George Galloway enters the Big Brother house. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
It wasn't going to take long before someone started knocking Respect MP George Galloway for joining 10 other contestants in the Celebrity Big Brother house last night, writes Hélène Mulholland.
If the flamboyant Scottish MP makes it to the end, it will mean three weeks out of political circulation, as Labour peer and former MP Lord Foulkes was quick to point out today. People in Bethnal Green and Bow will not be represented properly by their constituency MP for all the time he is on the programme, warned Foulkes sniffily.
If one is to level that accusation at the maverick MP, one should also include the host of other politicians who spend more than three weeks of their parliamentary careers holding outside business portfolios, chairmanships, directorships, media careers, and the rest.
Still, what was Gorgeous George thinking when he decided to venture into reality TV? The parliamentarian who gave the US Senate committee an eloquent run for its money last summer after being accused of profiting from the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq, will be eating and sleeping with people unlikely to be interested in political discourse of whatever kind. Of course, that's just what George is banking on.
The last to enter the BB house last night, George was greeted by a bit-part American actress whose career highlight was starring in Baywatch, a man famed more for botched cosmetic surgery than his 80s single, a woman reviled for sleeping with her England football coach boss (he was blameless of course) and Michael Barrymore, whose craving for public adoration was painfully on display last night. What unites most of the 10 celebrity contestants is bruising encounters with a hostile press and a burning desire to be liked, which, in their foolish eyes, will be measured by how long they get to stay in the house.
For Galloway, a controversial political figure who upset many journalists by winning his East End London seat from Oona King last May, being liked won't be the ultimate goal, but a vehicle to it. How better to engage a youth audience with your political positioning and views on the Iraq war and Tony Blair than to join in the fun where it's at.
By entering the most apolitical of environments, Galloway has grabbed an opportunity to reach out to the mass youth audience who see mainstream politics as an unsexy, passé affair, or, as he puts it, to "connect with the politically untouched", the millions of people completely turned off by the conventional approaches to political engagement.
It's a shrewd move. If they grow to like the man, they may consider what he has to say. But it's a high-risk strategy, potentially prey to a mass Labour party effort to evict Galloway in the first BB vote, and to the power of editing. Galloway's worst moments are likely to be broadcast across the land and his every political uttering elided by an equally shrewd production company.
Galloway's other aim in entering the Big Brother house, according to a press release issued in his name this morning, is to move the Palestinian cause up to the "premier league". But with a share of the Big Brother proceeds going to charities chosen by contestants, Galloway's nominated Interpal will get a windfall to help its work helping the Palestinian cause. At least on that front he is guaranteed success. Either way, George has definitely made celebrity BB one to watch. And it might just make Tony Blair join in the BB vote. Now there's a thought.
