GEORGE GALLOWAY’s first realisation that signing up to Celebrity Big Brother may have been a political blunder came last night as he was shown a stack of derogatory newspaper headlines.
He was the fourth contestant evicted from the Big Brother house and was greeted by a chorus of boos as he walked away from 21 days of incarceration. The MP knew he would be attacked by political opponents for taking part in the show instead of directly serving his constituency but he seemed taken aback at the virulence of the press coverage.
Asked by presenter Davina McCall whether he was happy he had taken part, he said: “Not after I’ve seen those newspaper cuttings. Luckily, I’m not standing in another election.”
The Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow emerged to face a new inquiry into his financial affairs by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and a possible investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
His lawyers saw off another threat yesterday morning when the Court of Appeal rejected The Daily Telegraph’s case against the award of libel damages to him over allegations that he had received money from the regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr Galloway said that he was “delighted”, adding that the allegations were false.
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However, what should have been a triumph has been reduced to a crumb of comfort in the face of the public opprobrium that threatens to engulf the leader of the Respect Coalition.
He has been heavily criticised by constituents and other MPs for joining the television show and may further anger his electorate after saying last night that he intends to go around the country campaigning next week, rather than returning to East London.
Defending his decision to join the show he said: “I feel we (Respect) are a different kind of political force. We want to talk directly to people. This was worth a try.” It was, he said, the views of “people on the streets of Britain, the people of Brick Lane” that would count when it came to assessing the impact of his appearance on the show.
The reaction of the voters in Bethnal Green & Bow may disappoint him, with some having demanded that he repay the portion of the MP’s salary paid to him for the time he has been unavailable.
Paul Skinner, a Bow businessman, created a website with a constantly updating calculator listing the amount of Mr Galloway’s £61,000 Commons salary he has earned while incommunicado. It was near £3,400 last night. Mr Skinner said: “I saw him going into the Big Brother house saying, ‘I’m George Galloway, MP’, and I thought, you’re my MP, you should be representing me in Parliament, not in there.”
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In the Big Brother poll last night Mr Galloway attracted 64.7 per cent of the public vote demanding his eviction, and today could be the biggest test of his indefatigability in his long and chequered political career.
Mr Galloway is a populist orator whose antiwar speeches and appearance before the US Senate have won him acclaim. But in three weeks on Celebrity Big Brother he has recast himself as possibly the most despised politician in Britain. It has been a remarkable misjudgment and a staggering act of self-destruction — all played out on reality television.
Chris Moyles, the Radio 1 breakfast show presenter, led the assault yesterday. His listeners, mostly in their twenties, were infuriated by what they saw as Mr Galloway’s condescending attitude towards the younger contestants on Big Brother. He had argued that one of his reasons for going on the show was to reach “this mass, young, overwhelmingly not yet political audience”.
Calling a text message vote on whether the audience liked or hated Mr Galloway, Moyles said: “When we have the final vote, we’ll take it to George and show him what the youth of today think of him and whether he has succeeded in talking to young voters.” In the space of 20 minutes 19,661 votes were received. Of these, 18,189 (92.5 per cent) declared hatred for Mr Galloway.
Before taking part in the programme, the MP said that he would “talk about racism, bigotry, poverty, the plight of Tower Hamlets, the poorest place in England . . . about war and peace, about Bush and Blair, about the need for a world based on respect. Some of it will get through.”
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It has not got through. Instead, Gorgeous George has made himself a figure of fun by role-playing a cat licking cream from Rula Lenska’s hands, dressing up as a vampire and performing a robotic dance dressed in a red leotard.
Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, has no power to take a slice of Mr Galloway salary for absence because there are no rules stipulating how long a Member should spend with his constituents or in the House. But Sir Philip said that after the conclusion of the legal action between Mr Galloway and The Daily Telegraph he hoped to resume his inquiry into complaints that the MP had received money from Saddam.
The Serious Fraud Office is also looking into payments allegedly made to individuals and companies in Britain from the Oil-for-Food programme, and the Charity Commission is looking again at money received by the Mariam Appeal, which was set up by Mr Galloway.
John Rees, Respect’s national chairman, tried before the eviction to put a brave face on Mr Galloway’s antics. He said that he had learnt of Mr Galloway’s decision to take part in the programme only 24 hours before he had gone into the house. “I think I would have advised him against it,” he said. “Given the nature of the show, which involves putting a bunch of laboratory rats in a trap and hoping they fight with each other, it was always going to be difficult to get a political message across. I think George is going to be very angry about it all when he gets out.”
Dennis Rodman, the American former basketball player, followed shortly afterwards as the fifth contestant voted out of the house.