Despite the best attempts of some comrades to put a positive spin on Gorgeous George’s latest stunt it’s hard to see what good can come from spending two weeks with the C-listers of the Celebrity Big Brother Household. While some over at the Tomb have been trying to see the bright side – a higher profile for GG and Respect, a chance to reach new audiences – many of the rationalisations ring hollow.
Party discipline has its place and it is true that Galloway has his share of critics on the right but the desperate determination to constantly talk the man up can be hard to take and, I suspect, does not wash with those outside of the core membership. So it is refreshing to detect a faint note of unease at sites like Dead Men Left and a implication – however muted – that this might figure amongst Galloway’s poorer judgement calls.
No one can take away the fact that Galloway put Respect on the map and no one was more delighted than me with the Bethnal Green and Bow result. Yet Galloway is a complex, contradictory character whose strengths are twinned with often serious weaknesses. His courage and ability to present the anti-war case is twinned with a residual Stalinism and a taste for poorly considered phrase mongering. His style is often explained as a manifestation of an ego out of control (although it is arguably this egotism that drives his forceful presentation of arguments).
I am not sure that this fully explains it. Galloway belongs to the school which maintains that ringing phrases are important because they strike a chord with the public and persist in the collective memory – the key objective is to always to make an impact. What better way to make an impact than through what remains one of the most popular programmes on television.
Except that impact isn’t everything, not if the price includes a loss of credibility and trust amongst one’s electorate. Even if Galloway does raise the profile of the campaigns and the party he represents he is also there to represent his electors: that needs to be seen as his principal priority. This is not to suggest Galloway has not shown himself to be a good local campaigner but that is not enough. He has to be both an extra parliamentary campaigner and a constituency MP who actively represents his constituents within parliament. Galloway cannot afford to be complacent and take his constituents for granted.
I hope George proves me wrong but whatever the outcome, Respect has to stop being seen as the Galloway party and stop relying so much on the power of stunts and rhetoric. .
2 comments:
A very fair comment, I think. My own take is that the longer-term downside on this will be limited, precisely because BB is a tat TV show. It's anecdotal, but reactions on the doorstep in BG&B have been much more muted and diverse than the Labour Party are trying to claim.
Good to hear it. Despite the cringe making shenanigans reported by the press the coverage, particularly in the Independent, has been predictably hypocritical. The independent whinges on about how GG will offend his older, more conservative constituents. These are precisely the same commentators who moan about Respect pandering to the conservatism of the Muslim community. These attacks are then twinned with partisan comments from New Labour figures like Dennis McShane.
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