuja remarked that at least he was right about that.

Rahuja: “Very rarely I agree with these panellists” in reference to West, Featherstone, and Peters who all supported keeping the number of MPs around 650.

Moseley started his closing statement with: “What Gordon [Peters] said” and “I love the Greens – the only mainstream party worth a spit”.

Morrison: “I’m not tied to a political party.”

Spiby-Vann’s closing statement discussed the need for a “new moral vision” and to “promote godliness.” She said “marriage is the safest setting for sexual intercourse” and that “marriage demonstrates a man loves a woman – he pledges to remain faithful and she pledges to take care of him.” She then described how marriage protects women. I think this level of Christian fundamentalism managed to shock the relatively godless and liberal residents of Crouch End.

It was an interesting discussion despite being, as Alex said, “in danger of everyone agreeing with one another.” That agreement included:

1. Electoral reform
2. Lowering the voting age to 16
3. A citizen-led constitutional convention for the UK

While some non-humanists see tradition as a way to keep society structured, the humanists on the panel agreed that we should critically evaluate our political structures and apply a more rational design, based on evidence and tested against other countries. Humanism is about rejecting dogmas and putting the state in service of the individual. We should ask what we can do to enhance one another’s lives.

They also worried about some of the bitter nationalism seen during the referendum debate. Andrew Copson reminding us that Bertrand Russell frequently spoke out against nationalism, saying that it offered simple silver bullet solutions to all of life’s problems (like Scottish Independence or leaving the EU). Nevertheless, the speakers were optimistic about the engagement generated by the referendum.

The most disagreement in the night came from the questions posed by some members of the audience. One worried that we are just “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” by not dealing with the problem of big business’ influence on politics. Another said we should have compulsory voting – to which Gary said he was against anything compulsory as a humanist and Alex pointed out that compulsory voting in Australia had failed to drive up turnout rates at the local level (where it isn’t compulsory). Another questioner asked how you keep small parties out of government in in proportional representation, and he pointed to Israel where (in his words) the Jewish far right has wielded so much influence their airlines can’t even fly 7 days a week – the answer is given by countries across Europe which have threshold levels before a party gains any seats.

The bet comment of the evening though has to go to Andrew Copson, who said the venue, the Palace of Westminster, “was the least democratic building in the Western world, architecturally.” A point I tried to illustrate recently.

I’ll give them credit – it’s catchy and many people (myself included at times) think politicians too often use promises of reform to the healthcare system as a way to score cheap points. But what does #NoMoreGames actually mean?

We should want, and expect, politicians to lay out their plans for what they’d do differently if elected. It’d be one thing if the BMA were campaigning for specific pledges but instead they’re headline is a shallow complaint that politicians are campaigning too much.

Granted, the BMA expands a bit on their website about what they’d want to see, but overall the message is as shallow as they’re blaming politicians for.

I really don’t see what they’re hoping to accomplish.

But at least there’s already a good theme song for their campaign.

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email and for sharing your views with regards to Humanist marriages. My apologies for the delay in getting back to you but I was waiting for a clarification of the situation on this issue.

What I feared became reality: it was reported on Sunday 14^th December that the Conservatives will be blocking the legalisation of humanist weddings because they see it as a ‘fringe’ issue that could muddy their key messages ahead of the General Election.

As you know, Liberal Democrats believe that two consenting adults should be able to marry, and in a ceremony that reflect their personal values and beliefs. This is why we are in favour of the legalisation of humanist ceremonies in England and Wales.

I appreciate that humanist weddings appeal to an increasing number of couples who are non-religious, but who are not attracted by the option of a civil marriage ceremony. As a Liberal Democrat, I strongly support the principle of individual freedom and personal choice.

The current law in England and Wales means that anyone who has a humanist wedding must have an additional ceremony, in a registry office or another approved venue, before their marriage can be recognised. We want humanist weddings to be legally recognised.

When the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was debated in the House of Commons last year, several of my Lib Dems colleagues suggested amendments that would have allowed this to happen. Unfortunately, these amendments did not get enough support to be included in the Bill. However, the Coalition Government did agree to give this issue further consideration.

Section 14 of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2014 placed a duty on the Secretary of State to carry out a review into whether belief organisations, including humanist celebrants, should be allowed to solemnise marriages. The Act stated that the outcome of this review has to be published no later than 1st January 2015.

I have now written to the Prime Minister on your behalf, highlighting your concerns and asking for them to be addressed. Please find attached a copy of my letter for your information.

