George Galloway could be London’s Nicola Sturgeon

When you tell people you work in or around politics, and if you can break through the initial contempt or boredom, one type of question tends ‎to surface first: ‘what is so-and-so really like?’ There are three answers to that question, only one of them good:

1. ‘They’re exactly how they come across on telly‘, which — unless you’re the likes of Boris Johnson or William Hague — is usually not a compliment. It tends to mean the individual is the kind of wooden, humourless, unthinking, battery hen politician that makes the public yawn, scream or both;
2. ‘They’re a total (uncomplimentary word)’. That word might refer to their private behaviour towards colleagues, staff or civil servants; their obsession with self-adoration and self-promotion; or their excessive indulgence in various vices, from frequent hard liquor to casual sexual harassment; or
3. ‘You’d really change your mind about them if you met them in private‘. This is always the hardest response to give because ‎it challenges people’s deepest perceptions and most inbuilt prejudices.