The stuff about the demise of the left, ideologically and electorally, is probably not that relevant to what's happening to Russell Brand right now.

I've now watched the Dispatches film, and I find it one of the most disgracefully manipulative programme of its type... ever. It reminds me of that dreadful Panorama episode about antisemetism in the Labour Party. It really is that bad.

Far from being 'stellar' journalism, it's a disgrace and massively unbalanced. It's a piece of tv theatre designed to appeal to the viewers emotions, bypassing their critical faculities. It repeatedly and deliberately conflates 'questionable sexual behavior' that's perfectly legal, with sex crimes like rape, that obviously are a crime. This is grossly unfair to Brand and insinuates that if he's 'guilty' of one kind of 'bad' behavior, but not illegal behavior, then, he's probably guilty of the other behavior, rape, which is a crime!

This is unconscionable and a form of character assassination which soften the viewers up, grooms them to accept rape allegations as true, by association, guilt by association.

They use the techniques on the horror movie, the sinsiter music, the dark lighting, the shadows, the mysterious silhouettes, the editing, all to manipulate the viewers into accepting the veracity of the allegations. Increasingly this is how the media works.

The people who made the film obviously have an agenda. Not so much to protect women, but to bring down what they think Brand represents, a form of masculinity that they find repugnant and toxic.