Celebrity Big Brother,
January 2006, Channel 4 (Endemol production)
George Galloway MP was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house on 25 January after 21 days in the reality TV show. During this time, he variously wore a red leotard, a rocker’s outfit and a lab coat, imitated a cat drinking milk and did a robotic dance. He also sported a Cuba sweatshirt and puffed on large, presumably Cuban, cigars.
Of course the press loved all this, as did any politician who has ever crossed swords with Galloway. For the Tories, Galloway – alleged friend of Gadaffi and Saddam, opposer of imperialist wars, friend of the SWP – has always been considered a buffoon. Labour, however, hates him for opposing the war, for linking the war and the London bombing, and for managing to be re-elected as an MP on behalf of the Respect Coalition, after being thrown out of the Labour Party. Big Brother is therefore a gift for them – rather than dealing with any of the serious arguments that Galloway has put forward in support of the Palestinian cause or against imperialist war in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Labour politicians and apparatchiks from now on only need to make jokes about saucers of milk.
Galloway’s main rationale for going on the programme, along with the fact that his fee would be donated to the Palestinian charity, Interpal, was that he would be able to bring an anti-war, anti-imperialist message to five million people, rather than the small groups he regularly speaks to. Following his eviction he was forced to sheepishly admit that in fact more or less anything political he had said during the 21 days was voiced over with bird-song noise.
The few political comments that did get through consisted mainly of personal anecdotes – ‘as I told Saddam Hussein’, ‘as Nelson Mandela said to me’ – highlighting the main factor that made Galloway a suitable candidate for Big Brother: his individualism. Galloway’s opposition to the war, support for the Palestinian cause and love of Cuba add up not to a political programme but to the more positive facets of his personality. Lest we forget, he is also virulently anti-abortion and does not oppose immigration controls.
Alongside this spectacle went the sub-spectacle of watching the SWP contort itself in order to accommodate the great man, their ally in the Respect Coalition, whilst holding on to some semblance of political credibility. Socialist Worker expressed disapproval of Galloway’s decision while standing by the SWP’s alliance with him in Respect on the basis of his work against the war. However, Respect’s line was that the decision to go into Celebrity Big Brother was correct. Both positions were expressed by John ‘Janus’ Rees, who wrote in Socialist Worker: ‘lots of people feel that it’s not an appropriate way for an MP to spend their time’. However, wearing his Respect hat, Rees told Radio 4 that Galloway ‘has attempted here to advance the political ideas for which he was elected by the constituents for Bethnal Green and Bow’
Ultimately Galloway’s own career will probably benefit from the notoriety; he may well leave politics in the forseeable future to present chat shows or to concentrate entirely on column-writing and after-dinner speaking. But he has done those of us who are serious about opposing the war in Iraq, supporting the struggle of Palestinians for self-determination and defending the Cuban Revolution no favours. He has not brought anti-imperialism to a new audience, and has simply shown up the degeneracy of what passes for left politics in this country for all to see.
Nicki Jameson
FRFI 189 February / March 2006