I shall of course come back to you as soon as I receive a response. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to get in touch again if you would like to discuss this further or if I can be of any other assistance as your MP.

Kind regards,

Lynne Featherstone MP

Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green

Here’s her letter to the PM:

Dear David,

RE:  Humanist weddings

I am writing on behalf of a number of my constituents who have expressed concerns regarding the legal recognition of humanist weddings.

My constituents are concerned that the Government has not published the promised review with recommendations over this issue yet. They are worried that there is very little time left before the General Election and that this short timetable could slip leaving them in the same unequal situation.

My constituents outlined that if the state can recognise the weddings of an unlimited range of religious organisations as marriages, there is no reason for it not to similarly recognise those conducted by a humanist organisation. They believe that the legal recognition of humanist marriages would be simple, popular, and would remove unreasonable disparities between different parts of the UK.

I would be most grateful if you could comment on the specific issues that have been raised. Thank you for your kind attention in this regard and I look forward to your response.

Kind regards,

Lynne Featherstone MP

Labour and the Greens also support extending the marriage act to humanists. The Sunday Times revealed on December that Number 10 has intervened to block humanist marriages.

To my mind, no humanist group in Canada has ever hosted a similar event, but the first major difference here was how, in their opening speeches, nearly every candidate identified as either being a member of the BHA or an atheist. This was especially surprising for some as all major parties, including the Tories and UKIP, were in attendance.

I live tweeted the event, so you can find my reactions under #HHEP14. I thought I’d just post some additional thoughts here.

First, the strongest speaker was, by far, UKIP candidate Tony Brown. Faced with a largely antagonistic audience, Brown made his best case to connect with the audience, discussing his upbringing in an “atheist family” and noting his admiration for Richard Dawkins. He repeatedly tried to draw a link between the EU, and particularly the large European People’s Party (representing numerous Christian Democrat parties), and the Catholic Church. It was a fairly novel argument and could appeal to a nationalistic secularist. Nevertheless, his line that “I’m not a climate change denier, the climate has always been changing” and subsequent denial of man-made climate change was met with heckles.

The other stand-out speaker was Caroline Allen of the Green Party. Her smartest line was to admit that the Green’s science policy had been pretty weak in the past but that they’ve done a lot of work on it and people should give it another look (I will, the link is here). Unfortunately, she lost some credit on this front (in my mind) by maintaining the party line against fracking and GMOs.

Otherwise, the Liberal Democrat, Matt J McLaren, and Tory, Caroline Attfield, both sounded a bit nervous, although McLaren caught his stride near the end and made a strong argument about secularism as a core Lib-Dem value. Attfield, meanwhile, went off policy on a couple points, suggesting that Europe could play a bigger role on security issues (she clarified that she meant foreign policy when probed) and that the role of the Church of England is shrinking.

Dr Louise Irvine of the National Health Action Party made a spirited defense of the NHS and represented her single issue party well. On other issues, she sided between Labour and the Lib Dems (ironically also where she was seated).

Finally, Mary Honeyball, representing Labour and the only sitting MEP at the debate, gave a decent defense of her party, but I got the sense after that she didn’t really inspire anyone. Whether she was aiming to play it safe or not, I think there was a missed opportunity by Honeyball.

My question, prefaced with a thanks to the parties that voted for recent clinical trial regulations (#AllTrials), was on how the candidates would involve evidence in their decision making in the future. Each gave a relatively predictable answer (evidence is widely seen as a good thing), with Dr Irvine mentioning the value of publishing all clinical trials and Brown admitting that the UKIP vote against the regulation was about keeping the policy within the UK, rather than being personally against the idea.

I realised later I should have asked if the candidates would publicly change their mind if evidence proved them wrong. When I asked this to Brown after, he pointed out that Nigel Farage has repeatedly done just that, in particular, noting where his party has been far off.

After the event, I went for a couple drinks and finally managed to meet Andrew Copson, the BHA’s Chief Executive, who very expertly chaired the evening.

That about sums up what’s been flipping through my head for the past six months living in England.

I’ve sent out countless résumés and applications (Brits are very fond of ignoring your CV in favour of annoying pre-formatted application forms to fill in), from which I’ve managed to land half a dozen interviews. Unfortunately, each has inevitably been followed up with “we went with a candidate with more experience.”

It’s really quite discouraging.

Of course, I’ve been told what I already knew – that volunteering can be a good way to get in the door at a charity – but like unpaid internships, I can’t morally bring myself to work for free until someone is kind enough to pay me for it. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

Especially when we’re getting to the point where we need to decide whether we’re going to give up on the UK and move back to Canada in August – thus killing any ability for me to secure the type of non-profit that I’ve been looking for.

