Paul Kingsnorth

I know I can't let go, but I have been musing on Gorgeous George's recent whinge about Channel Four 'censoring' his political views while he was in the Big Brother House. He only went in there to get his message out to Tha Kidz, you see, and the chance was cruelly denied him.

Oddly enough, I think George might be on to something here. We know that politicians are increasingly jittery about low election turnouts and voter 'apathy' (read: lack of interest in them), especially amongst the young. According to the BBC, more 18-34 year olds voted in the 2004 Big Brother final than in the 2005 general election. Overpriced and idiotic consultants employed by political parties to respond to this have come up with all sorts of hilarious ways to get Tha Kidz back into politics, including voting by text message and tattooing political slogans onto Fifty Cent's Big Chest. But nothing seems to be working.

So what if George was right - what if BB really is a good place start getting politics back onto Tha Street? Galloway's problem was that Channel Four used broadcasting regulations against him, claiming that they couldn't broadcast his opinions about how misunderstood Saddam is, because they were required by law to broadcast a 'balancing opinion' too. There's an obvious way around this problem: put together a genuinely political Big Brother, in which all sides of the spectrum are represented.

Here's what we do. We fill the house with people who eat, sleep, live and breathe politics, and who are also guaranteed to hate each other. The ensuing intellectual conflagration will ensure high 18-34 turnout come May, not to mention utterly compulsive viewing in the meantime. My initial suggestions for housemates are Tony Benn, George Monbiot, Arthur Scargill, Dianne Abbott, Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips, Richard Littlejohn and Jeremy Clarkson. To add the necessary transatlantic glamour we import Michael Moore and Ann Coulter.

Hey presto: unmissable telly! Day 4. 7.34pm. The Housemates are arguing in the log cabin. George says climate change is the single most urgent problem facing humanity, but Arthur says his bourgeois sensibilities have blinded him to the centrality of class struggle. Melanie says that climate change is a communist plot to bring down Western society. Peter says that none of this would have happened if it was still 1953, and that everybody should be strung up.

Fab. I'd watch! Though I'd turn down any invitation to appear myself. Someone's got to learn from Galloway's mistakes - it's not as if he will. Besides, I wouldn't get out of bed for anything less than Celebrity Love Island. It's important to know your own value.