So this is George's idea of connecting people and politics?

The Times Saturday 14th January 2006 He was going to talk about Iraq, about Blair and Bush, about respect. But the more George Galloway acted like an animal, the more we saw that his ego matter far more to him than his politics

COULD it still be done? Has Gorgeous George successfully grasped the Philosopher’s Stone and turned the dross of public politics into gold by fusing it with the energetic glamour of celebrity TV? Or, as the Weekly Worker put the question in more typically Spartist form: “Is it possible for working-class politicians to utilise an established cultural form, designed for a completely different purpose, in order to bolster an oppositional message?”

COULD it still be done? Has Gorgeous George successfully grasped the Philosopher’s Stone and turned the dross of public politics into gold by fusing it with the energetic glamour of celebrity TV? Or, as the Weekly Worker put the question in more typically Spartist form: “Is it possible for working-class politicians to utilise an established cultural form, designed for a completely different purpose, in order to bolster an oppositional message?”

George Galloway, who survived last night’s first eviction from the Celebrity Big Brother house, said he believed that the alchemy could be successful. In his statement released to coincide with his arrival in the house, Mr Galloway claimed that: “Firstly it was for Palestine . . . secondly, I’m doing it for the audience. The biggest audience I will ever have. I want to attempt to connect with the politically untouched, most of them young people — who are completely turned off by conventional approaches.”

He was presumably already fully connected to the politically touched. It sounded absurd, but these things sometimes have a way of developing their own unpredicted momentum; so wasn’t it possible that he was somehow right and knew something the rest of us didn’t? “I will talk about racism, bigotry, poverty, the plight of Tower Hamlets, the poorest place in England sandwiched between the twin towers of wealth and privilege in Canary Wharf and the spires of the City,” he said. “I will talk about war and peace, about Bush and Blair, about the need for a world based on respect. Some of it will get through.”

What got through was Mr Galloway in a white coat naming goldfish, getting housemates to be sick from eating too many chocolates, and standing in the rain insisting on an order of fame as though he were stewarding a school demonstration. “Sure, there may be an indignity to be suffered along the way,” he had concluded. “But it will be worth it.”

On Thursday night we watched, delighted and appalled, as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, the scourge of Blair and the ouster of Oona King, alone with Rula Lenska and several million viewers, pretended to be a cat, crawled between the violent sofas and nuzzled the actress’s open palms, purring loudly. “I think,” said my 15-year-old daughter, who may have wondered where Mr Galloway had learnt that particular move, “that I am going to be physically sick.”

Who was he going to have his unilateral exchange of views with, in that house? I had heard of three of them: the entertainer Michael Barrymore, who seems to me to be very ill; Faria Alam, Sven-Göran Eriksson’s other other woman; and Rula, who I remembered from a wonderful series from yonks ago called Rock Follies and who has unforgettable red hair and a voice like Paul Robeson’s.

After that came Pete, a 43-year-old former pop star who has had surgery to look like Joan Rivers; an American basketball player called Dennis who looks as though he was put together by a sporting Baron Frankenstein; a woman from Baywatch whose name I forget; Jodie, an exceptionally needy model; bubbly Essex girl Chantelle, who wasn’t a celebrity until last Tuesday; a Welshman called Maggot; and a handsome boy called Preston who was once in a band. Not your usual audience for a Gallowegian monologue.

This wouldn’t have come as a surprise to his allies in the Socialist Workers’ Party, the main force in his Respect coalition. They’d have advised him not to go on the programme, but, as they admitted: “We didn’t know . . . until 24 hours before it happened. We didn’t agree with the idea, but by that stage the die was cast and the contract signed.” In the past the SWP has had a bit of a downer on Big Brother , seeing it as part-symptom and part-cause of the degeneration of capitalist society. It was “sewer-dredgingly awful”, the contestants were “sad, vulnerable people”. It was disgusting to see Channel 4 taking advantage of them and simultaneously “debasing the viewers as well”.

It isn’t easy to have said all that and then have your main man launch himself enthusiastically into the sewer and set about debasing the workers. It has left many leftists throwing out anti-missile baffles like a US helicopter over Ramadi: if his political project in the house has failed, it’s Channel 4 that is to blame for censoring him. As Zoe Williams put it in The Guardian: “Galloway has conviction as well as Big Brother membership; he emerges from this business more sinned against than sinning.”

