Anthony Clavane: Perhaps the Brexit Party should adopt the slogan ‘I’m a Z-list Celebrity - Get Me Out of Europe’

The former Conservative MP is one of a long line of politicians who have used such TV programmes to boost their profiles whilst taking a break, sometimes permanently, from Westminster. Who can forget Ed Balls’ Gangnam Style dance on Strictly Come Dancing, Michael Fabricant looking for love on First Dates and Penny Mordaunt making a splash on, er, Splash?

I’d certainly like to forget those excruciating moments.

Most of all I’d like to forget – but once seen, it’s simply impossible to erase from the memory – the sight of a purring George Galloway crawling on all fours, pretending to be a cat, licking cream from Rula Lenska’s hands as she stroked his head on Celebrity Big Brother.

It turned out that Widdecombe was, in fact, simply announcing her return to the political fray as a candidate for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. I can’t wait for next week, when Farage welcomes a TOWIE star, a former extra on EastEnders and Timmy Mallet’s second cousin twice removed as candidates for his latest anti-EU vehicle in the forthcoming Euro elections.

Perhaps the newly-formed party should adopt the slogan ‘I’m a Z-List Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Europe’.

In these bewildering times, I often recall that great moment in the film Back To The Future when Doc Brown shouts: “Then tell me, future boy, who’s president of the United States?“ The Doc almost explodes with mirth when Marty tells him. “Ronald Reagan?” he screams. “The actor? Then who’s vice-president? Jerry Lewis?”

That was in 1985. In 2019, the reality show host Donald Trump is president of the world’s most powerful country. Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky recently scored a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election. In Italy, jokester Beppe Grillo runs the Five Star Movement. Marjan Sarec, a veteran stand-up, heads the Slovenian government. And it is four years since funnyman Jimmy Morales swept to power in Guatemala.

So it’s a bit rich when political commentators start laying into comedians, actors and other entertainers for having the temerity to appear on Question Time.

About a year ago I took Jeremy Corbyn fans to task for objecting to Tracey Ullman making fun of the People’s Jezza. So, in the interests of political balance, I’d like to call out those on the humourless right who have been frothing at the mouth at the very thought of “left-wing luvvies” expressing their views on climate change, the Daily Mail and the overthrow of capitalism.

First they had a pop at the “smug, self-serving and sanctimonious” Emma Thompson for joining green demonstrators in London. The Sense and Sensibility star admitted the protests were inconveniencing people but argued that the Suffragettes had “disrupted an awful lot of people’s lives in order to get something that we now take for granted”. How outrageous of her.

Then they had a pop at Nish Kumar for defending his satirical show The Mash Report, which had been blasted by the Daily Mail for its “anti-Conservative propaganda”. How ridiculous of him.

And there were calls for the BBC to take Frankie Boyle’s New World Order off the air after the Scot gave a platform to writer George Monbiot to say: “We have to overthrow this system which is eating the planet with perpetual growth.” Just preposterous.

But what really was outrageous, ridiculous and preposterous was the denigration of 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg.

Spectator journalist Toby Young expressed his anger towards the teenage role model on Twitter. A Spiked columnist dubbed her a “weirdo” and wrote that she was “chilling” and sounded “like a cult member”.

But her biggest crime of all, according to one right-wing diarist, was that “her father is an actor, producer, and author, and Eurovision fans will remember her mother for representing Sweden in the 2009 final.”

Clearly, the fact that her parents are in showbiz automatically disqualifies the inspirational youngster from warning the world about the ecological crisis and fighting for the planet’s future.

Who said the right doesn’t have a sense of humour?