Basically, it’s been a fairly frustrating time, made bearable by some wonderful new friends, establishing Sunday Assembly Leeds, and travelling (which is also partially why I haven’t blogged as much lately – it’s sometimes too hard to give a damn).

Hopefully my next update is better news. I still have a few active leads but I’m feeling justifiably cynical.

I encourage you to download and read the entire 244 page report online and support your local IHEU Affiliate.

I thought though, given my current country of residence, that I’d focus on the United Kingdom’s status, which coincidentally to Canada is Systemic Discrimination.

While it’s quite easy to live your life as an atheist in Britain – up to two-thirds the country may be non-religious – the report focuses on laws and state institutions, which the UK does quite poorly on. Specifically, they list the following issues that are a bit more extensive than those in Canada.

• There is an established church or state religion
• Systematic religious privilege
• Discriminatory prominence given to religious bodies, traditions or leaders
• State-funding of religious schools
• Religious schools have powers to discriminate in admissions or employment
• Religious groups control some public or social services
• Official symbolic deference to religion
• State-funded schools offer religious instruction without secular alternatives but it is optional

Bold points are the “Systemic Discrimination” tests while the other two are merely “Mostly Satisfactory”

It’s very similar to the issues facing Canada – religiously privileged school systems – plus the existence of the Church of England/Scotland as state churches and the seats reserved for Bishops in the House of Lords.

What’s particularly troubling is that after years of meddling by the government of England and Wales, the education system is in such a mess that further “reforms” are being pushed by the Coalition government to bring in more Free Schools – most of which are run by religious organizations. Whereas a few years ago most schools were either state of Church of England run, an increasing number are being run by different religious groups, including Muslims, Evangelical Christians, and Orthodox Jews.

Scotland is the brighter point, where the fewest state-funded schools are religious (still 14%) and they are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of religion. Perhaps Scottish independence wouldn’t be such a bad direction?

The report also notes that schools in England and Wales are required to hold daily prayers. I’m not certain that this law is followed closely but, as in Canada, it likely means that rural and more conservative areas are able to enact greater pressure on those who don’t conform with the dominant religion.

Additionally, a concern is raised about government funding for the Church Conservation Trust charity. This organization works to preserve historical churches across the country. Most of those churches are still property of the Church of England but at the very least are made accessible to the broader public and as a secular charity, the CCT allows any group (even the Sunday Assembly!) to rent their spaces.

A note about libel reform – which was championed after the British Chiropractic Association’s vindictive lawsuit against science writer Simon Singh – concludes the report. While the situation has improved with the new laws, Northern Ireland still lags the rest of the UK and maintains onerous requirements for defenders of free speech.

Two cases are highlighted to conclude the report. The first notes that a Christian charity receiving public funding was discriminating against non-Christian employees and that similar organizations are likely permitted within the law to do the same. The second discusses an atheist who was threaten with arrest for an anti-religious sign in his window.

Overall most countries don’t fare very well on the report. Of the roughly 200 nations in the UN, only 15 receive a grade of “Free and Equal”: Belgium, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Fiji (tentatively based on its new constitution), Kiribati, Nauru, São Tomé and Príncipe, Benin (with broader concerns about human rights), Niger, Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Uruguay, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Many of the “atheistic” Northern European nations fail for perpetuating state religions or for keeping blasphemy laws on the books.

It’s also worth noting that a survey that covers the entire world is bound to have limits. Many local conditions are impossible to document by a lone, underfunded NGO. In some cases this will mean missed discrimination (the Canadian section is missing a few examples) and in others, they may have overestimated the effect of unused laws that remain on the books.

Nevertheless, it’s a valuable report and hopefully it inspires other secular groups to produce similar documents and to act in favour of secular human rights.

Differences abound from the widespread use of uniforms, to near-universal behavioural challenges, to the fact students don’t earn diplomas but are expected to either take the right classes to go to college (a step toward university) or just drift off into the workforce. There is also an intense effort by the government to oversee every aspect of the system through a convoluted merit-pay system and the teacher’s unions were debilitated by Margaret Thatcher.

Beyond all of that though, England has never had elected school boards – or Local Education Authorities as they’re called here. Basically, the local municipal or city council just appoints a few bureaucrats to run the schools.

This naturally raises the question: Are appointed or elected school boards more effective?