This misses the point. Because what Galloway’s participation has told us is that politics is the least of his reasons for entering the Big Brother house, and conceivably for anything else he does. He was always, always, going to participate, once invited, and his rationale was just a kind of pseudo-thinking. He needed to go in, just like Germaine Greer before him needed to. That’s why the boring old Trots, who would have tried to dissuade him, weren’t consulted.

Watching him, you realise that Mr Galloway is what the American playwright Heathcote Williams called a “psychic imperialist”. He wants to be inside our heads, to colonise our minds. “A billion and a half Muslims,” he told Rula, “know who I am.” So, fishermen in the remote south of the Philippines speak about Mr George? It’s a fantasy, but a revealing one. He was the one who advised Saddam Hussein to give up WMD — “Look, I told him . . .”

And you also see how that tedious constituency stuff must seem impossibly confining to the would-be leader of the Arabs. “We will discuss with him,” threatened his local association, “strengthening the relationship between his office and the local organisation.” Can you imagine T. E. Lawrence submitting to that? The man is bigger than all of them, bigger than they can possibly imagine, big enough to understand that, if necessary, one nuzzles the fingers of a fading actress.

But what about the untouched young? Here’s the sad bit. “I expected them to ask me about being an MP,” he told Rula Lenska. They didn’t, because the younger people in the Big Brother House sussed him out at once. They understood that it was the narcissist, not the politician, who had turned up to compete.

So it hasn’t been politics triumphing over showbusiness or showbusiness over politics. Viewers have seen the triumph of psychology over both, of Freud over all the Marxes. They sense that it is George Galloway’s own Dundee demons that have him playing pussy, not the prospect of Palestine. But that is even more entertaining.

Comments

[Fancyclown]

I wrote about him on my blog, along with a great picture of that cat incident. (Non subtle plug)

What annoys me now though, is that those who perhaps once supported him are attacking him, not because of his silly political views, but because he has stooped so low as to go on this show. The snobbishness of parts of the Liberal media say it is ok for him to kiss up to dictators, to claim Iraqi people "didn't hate Saddam" but God forbid he go on such a awful show, that is enjoyed by many people. I don't like this or the snobbishness around Big Brother in general. Why can't I be interested in politics, Literature etc and not Big Brother?

[modernityblog]

Paxman's "Political Animal" shows that many people engaged in politics are a wee bit strange, but Galloway takes the biscuit.

How long before the penny drops with many of his “supporters” and they drop him like a stone? My bet is about 4-8 weeks

[Hagmark]

I think your explanation for the others not asking him about being an MP, that they 'sussed him out at once', is far less likey than the possibility they couldn't care less. Are you honestly trying to say that if they sent in an MP with a little humility, not a likely ratings winner, things would have been any different?

Perhaps he should have known it would be like that. I realise this probably makes me one of sad minority, but no matter how much of a narcissist he is, or how much I disagree with his politics, I'd be interested to hear what he had to say about what it was like being an MP.

Good luck with keeping the blog going.

[Anthony]

I'd be interested to hear what he had to say about what it was like being an MP.

Why don't you ask one who turns up to Parliament?

[Andrew Hagmark-Cooper]

I'm not saying that being on CBB is a good use of an MP's time, but it's a bit of a lazy assumption that MPs who spend more time in Parliament are somehow 'better' MPs. You can turn up to Parliament without being of any benefit to anyone.

[broke]

I agree with your daughter about the cat incident, and there have been plenty of other times when I feared I might lose my dinner watching George. However, I felt his worst behaviour was the way he joined in the baiting of Jody Marsh. To watch three middle-aged men (GG, Barrymore, and Pete Burns) bellowing to each other about how they deserved 'respect' and to listen to their truly appalling misogyny has been nauseating. That a supposed paragon of the left has embraced this abuse beggars belief.

[Citizen Sane]

By agreeing to appear on CBB, Galloway has scored a spectacular own goal. It has backfired in a big way: both for him personally and the entire shoddy Respect ‘Coalition’. Who could ever take the man or his feeble-minded party seriously again? This is great news for everyone horrified by this unholy union between the hard (and even not so hard) left and the Islamic far-right.

Their entire dream destroyed by reality TV and the unchecked thirst for fame of their most famous dignitary. There’s a moral in there somewhere.

