George in the House
From the Grapple in the Apple... to boredom in Borehamwood. George Galloway has never been one to shy away from publicity, but his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother certainly raised a few eyebrows on the left.
The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow's constituents were initially shocked to hear that George had entered the House.
They weren't the only ones. Senior SWP members were kept in the dark about their Respect comrade's latest exploit and are not exactly best pleased. The Party's Central Committee are apparently fans of rival ITV show I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, if dark rumours that they are organising their own Bushtucker trial for Galloway are to be believed.
Readers of Socialist Worker expecting their weekly fix of stories about Georgeous George may be a little disappointed to learn that Torture as MI6 watched, this week's main article in the paper, turns out not to be a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the politics of populism in the era of CCTV and celebrity game shows. But readers of the Weekly Worker will no doubt be treated to the full, tabloid version of Galloway's story in the House. You couldn't make it up (and, for once, they won't need to)!
Indymedia readers looking for "a plausible and sensible reason why the hero of the anti-war movement would want to enter the Big Brother celebrity circus show," are treated to a surprising tale of George's situationist subversion. Well, at least until the same correspondent actually watched the show and admitted - refreshingly for a situationist - that they were talking shit.
But the star prize so far in this sorry tale of tabloid publicity-seeking goes to Labour MPJim Fitzpatrick, who dismissed Galloway as "a C-list politician with an A-list ego." He was one of several ruling party critics who nevertheless seemed happy enough to ride Galloway's coat tails in their own sad attempt to gain publicity and score cheap political points. 'Nuff said.
sigh. We must have been really bad in a past life to deserve politicians like these.
J
Posted by: joeturner | 09 January 2006 at 09:25 PM