LONDON — Journalism isn’t a job, it’s a calling.
That’s why, when Tory troubling right-wing populist and Brexiteer-in-chief Nigel Farage got sent to the Australian jungle to star in reality TV fixture “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!” POLITICO just had to answer.
The long-running British show sees contestants shipped down under to face a host of gruelling tasks in a bid to triumph in a public vote and be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle, under the same rules the governing Conservative Party uses to pick prime ministers (editors please check).
While Farage — just the latest British politician to try and become in any way likeable on the show — didn’t take home the crown, coming a respectable third on Sunday night, his stint in the jungle did offer plenty of eye-opening moments. And the show is a potential springboard back into the public eye for Farage and the Reform Party as a British election looms.
We did our duty and gathered the “best” moments from the story of the century.
Brexit bust-up
Did Nigel Farage help wreck the British economy with Brexit? It’s too early to say, your POLITICO correspondents write while crunching on a communal turnip from a burned-out bus shelter.
But it was certainly the charge from fellow contestant and celebrity maître d’hôtel Fred Sirieix, who took the ex-UKIP (and potential future Conservative) leader to task over the toll leaving the EU took on life in the U.K.
In one of several genuinely tense clashes about his record, Sirieix interrupted a Farage monologue to say: “The thing is, Nigel, you destroyed the economy.”
Farage snapped back that this was “absolute bollocks,” pointing out that things aren’t exactly sunshine and lollipops in the eurozone either.
And he said of Brexit: “The point about it is we can make a mess of it ourselves if we choose to.” Put that on a red campaign bus.
After some intense Brexit chat, one contestant later confided in the camera crew that she actually liked Farage more upon learning he’d been a member of the European Parliament, the first time that’s ever happened to anyone.
Farage the ladies’ man
Speaking of the European Parliament, did you know it’s one hell of an aprhodisiac?
Yep, it’s not all sub-committees and bribery scandals. Farage — a longstanding critic of the perks afforded to MEPs — at one point shocked campmates by reeling off the lavish expenses, “chauffeur-driven Mercedes” and “wonderful crab and lobster buffets” he enjoyed as a Brussels lawmaker/irritant.
“You are treated like the elite,” he added, before dropping in one more perk of Brussels life: “Women throwing themselves at you.”
Campmate Josie Gibson later told viewers in her nightly video log she hadn’t expected Farage to be “the lady magnet that he is — but sounds like to me he’s had to bat them off at one point.” We’ve all been there.
Stop it and tidy up
From the state of the British economy to the entirely separate subject of giant rat-infested piles of trash, Farage contained multitudes.
He raised eyebrows as he took his fellow contestants to task for the sorry state of the camp, warning that cleaning efforts had become “slack, slovenly and bloody stupid.”
The result of all this? A bin bag being “attacked by a vermin of some kind,” which coincidentally is how your POLITICO authors’ brains feels writing this.
Eating penis pizza
Sorry, esteemed readers, but it’s that kind of show.
A central gimmick of “I’m a Celebrity” is its “Bushtucker trials,” a set of gross-out challenges contestants must undertake to win food for their camp.
Farage duly got into the swing of things as he chomped on a penis pizza, topped with bull, pig, sheep and crocodile appendages. Asked if he’d previously sampled the delicacy, Farage said: “Not regularly, no. This would not be top of the list.”
And he later pondered: “Good god, is this what it’s come to?” It surely was.
Please watch me
What’s the point of gorging on all those animal wangs and moaning about rats if you’re not going to get on the telly? In one campsite exchange, Farage confided in fellow contestant Grace Dent that he had a cunning plan to grow Brand Nigel.
“If you do the challenges, it’s 25 percent of the airtime,” he said. “I’m looking at reaching a whole new audience.”
Puzzlingly, viewing figures for the show are way down on last year.
Anti-immigration flashpoint
Here’s a more serious one. This is definitely real journalism. Yep.
Farage clashed with campmate Nella Rose on his attitudes to immigration, the hot-button issue on which Farage currently has the Conservatives spooked all over again.
Rose, a YouTube star, accused Farage of being anti-immigrant, and said the right-winger wanted people like her “gone” from the U.K. She asked Farage bluntly: “Why don’t Black people like you?”
“You’d be amazed, they do,” Farage contested, arguing that controlling immigration doesn’t make you anti-immigrant.
“So everyone hates you for no reason?” Rose asked. The pair … agreed to disagree.
Anti-immigrant flashing point
Probably best if you just watch this one, really, because we’ve accidentally gouged out our eyes and now typing is difficult. Pulitzer nomination details are here.