Political Menagerie

This thing about the Tory Chicken... is it for real? Like, seriously? I was twelve at the time and wasn't even in the country, so I really have no personal memory of it whatsoever. It looks a bit, ahem, silly. In a pefectly respectable serious politics way, of course. But still. Silly.

And if it did really happen, surely it renders the argument that the proposed tv show 'Political Idol' will undermine politics just slightly null and void.

Not that I'm casting in my lot in support of 'Political Idol' because I'm not. On the one hand attempting to bring politics further into popular mainstream media can be nothing but a good thing. On the other, it sounds like bad television, and there's not much excuse for that. It also worries me that a significant chunk of the public might end up basing its opinion on what so-and-so's hair was like rather than what his/her policies were. There's probably a study around somewhere, but how many people pay attention to the content on tv as opposed to the charisma of the respective presenters?

Maybe they should have a political 'Big Brother' show instead. That way they could take the chickens along for the ride and attain some level of comedy value. Mr. Blobby was never anything but incredibly annoying, but he was certainly far more entertaining than the likes of Gareth Gates.