Dumb political celebrity moments #1.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

OK, you should never take entertainers seriously when discussing politics. Occasionally one does something so spectacularly dumb, it transcends stupidity into the sublime.

Case #1 - Kenny Everett - 1983

Kenny Everett was a risque radio show host in the UK. He later went on to make risque TV shows. He was also gay. Back then, when no one spoke about these things in the mainstream people would call him 'camp', but everyone knew, and, thankfully, it never seemed to harm his career. He was a long-time supporter of the Tory party. Not sure why, given their notorious hatred of all things gay, but there you go.
Anyway in 1983, the Tories called Kenny up to the party conference to shore up the youth vote. A serious matter, and Kenny promised to at least be kinda serious. However, as I recall, and I was quite young at the time, Kenny bounded up to the platform with those giant polystyrene hands you see at football games, starts to yell incoherent political slogans, concluding with the immortal "LET'S BOMB RUSSIA, YEAH!'. Did the Tories cheer? What do you think?Unfortunately this event was on national TV, and office watercoolers the next day were adorned by people discussing the complete fool Everett had made of himself in front of millions of viewers. Kenny later apologised, saying he didn't really know much about politics, and wasn't too sure why he supported the Tories at all.
The moral? I'm not really sure there is one. I'd like to think it was all some grand situationist stunt, but judging by Kenny's Benny Hill level of humour, I'm guessing no.
Still. At least Ronnie Raygun was not alone.