Interestingly, this question was raised by the City of Chicago, where there is a push is on to create an elected board. Currently the mayor appoints the Board.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago wanted to give the question the academic treatment and following a review of the research and their analysis of the effectiveness of the Mayor’s Board gave the following key findings [pdf]:

1. There is no conclusive evidence that mayoral control and mayor-appointed boards are more effective at governing schools or raising student achievement.
2. The Board’s policies of top-down accountability based on standardized tests, and its simultaneous expansion of selective-enrolment schools, expanded a two-tier education system in Chicago.
3. Under the mayor-appointed Board, CPS has made little progress in academic achievement and other measures of educational improvement, and on nearly every measure there are persistent, and in some cases, widening gaps between white students and African American and Latino students.
4. The Board’s policy of closing neighbourhood schools and opening charter schools has generally not improved education for the students affected. In some cases, it has made things worse.
5. Although data on charter schools, nationally and locally, are mixed, there is no evidence that, overall, CPS’ charter schools are significantly better than its traditional public schools.
6. Chicago’s mayor appointed board is comprised of elite decision makers who are neither representative of the student population of CPS nor directly accountable to the public. Board structures and processes severely limit public input in decisions.

Based on this, the authors come out strongly in favour of an elected board and call for an urgent course shift.

While the background in England is different than Chicago, I think there are important similarities.

First, England has a very heavy top-down school system. Teachers are responsible to the school administration, who is dually responsible to the local authority and government regulators. Lessons will be observed randomly and students performances are almost uniformly judged on nationwide standardized tests (which are of extremely dubious pedagogical value).

Second, by keeping school control out of democratic accountability, similar closure and transparency issues are inevitable. In Edmonton a few years ago, parents protested continual school closures and influence the Board to put a moratorium on closures until the issue could be studied. This wouldn’t happen in a system where bureaucrats don’t need to worry about their job security every 3-5 years. Here in England, this means council staff are more than happy to outsource school administration to corporate academies and religious institutions if it means cost savings. The effect on the students and community becomes irrelevant.

Finally, the last point is especially pertinent as demographics in England’s larger cities begin to shift. While democracy doesn’t guarantee representative diversity, it does offer non-traditional routes to give voice to often-marginalized groups. One doesn’t need to be Oxford-educated or a party hack to be elected to a school board but the path to influencing backroom bureaucrats is less clear.

It’s also important to note that the Chicago study pre-empts some of the eventual arguments against any change. They note that the appointed boards are not necessarily more efficient and in fact, since a democratic board is more responsive to local needs, may actually put its limited funding to better use.

Of course there is little to allay concerns that elected local education authorities would simply introduce another field for the bitter partisanship of English politics to do battle on. Already Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems (and I guess the Greens and UKIP to a lesser extent) fight for control over Westminster and local councils, but the experience of the Vancouver School Board, which does feature partisan politics, suggests it may not be that damning.

Perhaps the biggest danger though is for the ability of local boards to introduce anti-science measures – whether it’s creationism, anti-vax, or anti-wifi, school boards in North America tend to be easy targets for the pseudoscientific forces.

I think he makes a lot of good points in there, key among them is an admission of his own potential faults and biases:

One thing I’ve learned and was surprised by is that I may suffer from the ol’ sexism. I can only assume I have an unaddressed cultural hangover, like my adorable Nan who had a heart that shone like a pearl but was, let’s face it, a bit racist. I don’t want to be a sexist so I’m trying my best to check meself before I wreck meself.

Watching people receive criticism online, I’ve come to expect the double-down defence, where rather than stop and consider that there may be some legitimacy to the complaints, the author denies, obfuscates, and attacks to defend himself (and it’s typically him). So II was actually really surprised to see this admission in Brand’s writing.

It was a short admission though, followed by an odd comment about his partner, the “benevolent dictator,” so I encourage you to read Laurie Penny’s discussion with Richard Seymour in full on the issue of left-wing “Brocialism.”

Brand is hardly the only leftist man to boast a track record of objectification and of playing cheap misogyny for laughs. He gets away with it, according to most sources, because he’s a charming scoundrel, but when he speaks in that disarming, self-deprecating way about his history of slutshaming his former conquests on live radio, we are invited to love and forgive him for it because that’s just what a rockstar does…

I don’t believe that just because Brand is clearly a casual and occasionally vicious sexist, nobody should listen to anything he has to say. But I do agree with Natasha Lennard, who wrote that “this is no time to forgo feminism in the celebration of that which we truly don’t need – another god, or another master.” The question, then, is this: how do we reconcile the fact that people need stirring up with the fact that the people doing the stirring so often fall down when it comes to treating women and girls like human beings?

