Matt Hancock is to join a long list of politicians who have ventured into the world of reality TV - but what's his real reason for doing so?
There’s been a variety of appearances on other shows, including current leader of thePenny Mordaunt on the diving show Splash!, former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe on Strictly Come Dancing and ex-Labour MP Oona King on Dancing on Ice.
Aside from increasing their profile, there’s also the fee involved – Dugdale admitted last week that cash was the motivating factor for her appearance as she faced funding a legal case.Reports have suggested Hancock will receive a hefty £400,000, which will perhaps cushion the blow of having the whip promptly removed after his participation was announced.
“I don’t think the solution is to send politicians occasionally on reality TV shows,” she said. “The solution should be for mainstream politicians to think ‘well what is that is excluding people from participation in formal politics and how can we make the barriers to entry lower’ – not ‘let’s go on Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity as another way to get our messages out’.
But she added: “I think it is very, very difficult to predict what your experience is going to be like, and what the consequences of participation are going to be like.There's also been those who have made the transition from reality shows to politics – most famously, Donald Trump, whose hosting of The Apprentice in the US helped raise his profile on the way to the White House.
“How odd is it that we treat it as abnormal the idea that somebody ordinary could be a representative for us in a democracy, which is, of course, the way it is meant to be,” she said.
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