Sunday 30 June 2013

'Gangnam Style' MPs? It's just wrong!!

Living where we do in North Northamptonshire – just over the border from Leicestershire – I always read the Leicester news on the BBC red button service.

One recent story had me checking the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day, and I feel the need to share it with you.

On Saturday 29th June I read the following:

“Leicester East MP Keith Vaz has challenged several MPs to a ‘Gangnam Style dance-off’ after he was filmed copying the internet sensation.”

Apparently he joined in with students performing the dance at a college in the city in celebration of Leicester’s City of Culture bid for 2017 (footage is available on YouTube).

He wants MPs representing the other areas in the running to a dance-off on the terrace at Parliament.

Unsurprisingly, his request has been met with a mixture of amusement and bemusement, the report concluded.

The other cities competing with Leicester are Hull, Dundee and Swansea Bay.  It’s probably just as well that John Prescott is no longer MP for Hull as the thought of him dancing to Gangnam Style fills me with a mixture of amusement and horror!

But on a more serious note, can I just say to any MPs who may be reading this (unlikely, perhaps, but I feel it needs to be said) please remember that we don’t want you to try to be cool and ‘get down with the kids’.

We want you to be dignified, attract respect, and get on with the serious job of running the country and getting us out of recession.

Cringe-inducing ‘Dad/Mum dancing’ to Gangnam Style is not the way to win City of Culture.  Despite the obvious amusement, it’s more likely to attract headlines for all the wrong reasons.

However, as I’m writing this, I’m also musing that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and at least Mr Vaz’s antics have got us talking about Leicester and the City of Culture bid, which was perhaps his intention all along...

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