I think Penny’s questions can begin to be answered optimistically when there are admissions of fault like Brand’s. Obviously, his brief discussion is only a starting point and I do hope this bit of dialogue continues in these discussions moving forward.

Getting back to Brand’s piece, he repeats his argument against voting, noting that his interviewer (and token of the aristocracy) Jeremy Paxman couldn’t even be bothered to vote given the choices before him. Brand also begins to outline some simple models of what might make the world less bad – generally greater wealth redistribution and closing tax loopholes – which he credits to a host of other groups working on the same problems.

This all hints at the other criticism of Brand’s initial rant. He may not have offered any answers or a clear vision of what a better world would look like but there are many talented people working in democratic and grassroots groups that are.

Speaking of revolution, I also want to draw attention to Erica Chenoweth’s latest TEDxBoulder talk, which discusses how non-violent disobedience is becoming significantly more successful than violent protest at achieving regime change.

Her research has found that nonviolent campaigns have been twice as successful as violent ones over the past century.

This work fits nicely in the thesis of Steve Pinker’s Better Angels of our Nature, which argued that humanity is increasingly less violent.

The other important point from Chenoweth’s work is the finding that revolutions tend to be guaranteed success if they can achieve the support and mobilization of just 3.5% of the population. Now, this is still a large number of people, but it’s not unrealistic. For example,

• the 2012 Quebec student protests saw 150,000 students on strike – or 1.9% of the population,
• the 2011 UK anti-austerity protests saw upwards of 500,000 people in London’s streets (plus others across the country) – or 0.8% of the population, and
• recent protests in Greece have seen upwards of half a million – or 4.4% of their population.

Each of these events also fails to capture the wider sympathy that can often exist for those marching in the streets.

I guess the point I want to make between these pieces is that there is reason for hope. We should push for better democracy – with electoral reform, campaign finance reform, reducing inequality, a focus on the environment – but to do so peacefully.

The editorial is worth reading in its entirety. It wanders quite a bit but combined with the interview identify the core complaint that galvanized the support behind the 2011 London Riots, the Quebec protests, and the Occupy Movement: The system is broken and it won’t be fixed from within.

It’s easy enough to criticize Brand’s idealism (as he points out the left is quick to do). He doesn’t vote and offers little prescription for how to change things for the better. There are a lot of sound bites and clichés and he’s quick to switch from a serious tone to derisive satire.

But the emotion and passion he taps into is genuine. Perhaps not for him, being an actor and comedian, it may just be an act to promote his latest Messiah Complex comedy tour which lists Jesus Christ, Che Guevara, Gandhi, and Malcom X as co-stars, yet for many the struggle is real enough.

Youth unemployment is still high. Real, long-term job security isn’t a prospect anymore. Home ownership is now an unattainable dream. Tuition and student debt are at record highs. And governments are doing nothing to stop climate change. Meanwhile, the corporate crooks who took the world into the latest recession are seemingly richer for it.

So when Brand talks about not voting and cheers for the revolution, he has listeners.

Consider Justin Trudeau, the saviour of Canada’s Liberal Party.

Today in Washington, he re-iterated his personal support for the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to Texas, in spite of the continued opposition from environmental groups pushing for a shift away from a carbon-based economy. It also ships Canadian refinery jobs south and risks future gulf oil spills.

Meanwhile, the NDP government of Nova Scotia recently lost to their Liberal adversaries while offering no significant progressive policies during their single term in office. Instead, Darrel Dexter’s biggest claim is that he reduced the deficit. Even Canada’s socialists are talking the language of the neo-conservative parties. Similarly, Adrian Dix’s BC NDP offered piecemeal progressive policies while offering no substantial change from the right-wing BC Liberals. Manitoba’s long-standing NDP government similarly represents a slower path to corporate cronyism than their political opponents.

America is clearly bipolar, with two right-wing parties continually being pulled further extreme by the Koch-funded Tea Party fringe.

Here in Britain, Labour likes to pretend it’s the defender of the socialized medicine and welfare, but instead is promising to be “tougher than the Tories” on welfare. Portions of the party still swing further left but they are relegated to the back benches. Instead, the party has moved to the right of the place traditionally held by the Conservatives (who in turn went even further right), according to The Political Compass.

The story is the same among the major parties in Australia as well.

So while I will still vote, perhaps merely out of faith and blind optimism that things will improve under the right leadership, Brand makes a strong case that none of the current parties in most of these countries are offering a substantive change.

Vive la révolution!