Strictly no way I’ll be dancing
HERE’S an exclusive. I will not be appearing on the new series of Strictly.
I know, I know, I’m just as disappointed as you are, and just as dumbfounded. I mean, surely I satisfy the criteria – middle-aged, overweight, two left feet, at the fag-end of a mediocre career, desperately in need of publicity and money (but not the extramarital hanky-panky with a supple woman half my age).
OK, hardly anyone apart from you and my mother has heard of me – which, by the way, makes me a shoo-in for Pointless Celebrities.
But Ed Balls is only well-known because of his ridiculous name.
Go on then, what was his job in the Shadow Cabinet? You thought he played centre-half for Barnsley in the 1960s? Actually, yes, I can see why you might think that.
Anyway, I am of course secretly delighted not to have been asked because I have never watched the show and only know about it from what I see on the news. (I suppose if someone tumbling their wulkies on a mat in Brazil is considered news, why not some fat bloke in spangly matador trousers?)
But entirely on that secondhand basis I am happy to
The line between real life and politics is already too fuzzy
pronounce Strictly a load of old tosh. I mean, who wants to watch a programme about amateurs doing things badly? Don’t we get enough of that on Sportscene?
On a more serious note, I wonder if our new Prime Minister should institute a ban on politicians degrading themselves on what they call, with no sense of irony, reality TV.
The line between real life (what politics is actually about, folks) and showbiz is already far too fuzzy for our own good.
It all started with Denis Healey playing the piano on the Nationwide panto back when Sue Lawley was every schoolboy’s fantasy. Now we have a reality TV character – apparently wearing Healey’s eyebrows on his head – making a serious bid for the White House. Where will it all end? Well, global conflagration is certainly a possibility. But domestically I’m taking it for granted that Blair and Cameron will eventually do I’m A Celebrity. And who then would rule out Prime Minister Ant and Dec?
They would hardly be No. 10’s first unfunny double act.