So will Nigel Farage’s third place in I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! rocket him to the forefront of British politics?
Richard Tice, the slightly sinister smoothie who leads Reform UK, is convinced that it will.
‘What Nigel getting into the final has shown is that he’s in touch with the people and that the people like him — unlike most politicians in Westminster, who are completely out of touch with the people and disliked by the people,’ he said.
‘This provides the most remarkable platform for him to come and help save Britain…’
I wonder. History suggests otherwise. Being liked on a reality show does not necessarily lead to No 10. Matt Hancock came third last year, but I sense no great support for his return to the Cabinet. He then went on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, squelched about in mud for three weeks, and came second.
No doubt we will soon be seeing him on Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, competing against a former Radio 2 disc-jockey and someone from Emergency Ward 10. However well he does, it will lead to nothing.
The truth is that doing well on reality TV equips you only for more appearances on reality TV.
So will Nigel Farage ‘s third place in I’m A Celebrity. . . Get Me Out Of Here! (pictured) rocket him to the forefront of British politics?
Back in 2014, Edwina Currie came fourth on I’m A Celebrity, but it failed to relaunch her political career. Instead, she embarked on a non-stop round of other celebrity reality shows: Celebrity Wife Swap, Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes, Hell’s Kitchen, Celebrity Come Dine With Me, and so on.
Who knows where she is now? Perhaps she is all set to come third on the 5th series of Celebrity Stomach Pump on Icelandic TV. But, however well she does, I doubt it will rocket her to a seat on her local village council.
Odd people do well on reality TV, then vanish from memory. Dougie Poynter, Charlie Brooks, Kian Egan, Danny Miller, Giovanna Fletcher: they are all listed as past winners of I’m A Celebrity.
As a regular viewer, I must have had strong feelings about them at the time, but I now struggle to put a face to them, or to remember anything at all about them.
Popularity on reality tv barely lasts beyond the closing titles.
I watched last year’s I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! three or four times a week, but, a year on, I couldn’t tell you who was on it, or even who won.
The only contestants I can remember are Boy George and Matt Hancock, but heaven knows what they said or did.
Television has a curious habit of by-passing the memory. At the end of this year’s I’m A Celebrity, I was even struggling to remember the contestants who left a week ago.
Remarkably, Sam Thompson, the winner of this year’s, told Ant and Dec that he had watched every single series of the show since it started, back in 2002.
The truth is that doing well on reality TV equips you only for more appearances on reality TV. Pictured: Farage enjoys a glass of bubbly after finishing third on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here
Will he be scoffing kangaroo anus, in the hope that, one day, it might propel him back to No 10?
If this is true, then by the time he entered the jungle a few weeks ago, Thompson would have watched the show for roughly 726 hours.
Couldn’t he have found something better to do with his time?
The Foreign Service Institute estimates that it takes the average person just 600 hours to learn French, Italian or Spanish, and only 575 hours to learn Swedish or Dutch. The German language, being slightly more complicated, takes 750 hours to master — or one extra series of I’m A Celebrity.
We are all guilty. The average Briton watches television for three and a half hours a day, or 1,277 hours a year.
If TV had never been invented, I wouldn’t have watched Nadine Dorries on I’m A Celebrity or Ann Widdecombe on Strictly Come Dancing or Ed Balls on Celebrity Best Home Cook or Lembit Opik on All Star Mr And Mrs, and I would now have an extra nine years of my life to put to good use.
Oddly enough, Ant and Dec are five years older than Rishi Sunak. In ten years’ time they will still be chuckling merry away as they watch celebrities gulping down witchetty grubs.
And what will poor old Rishi be up to?
Will he be scoffing kangaroo anus, in the hope that, one day, it might propel him back to No 10?
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