Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross: What the media's saying
The Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand saga rolls on.
The latest news is the pair have been suspended. Is this right? Wrong? Does it really matter?
Here's a round up of the latest pundit opinions.
They were incredibly crass, insulting and stupid to do what they did, but anyone who knows anything about broadcasting will know that the decision to broadcast lies not with them but with the producer, editor and ultimately the station controller.
All of the US is locked into serious debate about a potentially transformational election.
And what are we discussing in Britain from the Prime Minister down? Some offensive and smutty phonecalls made a couple of vulgar celebrities.Maybe what Russell Brand has to say is a matter to test the editorial management of the BBC, but should it really concern Gordon Brown and David Cameron?
Laurence Howarth in Comment is Free:
Offending somebody is like being in a minor road traffic accident: you know straightaway something bad has happened but you're also left feeling gloriously alive, and the whole event soon takes on a slightly unreal quality.
Brand is many things, but "classy" is not one of them. It is surprising that anyone thought it might be a good idea to leave a series of crude messages on the former Fawlty Towers star's voicemail.
Natalie Haynes in The Times:
Brand is a terrific stand-up, and a large part of his act is toying with his audience's expectations of what is or isn't appropriate. It's hard to see what he loses from a scandal: he has a young audience who won't easily be deterred. The censure of Ross is far more virulent - is that because he has daughters?
Bruno Waterfield in Telegraph Blogs:
What is worse? That this rubbish goes out on the BBC or that it comes to dominate the political agenda at a time when there are many, many more important issues to get agitated about?
Benedict Brogan's Blog: Why does it take a junior minister to speak plainly on BrandGate?
David Cameron got in on the act earlier, but his tuppenceworth on the affair ("it's a matter for the BBC, questions to answer, yadda yadda") was hardly fulmination.
