“We need to use new and innovative methods to put across our arguments,” he said. “I believe Celebrity Big Brother will be hugely successful for our ideals.”

Right then, hands up all those who are now familiar with Respect’s policy on local government finance. How about housing and the homeless? And surely Galloway managed to get in a word about the party’s pioneering ideas on sport and recreation?

Alas no, but it seems very likely that in years to come old folk will still be sitting around the fireside and reminiscing about the time the honourable member for Bethnal Green and Bow pretended to be a little pussycat licking pretend cream from an actress’s cupped hands. And let’s not forget the time he pranced about in a red leotard; not to mention his row with Michael Barrymore or the day he dressed up as Dracula.

Why oh why did he do it? He wasn’t just pitching for the politically untouched: Galloway also said that he was doing it “for Palestine”. And no doubt Palestine would have been very grateful if it had not had more urgent matters to attend to. Because while Galloway was playing with the Big Brother dressing-up box, Palestine was very busy with proper politics: electing a radical new government.

The sorry truth is that in just 20 days Galloway has transformed himself from a crusading MP into a comic turn. Before Big Brother many people probably found him rather irritating and wanted to see a good deal less of him. Others might have admired his combative style and wondered whether he had a point about the Iraq war. From now on, though, it will strain self-discipline to breaking point just to think about him without either gagging or giggling.

It is just over eight months since he was carried shoulder high after snatching the safe Labour seat of Bethnal Green and Bow from Oona King, one of the brightest of the 1997 new Labour intake. But much of that goodwill seems to have evaporated in the constituency.

Sadek Rana, 30, a shopkeeper who voted for Galloway last year, now feels let down.

“He wasn’t representing us when he was dressed up performing as a cat on TV; it was embarrassing,” he complained. “I feel he has taken me for a ride.”

Muhammad Abdul Bari, chairman of the East London Mosque and one of the area’s most senior Muslim leaders, is “puzzled” by his MP’s performance.

“This is one of the most deprived constituencies,” he said. “It was a bit inconsiderate of him to become unavailable like that.

“Also the decency issue would have upset a lot of the Muslim constituents in the borough. It was all embarrassing and we did not vote him to do that kind of stuff.”

Yet there is one person who seems breezily unaffected by all this embarrassment: Galloway. He brushed off his antics with Rula Lenska with the words: “I’d rather be a cat than a poodle.”

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