Weekly News: George Galloway, Peter McDonagh, Steve Wright

I’ll tell you a secret about Big Brother: he has small dressing rooms. George Galloway and his family were crammed in with me, the night he was evicted from the show. I’d been invited onto the late-night debate, Big Brother Big Mouth, to deliver some candid opinions on the MP’s performance, and when I realised we were going to be sharing a very small space for the next 20 minutes I was uneasy.

It was obvious I wasn’t there to tell viewers how wonderful the people’s representative for Bethnal Green and Bow had been. And Gorgeous George had not come across as a mild-tempered man during his stint on the show. A pussycat, yes, but not a bundle of fluff.

But within moments he had charmed me. He’s an easy man to relax around, a natural politician and a shameless flatterer. He happily told me how much he admired me, how fascinating he found my powers... that might be true and it might not, but only an old schmoozer or a young flirt looks you in the eye that way to say it. And I sincerely hope George wasn’t flirting with me.

I got the impression that George is a master manipulator, though he met his match in Big Brother. The producers tried every possible trick to show him in a bad light, while casting Chantelle as an Essex angel. Believe me, if they’d wanted you to hate her and adore Jodie, it could easily have been done.

They have four dozen cameras filming 24 hours a day — that’s six weeks of footage to fill each hour-long show. Do you really think the highlights are picked by accident? George became a national hate-figure as he lapped imaginary milk from Rula Lenska’s hands... but I predict he’s supercharged his career.

Without a shadow of doubt his earning power has tripled, and he’s more famous than almost anyone in the House of Commons. He is enjoying the kind of notoriety where all publicity is good publicity — though I didn’t endear myself to him on the Big Mouth show.

I told presenter Russell Brand that George’s outrageous behaviour had demeaned the British voter. The MP turned away and didn’t speak to me again... though I did hear him mumble a short sentence that ended with the word, “Israeli!”

My visit to the Beeb came at the tail-end of 72 whirlwind hours that began on a private jet to Dublin and climaxed when I launched myself into the boxing ring at the National Stadium to celebrate with the new lightweight champion of Ireland, my protege Peter McDonagh.

We flew in a sumptuous £20m plane provided by my friend, the property magnate Patrick Rocca. The carpet was four inches deep, the walls were panelled in walnut, the couches were leather... it was a palace with wings.
“Win tomorrow night,” I told Peter, “and I guarantee I’ll fly you to your next flight in a plane like this, even if it’s in New York. Limos are for the other guys... the losers!”

The drama was mounting as we reached the weigh-in. Peter’s opponent, former British super-featherweight champion Michael Gomez, took exception to my presence on Peter’s team, and threatened to bend his jaw like a spoon, right then and there. Peter brought his fists up and the promoter had to wrestle them apart.

If that was Gomez’s idea of psyching someone out, he’d picked the wrong lad. Peter had lost seven of his last eight fights, but together we had turned his mind around. There was only one option in his brain: winning.

The atmosphere was electric, with some of the biggest names in Irish boxing on the scene. Veteran broadcaster Jimmy Magee, who covered the Munich Olympics in 1972 among other highlights of a 50-year career, regaled me with stories. Frank Maloney, the promoter, told me he was such a sceptic about the paranormal that nothing would change his mind, even if I became invisible on the spot, And Big Joe Egan, once called the ‘toughest white man on the planet’ by Mike Tyson, was signing copies of his book.

The National Stadium felt like the set of a Thirties movie as the fight started. There were men who could only have been gangsters, and girls with them who had to be molls. And the fight was an old-fashioned pummelling too, with Peter getting the worst of it for three rounds before Gomez’s fury started to burn itself out.

In the fifth, Peter slammed a punch into his opponent’s face so hard I expected to be showered with teeth. Gomez was dead on his feet and tried to stagger back to his corner, under a vicious battering. The referee declared a technical knock-out, the bookies gnashed their gums and the commentators looked horrified to see the favourite KO’d. It was such an upset that the powers-that-be have demanded an investigation. Peter simply got down on his knees and wept for joy, and as I cavorted in the ring he told everyone that I’d taught him how to win.

The fact is that this boy is his own best teacher. And he’s the champion of Ireland.