John Prescott - you know, the easily-recognisable former Deputy Prime Minister, the one best remembered for thumping a voter in 2001 - has admitted that more people know him from his appearance in mildly amusing Welsh sitcom Gavin And Stacey than from anywhere else. Given that he's been involved in political campaigning for 40 years, doesn't that make you want to do this?
On the other hand... surely anything that helps voter recognition is good? People of my generation will remember the time Neil Kinnock popped up in a Tracey Ullman video. And then there was Mrs Thatcher's appearance on Saturday morning kids' TV, where she tried in vain to silence a tenacious little girl who was arguing that we didn't need to spend so much on the nuclear deterrent. (Where is that girl now? Let's hope she went into politics in some form.)
In a week when it's been revealed - shockingly - that one-third of students, first-time voters and supposedly educated ones at that, don't know that Gordon Brown is leader of the Labour Party, we perhaps need more politicians popping up on prime-time comedy shows to boost their profiles. What next - Nick Clegg on BBC3's Two Pints of Lager and One Almost Funny Joke, or Caroline Lucas of the Green Party doing a turn on Mock The Week?...
Those same students, by the way, thought the lovely Joanna Lumley would do a good job in politics - presumably inspired by her sterling work for the Gurkhas. X Marks The Box thinks Joanna would be a good choice, too - but in her role as Sapphire from fantastic ITV sci-fi show Sapphire And Steel, where she frequently battled the forces of Darkness, read minds, and could turn time back by the sheer force of her will. Now what politician wouldn't want her on side - blue dress or no blue dress?...
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