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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Jonathan Liew

David Attenborough is not just a national treasure: he is also the most radical person on TV

A billboard of David Attenborough, to celebrate his 100th birthday, at Piccadilly Circus, London, 8 May 2026.
A billboard of David Attenborough, to celebrate his 100th birthday, at Piccadilly Circus, London, 8 May 2026. Photograph: BBC Studios/Ocean Outdoor /Ocean Outdoor/PA

The excesses the capitalist system has brought us have got to be curbed somehow. Ordinary people worldwide are beginning to realise that greed does not actually lead to joy. Our economic system has been based on the profit principle: you have to come out at the end of the year having made a profit, and the bigger profit you have made, the better it is. In the short term that works, but it ends with disaster.

At this point, I should make a confession. The above sentiments are not mine at all. In fact, they were pilfered, purloined, shoplifted from a far more erudite radical thinker than myself. So, quiz time: which incendiary leftwing firebrand spoke these words? Zack Polanski? Antonio Gramsci? Ash Sarkar? At the very least, you would probably assume that, in the current climate, anyone daring to utter these dangerous fringe sentiments would be cast to the margins of our cultural life, only occasionally being let out for the purposes of getting shouted at on the Jeremy Vine show.

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