THE news that Kezia Dugdale had taken three weeks off work to join the I’m a Celebrity jungle pantomime reminded me of the career trajectory of Grado, Scotland’s only Insane Championship Wrestling world champion. Aficionados of this under-rated sport had some misgivings when Grado, the pride of Stevenston, began writing a politics and current affairs column for the Daily Record.

Grado’s transition, though, was a smooth one and it soon became evident that his observations on Scottish current affairs enhanced the Record’s overall political coverage. Yet some felt it was only but a short step from a political column in the Daily Record to the world of entertainment and showbiz. These fears were soon realised when Grado began appearing in River City and then in the hit Scottish police comedy Scot Squad.

Initially, some of us wondered if the self-styled “Chubby Wee Chancer Fae the Tap End of Stevenson” might be neglecting his duties and commitments to Insane Championship Wrestling. You see, this sport conveys important health and fitness messages in working-class communities and Grado is its icon and an instrument of the Scottish Government’s attempts to achieve positive outcomes.

We needn’t have worried. Grado has managed successfully to juggle his sporting and entertainment careers. I have no doubt that Kezia Dugdale, another talented Scot from a working-class background, can derive inspiration from Grado and do the same. Like Grado, Kezia also began to write a political column in the Daily Record and in an uncannily similar way this has paved the way for her appearance in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!

Judging by the nasty, vindictive and misogynistic reaction to Dugdale’s rumble in the jungle you’d think she had just agreed to join Ukip. Here we have a confident, bright and articulate young Scot taking advantage of an opportunity to convey positive messages about diversity and socialism to a huge audience including many in the crucial 18-25 voting demographic. This is something to be cherished; not disparaged.

Those who feel Kezia Dugdale is undermining the seriousness of politics by selling out to a celebrity game show really ought to have a word with themselves. The world of British politics is already a game show, but one with sinister undertones. Anyone who has ever read the Hunger Games novels can’t have failed to notice the chilling similarities to the way that politics and social affairs are conducted in the UK. In the Hunger Games disadvantaged communities are annually forced to compete with each other unto the death in a series of lethal challenges purely for the edification of a shadowy elite.

The author didn’t need to look far for inspiration. For several hundred years the UK elite have sacrificed millions of its working class by waging continuous war. They have managed this with some degree of success by convincing poor people that we all share a common heritage and a way of life underpinned by British values. Generations of the royal family and sporadic sporting festivals and extravaganzas help to cement this bond between the people and the ruling classes and the feeling that we are all in it together.

UK daytime television is replete with shows in which people from disadvantaged communities agree to lay bare the chaos of their lives in exchange for a cheque and a jag of short-lived notoriety. The Jeremy Kyle Show, Can’t Pay We’ll Take It Away and assorted Neighbours From Hell themed shows prey on the desperation of our most under-privileged citizens. The underlying message is a sinister one: no matter how bad you think your life is, there is always someone having a worse time of it than you. So don’t worry and keep waving your Union Jack.

It can’t be too long before we see more of these shows. They are cheap to make and as benefit sanctions and the Universal Credit regime begins to bite there will be no end of willing victims hopeful of a brief respite from their day-to-day misery. Here are a few of my own ideas which I feel sure could be piloted and sold to our burgeoning independent television sector.

The Energy Games

In this show, working-class neighbourhoods elect a champion family from within their communities to represent them. Over the course of 10 weeks we watch them as they encounter a variety of challenges over the cold, winter months. These might include keeping an entire family heated and clothed on a limited energy budget. We would be moved by the sacrifices single parents and the elderly are prepared to make to ensure that their children have at least one hot meal a week and wonder at their ingenuity in staying alive huddled in one room heated by a single bar of an electric fire. The winner would win a year’s supply of free gas and electricity from the UK’s energy cartel. It would encourage people to stop whingeing and to show the bulldog spirit.

Diggin For Gold

In this series we would follow the adventures of six firms of family funeral directors from some of our most deprived areas. Again the action would take place in winter as each firm uses all their experience and expertise to ensure an orderly transition from this life to the next as the bodies begin to pile up.

The trick is to keep things moving at a disciplined pace so that grieving families aren’t forced to hang around too long to bury their loved ones.

It would also focus on six families dealing with the last days of an elderly or infirm relative. Each of them would be given £1000 and asked to organise the best possible funeral for that price. Whichever of them returned with the most change after burying their dearly departed would be adjudged the winner. They would get to keep the change and a wee golden casket which would soon become a hot collector’s item on eBay like those wee trophies on Pointless. Again it would be a great example of dealing with death on a budget.

The Sorcerer's Apprentince

In this series inspired by Sir Alan Sugar’s Apprentice, a group of small firms is told by their banks that their overdraft facilities are being withdrawn and that they each have three months to save their businesses. We watch transfixed wondering who will have the courage to sack long-serving members of staff or show leadership by cutting wages.

And who is that shadowy bank middleman who tempts them with an assortment of tax-avoiding schemes? The winner is the last firm standing. They get their overdraft facilities restored and Ruth Davidson personally visits their premises to tell them the good news while perched on a tank and wearing her Territorial Army uniform.