In the Ukraine, orange is the colour of the "Orange Revolution"*. Here in Britain, it is the colour of Gorgeous George Galloway M.P.: narcissist and loony... Oh, and big fan of Saddam Hussein, to whom he said, in 1994: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." It should be noted that he later said he meant courageous, strong and indefatigable in a bad way.
So what is this member of the Mother of Parliaments doing in the Celebrity Big Brother household?!? Well... it's actually rather in character. Listen, gentle reader, while I tell the tale of Jinky George Galloway, terror of the Charity Commission and friend of dictators.
Lately, he has been known as the Honourable Member for Baghdad Central, but he kicked off his career amongst the arabs of Dundee, which in the 1960s and 70s was the Newark or South-Side Chicago of Scotland. Corruption was rife amongst politicians, police, business.. even the fire service. I used to listen to the tales of one of the protagonists in awe and wonder. I am not saying for one moment that the extremely litigious George Galloway was in any way involved in all that stuff: there is every chance, I suppose, that he was the innocent and upstanding Gary Cooper figure amidst the graft. By complete coincidence, however, I believe that it was during his Dundee period that he became General Secretary of War on Want. By further coincidence it was bankrupted, doubtless nothing to do with George's tens of thousands of pounds' worth of luxury hotel stays and the Charity Commission's findings that for the last three years of his term the charity was insolvent.
The rest you probably know: the unpopularity with his consitituency parties and the 12th poorest voting and speaking record of any MP in parliament (of those below him, the Speaker and his deputies cannot vote, the five Sinn Fein members refuse to attend, and two others died shortly afterwards). He was expelled from Labour for urging insurgents to attack British soldiers, and urging the latter to mutiny. He is a self-confessed Stalinist who supported gay rights only until Islamicist money was on offer, when he executed a prompt volte-face.
And there is the ongoing fandango over just how much money he made, directly or indirectly, from Saddam Hussein and the oil sanctions regime. Not to mention the shady affair of the Mariam Appeal: another Galloway charity which paid for his flights and hotels, and which never produced accounts and avoided oversight by not registering as a charity.
Oh, I could go on. but you get the point. He is popularist, opportunist, as right-wing as he claims to be left-wing, ridiculous, sad, smart, self-obssessed, oratorically gifted, an admirer of dictators and a failure in all he does. He is today's Oswald Mosley. He is a narcissist of the worst sort.
And now he is on Celebrity Big Brother, apparently uncertain whether he is more attracted to Jodie Marsh, Faria Alam or Dennis Rodman. His take of the profits is giong to Interpal, his nominated charity, for whom, of course, he has done work. He is doing a good job of bringing the democratic institutions that he as a Stalinist loathes into disrepute. His constituents, who no longer have a representative in Parliament now that he is in the BB house, have been demonstrating.
I am too depressed to go on. In wouldn't happen in the US, surely? No Senator - surely not even a Congressman - would submit himself to this sort of ongoing public ridicule. Even the French have retained a bit of gravitas amidst the anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism of their political culture.
His constituents need not bother themselves to demonstrate too loudly: he is up for eviction already, and surely his time is short, even when up against Ms Marsh. I only hope that, before he goes, he salutes Dennis Rodman for his courage, his strength, his indefatigability...
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*OK, in the western Ukraine. Rather less popular in the ethnically Russian bits.