FORMER MP George Galloway has jokingly questioned whether Matt Hancock’s unexpected success in I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! might be explained by vote-rigging.

Speaking to GB News, Mr Galloway, who appeared in Big Brother when he was still an MP, said: “I didn’t watch any of it. I understand he did better than anticipated, although whether he had some friends operating the phones 24/7 voting for him, I don’t know.”

On whether reality TV is good for politicians, he told Easther McVey and Phillip Davies on GB News: “Well, it was a good move for me.

Asked about the decision by the SNP’s Ian Blackford to step down, he said: “For some, it will be an occasion of sadness, but there’s great rejoicing in Scotland. He was a cringing embarrassment to the country.

“The SNP is beginning to come apart at the seams. It’s fin de siècle, the end of an era, the Sturgeon era, like the Salmond era before it, it is coming to a close.

He added: “I think she’s just waiting for the right international job offer to come along and she’ll be gone.

“There are many, many people in the SNP who think that Nicola Sturgeon has taken their party as far as it can go.

“I caution you against the latest poll, which puts them ahead because most polls put them behind and almost exactly to the point of the referendum in 2014.

“I do think that Scotland is divided roughly 55/45 and that means therefore that not only will they not get a referendum, but if they did get one, they would lose it…that’s not the problem, it’s worse than that. We’re locked in a “neverendum”.”

Mr Galloway’s remarks on Hancock’s time in the jungle come after Nigel Farage said the ex-Health Secretary should donate his show fee to charity.

Speaking on his GB News show, he said: “I don’t know about you, but my feeling is that this man ruined lots of peoples’ lives.

“Most of that lockdown was highly unnecessary, we should have looked after the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their lives.

“Young people were not able to have proper university lives and not able to have the normal growing up parts of life.

Matt Hancock has faced widespread criticism over his appearance on the reality show. Image: ITV

“Older people too in many cases were finding themselves cut off and isolated from family, friends and loved ones.

“Hancock was responsible for much of this, but now when he’s questioned, he says he was ‘just taking advice'”, that’s just not good enough.

“I think a big chunk of that £400,000 should go to people and families who have become victims of that lockdown.

“As the years go on, we’ll learn many more people will die through missed NHS diagnoses that were ever going to die of that virus.”