Hello, Washington. Photograph: Getty
George Galloway's performance in front of a US Senate committee confirms his credentials as a consummate professional. Now that he is back on British soil he will doubtless set about livening up parliament and generally attracting headlines and column inches to himself like fat toddlers to an ice cream van. This poses a bit of a dilemma for that constituency, not without representation in the Observer, who believe that Galloway is not a good thing at all.
He is an effective proponent of anti-politics politics - that clever ruse by which charismatic populists manage to maintain their us-against-them, I'm-not-like-other-politcicians credentials, while in fact being ... er, just like other politicians. Only more so. Jean-Marie le Pen, France's National Front leader is the master of the genre. Give these people a media runway and watch them take off. Still, that's kind of how democracy works. Mustn't grumble.
So a question from inside the London media beltway ahead of our weekly news conference: we of course will be inevitably drawn to report on Galloway's antics. He is newsprintogenic. But should we rather desist? Does George Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, in a wider context, matter? Rogue MP says/does thing. When does it stop being a story?
