BIG BROTHER reject George Galloway sharpened his cat claws for an attack on his critics today, claiming their reactions were "out of proportion".
Despite a huge public outcry over his antics while on the Channel 4 reality show - which included a creepy impersonation of a cat licking cream and dancing in a skintight red leotard - the Respect MP labelled his detractors “sanctimonious humbugs”.
"Why are we talking about this?," he raged on BBC Radio Two. "The world is in flames. The Liberal Democrat party is imploding. "There is war and pestilence and disease in the world. Why are we talking on national radio for 10 minutes about me, for charity, pretending to be a cat?"
Earlier, during an interview for Big Brother’s Little Brother he defended his decision to go on the show, claiming he did it to reach the country’s youth with his political message.
He also said he was surprised at the repulsion over his horseplay because celebrities acted up on Children In Need night and he was just doing the same in raising money for a Palestinian charity.
“They seem to have got it all out of proportion,” he said. “There are so many things happening in the world and they seem to be have been devoting acres of newsprint to a reality show.
“The British parliament is full of people who jet around the world on fact-finding junkets to exotic places every day of the week and they are never hauled over the coals.”
The 51-year-old – who was greeted by a barrage of boos during his live eviction last night - also pointed out he had not been paid a parliamentary salary while he was in the house.
Meanwhile, Labour activists from the Tower Hamlets branch of the party today had their say on ‘Gorgeous’ George’s feline display.
They sent three girls dressed as cats in a convertible car with Tom Jones’s hit, What’s New Pussycat? to the evictee’s east London home.
Afterwards they delivered a stack of Whiskas cat food tins to the nearby Respect party headquarters where local residents were holding up placards reading, ‘No respect’.