George Galloway's alive and well...

Despite Gorgeous George's eviction from the Big Brother house and meeting a clearly mixed reaction (he wasn't the only one either), I'm convinced Galloway's career is far, far from over. Politicians are tough cookies and this one is one of the steeliest amongst them. Expect a serious fight...

Galloway is a figure most people either love or hate, although I seem to be somewhat the exception here: I do both.

What is it exactly that so riles a lot of people? I find it hard to define because it seems to be very much at the emotive level. Some will invoke Galloway's alleged ties to the Hussein regime but that's spurious reasoning: Galloway wasn't a Saddam stooge, as he's convincingly proven himself. The fraud allegations? We've heard a lot of these recently including a £150,000 libel case which Galloway convincingly won and a crushing victory in the US Senate against similar allegations. We'll have to see how the recent SFO affair pans out but I'm not too worried for George and promise to eat my hat if I'm proven wrong. And the gutter press, usually rather unperturbed about what goes on outside the self-tittilating celebrity bubble, are all of a sudden quick to rehash old pics of Galloway meeting Hussein: devoid of context, it only serves to sell more bogpaper, of course...

Was Galloway wrong to participate in "da house"? Only in the sense that shows like BB are amongst the stupidest things ever published, bar perhaps The X-Factor. Or aren't these things quite as stupid as I'd like to them make out to be? Perhaps it's me that's being stupid? You could easily argue that, in the sense that Endemol UK have created a licence to print money from thin air. Mercilessly exploiting and adding to our already celeb obsessed "culture", however, poses in the long run rather a threat to what society stands for: trivialising the serious and making the serious a trivial matter, to be confined to late night spots for "boffins and geeks", can do us no good. It's a scorched-earth tactic: grab it while you can! A world for juveniles only...

Besides, anyone who opens a sentence with: "I'm a great person and I've a lot of love in my heart" deserves shooting at dawn, unreservedly. Effing egotrippers! "Chantelle" may be a "nice person", I don't know, but does that deserve celebrity status?

The "cat incident" merely showed that all participants were able to make complete idiots of themselves in equal measure, it rather seems to be the object of the show, apart of course from trying to catch a couple whilst having "nookie" and chicken feeding the string'm up press with big bucks non-stories.

Then there was the general condemnation from the political world that merely shows that many there are prejudiced and have ulterior motives. The consensus seemed to be that Galloway was now effectively politically dead. They wish...

Galloway's MP salary was suspended during his stay and that means he was on holiday, during which period he's entitled to do as he pleases.

For any Lib Dems involved in the "cry wolf" game, I'd rather shut up if I was them right now since as they've shown themselves to be a rather internecine, drinking, lying and whoring bunch. Effectively politically dead are the words that spring to mind. And I actually gave you my vote a couple of times, you mingers. Who'll be devouring most of the corpse, the Brairites or the Cameblairons?

So what do I like about Galloway?

His unrelenting and articulate opposition to the Iraq war for one. Whenever New Right Labour has to defend their Iraq policy, they roll out some young Turk who then gets invariably and indelibly mauled by George.

A dissident who got evicted from New Labour, started his own party and led it to considerable election success is another.

He'll be back, I'm sure of it and he's got my support. Hasta la vista, George...

Keywords: Galloway, Big Brother, Iraq, Celebrity