WHEN HOUSE of Commons debates were first televised in 1989, the fear was that politicians might start acting-up to the cameras. As George Galloway can testify, this has not proved to be the case. So bland are the proceedings at Westminster that the only House the honourable member for Bethnal Green & Bow feels can provide him with the space he needs to perform is the camera-filled prefab offered by Celebrity Big Brother.
Given the hullabaloo about Gorgeous George’s onscreen antics, it might be imagined that politics has reached a new low of exhibitionism. Not since Dick Whittington has a cat been so central to the script. Yet there is nothing new about politicians doing silly things on the pretext that it gets them publicity to promote a serious message.
Forty years ago, British politics was greatly enlivened by the Tory MP Sir Gerald Nabarro. “The abominable showman” was rarely off the television screen, even although he never attained even junior government rank. Never happier than when dressing up as a cockney pearly king or a sooty steam-train driver, he must have run Twiggy close as the face of the Sixties.
And what a face it was. Although he started with a neat George Galloway-style moustache, Nabarro recognised that the only way to become a staple of the cartoonist’s art was to turn himself into a ridiculous caricature. With each appearance, the moustache grew further until it resembled the doorknocker on No 10.
The irony was that this quintessentially old-fashioned looking and sounding Tory (although he was actually self-made) understood perfectly how becoming a television celebrity gave him an entrée into the homes of millions. Ted Heath and Harold Wilson talked the bland language of modernity, but the tweed-suited Nabarro performed for the media so perfectly that he was able to use it as a megaphone for his own, usually reactionary, views.
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However, if Mr Galloway is seeking to tread in Sir Gerald’s footsteps, he should take care. Nabarro was probably correct in his assumption that half of Britain “swears by me and the other half swears at me”. His descent into a comic-turn show-off detracted from his real achievements both as an MP and as the man who got the Government to introduce the 1955 Clean Air Act, which vastly improved the urban environment and saved countless lives. He is now remembered as a Terry-Thomas lookalike who played the buffoon.
Before his premature death in 1973, he was asked how he thought his obituary would read. He suggested that although he was essentially a failure, it should conclude: “The world will be the poorer without his whoopee.” We cannot yet say that of George Galloway. But we can note that Sir Gerald’s secretary was the future Mrs Christine Hamilton.