On the 12 of October 1979, a revolution in television occurred. A man sat down to introduce a relatively new talk show. He had prepared for it well in advance and the arrival of the show on the airwaves and his inclusion in it had been seen as both a novelty and a true moment of change. The programme was Friday Night, Saturday Morning and the man in question was Britain’s former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

The relationship between politicians and TV has always been an awkward one. Television arrived at a time when many of the leading politicians in British public life saw the wireless (or radio to the younger amongst you!) as a new innovation that seemed to be at odds with what politics and being a politician was about. The House of Commons and its inhabitants understood the printed word and its power but the revolution in sound and vision that came in the 20th century was totally unexpected and for a while, no one was sure how to handle it. Interviews with the Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition would often be intently deferential, attempting not to seem as if they were questioning the politicians too closely. This began to change in the 1960s in part due to the success of the celebrated Cambridge Footlight Review Beyond The Fringe that launched the careers of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennet and Jonathan Miller. One of the highlights of the show was Cook’s withering caricature of the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Deference began to die. It would seep into television with the launch of That Was The Week That Was, headed by David Frost. Frost and company would ruthlessly mock the government and opposition on a regular basis and the lack of deference was such that the BBC ensured that the programme was pulled before the 1964 General Election, for fear that it might interfere with the result. Harold Wilson himself understood the power of TV during that election; at the instance of his Political Secretary Marcia Williams, Wilson telephoned the Director General of the BBC to ask that Steptoe and Son not be shown on polling day, for fear that it would prevent late voters from casting their ballot.

That was the Week That Was broke new ground.

Over a decade later, Wilson would be in the host’s chair himself for Friday Night, Saturday Morning. Wilson’s two guest presenting outings however did not go well – he failed to build a rapport with several of his guests and left rather awkward pauses in between his questions. In part, this was likely due to the live nature of the programme; Wilson’s previous successful TV outing with David Frost, A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers, filmed to tie in with Wilson’s book on the same subject, had been a recorded documentary with Frost providing questions for Wilson to answer. Wilson’s rather awkward handling of the Friday Night, Saturday Morning programme was also likely as a result of the first stages of the Alzheimer’s disease he was to be diagnosed with in later life. Wilson’s venture onto the small screen would not in itself set a precedent. His immediate successors as Prime Minister didn’t venture to host TV shows or appear on them aside from when they were being interviewed about the politics of the day. Yet, it placed in the mind of future politicians the possibility that television could be a useful means of increasing their exposure to the public – particularly if they had fallen from favour.

Fast forward to the 1990s and, like in the 1960s, Britain was experiencing a political change with the advent of New Labour. A new type of television show was also beginning to emerge, one that placed emphasis on reality, on being totally transparent and seeming to lack any editing or intervention on behalf of the people featured in it to make it look positive for them. One of the pioneers of this technique was Louis Theroux and his series Weird Weekends. The series quite rightly turned Theroux into an instant star. Theroux’s approach to documentaries and the way he dealt with his contributors was unlike anything that had been seen before on television. Theroux’s decision to turn his attention to meeting celebrities at the turn of the century seemed like an obvious one and there were more than a few willing Conservative MPs and former MPs who were more than happy to allow Theroux into their lives. In the first series of When Louis Met… he would spend time with the Hamiltons, Neil and Christine. Neil Hamilton, first elected as an MP in 1983 would become the subject of one of the late 1990s’ most infamous Conservative sleaze stories, namely that of the cash for questions inquiry in which it was found Hamilton had taken bribes to ask questions on behalf of the then Harrods Owner Mohammed Al-Fayed. The affair had eventually led to Hamilton’s defeat as an MP in the 1997 General Election – Theroux’s programme was seen by the husband and wife as an attempt to revive their reputations; this ultimately failed as the Hamiltons were arrested mid-way through filming on a false charge of sexual offences. The popularity of Theroux’s series would encourage others to follow in the Hamilton’s footsteps, presumably hoping for better results. Anne Widdecombe’s appearance in the second series of When Louis Met… only seemed to further cause the public to dislike Widdecombe, who proclaimed that the programme was “doomed to failure” seemed apt given that neither her nor her party succeeded in winning the 2001 General Election, the documentary being filmed prior to when Widdecombe was still Shadow Home Secretary.

You might think that the failures of Wilson, the Hamiltons and Widdecombe to fully master taking over TV outside politics would have put others off. This wasn’t to be the case and indeed in 2006, then sitting MP George Galloway went one step further than other British politicians had gone before and entered the Big Brother house. Galloway’s three-week stint on Big Brother continued to keep Galloway’s name in the minds of the public and the press yet his antics certainly weren’t met with approval by his colleagues. Whilst television was seen as useful to politicians, the way it was used could often be looked down upon by some MPs, particularly those who saw entering politics as a means of serving their constituents and not a launch pad for a media career.

Yet the attraction still remained and Galloway’s escapades on Big Brother perhaps set another precedent; that sitting MPs could get in on the act of appearing on reality TV for an extended length of time. In 2010 Tower Block of Commons aired on Channel 4. The premise was that four MPs (two Conservative MPs and one Lib Dem and one Labour MP) would live in a tower block. This would be seen as both enthralling and disgusting in equal measure by both MPs and the media. The four-part series came in the middle of an era of poverty porn documentaries produced by Channel 4 and other channels that would reach its height in 2014 – 15 with Channel 4’s Benefits Street. It would also be the first time that one Nadine Dorries would appear on reality TV though it would be far from her last appearance. Dorries would prove to be a front runner of what now seems to be an accepted part of our politics – getting yourself on telly.

Nadine Dorries was forced to apologise to MPs following her appearance on ITV’s hit show.

Dorries’ next appearance on TV would be one that almost ended her career; her 2012 appearance on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Dorries decision to enter the jungle was widely criticized both in Parliament and in the press, with her losing the Conservative whip as a result. Dorries held firm however and since then, this embracing of reality TV has become the norm.

The blurring of the line between politics and entertainment on TV has accelerated in the past few years with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage’s appearances on television whilst being elected politicians echoed across the Atlantic by Donald Trump’s rise to the Presidency. It would be easy to blame this on one individual or on one trend, but it isn’t. It’s the result of a cultural shift that embraces as much as possible the need to make political discourse and entertainment the same thing. The rise of GB News and the fact several Conservative MPs have been able to host shows on there whilst serving as MPs further demonstrates how the line between TV and politics has firmly been shattered. Some may see this as a good thing – that MPs are able to address a wider audience, yet the question over the motivation of such MPs must surely be questioned.

A fresh-faced MP appearing on Have I Got News for You long before he would take charge of the country.

.It’s fair to say then that politics and TV have become more intertwined in the past decade. Exposing the exact nature of the political system isn’t a bad thing. What is a bad thing is if a job that can change the lives of people across this country, if done well for the betterment of us all, is viewed solely as a means of starting a TV career or finding fame of some sort or another. Television is a wonderful thing, a medium that has produced thousands of hours of entertainment for millions of people, but it cannot and should not be used as a substitute for work that can change the lives of the people watching more than any one individual programme ever could. With social media’s popularity rising as well, it is easy to think of politics becoming more disposable and cheaper, reflecting a change in attitudes and ideals that favours brash consumerism over intelligent debate. This shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be the way things go and hopefully it won’t. Despite the short-termpopularity, it might give it always casts a shadow over the career of the politician that chooses to fully embrace it – and what’s better? To be known for making demonstrable change or doing an impression Larry the Cat would sneer at?