Rejoice.

[hamish]

Broke is right, watching a man who saluted the courage and indefatigability of Saddam Hussein call a page 3 girl evil is a bit much.
Ironically enough last week Michael Portillo said that maybe the columnists and intellectuals who sit on our tv sofas were wrong and GG's appearance on CBB could be having a massive resonance with the 4million people tuning in to watch. Hopefully not

[Andrew Coates]

Few leftists (outside the shrill and shrinking SWP) are rushing to defend Galloway. Look up a few leftist Web discussion lists. We have derived immense pleasure from watching the widely distrusted mountebank make a fool of himself. Please do not spoil this enjoyment by joining in too eagerly.

It is generally agreed that Respect will do well in next winter's panto season, with their all-new production of Puss 'n Boots. George will star as haughty Madame , Bob Howeman as the faithful shoe-black, John Rees as the Suitor, and Lindsey Germain as Principal Boy. The SWP will supply a troupe playing themselves, as clowns.

[The Gnome]

People today don't trust politicians, or political thinkers, and they're very cynical about documents revealing anti-war spokesmen of being involved in corruption. In a way that no interview with Paxman or a moderated debate with Hitchens could, this show has revealed just how out of touch with reality Galloway really is. To describe some silly girl as "wicked" or "immoral" when you've seen the level of repression and torture that Galloway must have seen confirms how deranged the man is.

And how did he know the mass murdering thug didn't have WMD? Oh, he looked him in the eye and told him so. Great.

[Ricardo Soares]

We must stop talking about CBB and GG and start talking about where the Mariam Appeal docs are? He apparently says Zureikat (apologies for spelling. Late at night and microsoft spell check does not seem to handle some of these names)has them in Baghdad. Thats convenient isn't it! If you want him as your man wouldn't you want someone who kept the documents of your case, or at least copies, just to show you were all above board. After all, you would know the establishment forces of evil would be after you and you would want to set the record absolutely straight, wouldn't you?

We must stop talking about George and get him nailed by some evidence. He is a slippery so and so as per getting away with his expenses scams, and explaining why Zureikat supported him and his activities for so long, and where some of the money went.

It might be informative if someone speaks to his ex-wife (the Palestinian lady who he was happy to parade around for a while, but seems to be off the scene due to a dalliance). I do not have the resources to track her down.

It might also be useful to understand how much money he was paid by the Bhuttos of Pakistan. How is his friend Basher Assad, and how many opposition politicians who criticise his regime are speaking freely today, like George is? Doh!

Why does a staunch socialist need his Dacha? Well, one cannot live on less than £150 000 a year apparently according to George. Tell that to your constituents you intellectual pygmy. Bet that wasn't on your election leaflet!

Ask Mohammed Naseem next time you see hime what the punishment would be for two gay people walking down the street holding hands? Would that constitute a lewd homosexual act requiring the death sentence. Or maybe a quick peck on the cheek? Or what about a snog? How many gay people would he expect to be executing per year? Lets just get it out in the open George. Do you respect gays or are your goat like tendencies too deep, and you secretly hate them too? Ask him and if he says he agrees with the death sentence for gay people committing lewd acts in public, what other groups are on his list?

Well, that for starters. Understand he has recently been seen on TV making a tit of himself/difference (strike out at will) Yawn Yawn.

[Doubleclick]

It's a shame the cat thing has received so much attention. There have been some real beauties somehow going under the radar, which tie up neatly with things he's said in the past outside the BB house.

You might recall that during his election campaign, Galloway was asked how he felt about preparing to oust one of the few black women in Parliament. Granted, this was something of a cheap question but nothing could justify his bizarre response:

"Oona King voted to kill a lot of women in the last few years. Many of them had much darker skins than her."

In the BB house, Traci Bingham (an American contestant) was shocked to hear Faria Alam's opinion that it is impossible for a black or asian person to win the competition. She asked around the house about this and a few contestants, Galloway among them, misunderstood and thought they were being directly accused of racism. Galloway blurted out:

"Do you think I would allow a white man to get away with the disgusting sexual things he [Dennis Rodman] says? Of course not! It's precisely BECAUSE he's black that I haven't said anything!"

Now, I know these are blurry statements and you could argue about which possible meaning he meant in each case, but I cannot think of a positive meaning for either case...