What We Learned from Dale Winton’s Essay on Donald Trump

Just a few words now on Dale Winton, who three days ago published a piece on an opinion website called Conservative Woman tackling Donald Trump's bid to become President of the United States. Do you need a moment? That's fine.

Yes, today we are talking about Dale Winton—host of Pets Win Prizes, Dale's Supermarket Sweep and In It To Win It— who, it turns out, is really into right-wing American politics. So much so that when he's not hosting quizzes he pores over the latest debates and subsequent commentaries like a sweatshirt-laden student searching for an inflatable banana in aisle of tinned goods. Not content to keep this passion burning inside, he has now spoken out about the current race.

I've read it about 27 times, and this is what I've learnt.

The title of Dale Winton's essay on Donald Trump is: "Donald Trump - is he a hero or a villain?"

I suppose this is really the big question at the heart of the complex web of disillusion, ambivalence and protest that has come to characterise the current presidential race. The question being: is Donald Trump a goodie or a baddie? Many feel, of course, that his economic isolationism and combative foreign policy are exactly what America needs, whereas others see his campaign as divisive and fear-mongering at best, and dangerous at worst. It's difficult to know which side to believe. Thank god then, that the question is finally being tackled by the host of Hole in the Wall before Anton Du Beke briefly took over – Dale Winton.

First important note to make here, is that Dale Winton is a Republican. Well, he's not American so this all feels a bit like nerds from Ipswich banging on about how much they love the Superbowl, but anyway, for the purposes of this exercise, Dale Winton is a Republican. Being the ardent Republican he is, Dale was hit pretty hard by Mitt Romney's defeat to Barack Obama at the last election. Describing the defeat as an "unexpected epic fail" Dale says he was "devastated" and by election night "needed alcohol to get [himself] through the process".

Dale then goes on to say:

Which leaves us with the understanding that since 2012 Dale Winton has been gripped by an all-consuming, apocalyptic fear that the civilised world was headed for some sort of annihilation. That means that every time Dale has covered Liza Tarbuck's Saturday show on Radio 2, or when he was filming of his one-off ITV gameshow Dale's Great Getaway, even during his appearance on The One and Only Cilla Black, Dale's thoughts were elsewhere. As Dale was reeling off his "pick of the pops" he could hear screaming, the crackle of military radios, and the crunch of metal on bone. Wherever he went Dale could smell sweat mingled with gasoline and burnt grass. Dale Winton could smell death.

Hope takes many shapes though and for Dale, presumably relieved to have survived Barack Obama's second term, it took an "orange, coiffed and above all incredibly confident" form. At this point in his essay Dale remembers the moment he sat with a pot of coffee and watched Donald Trump's announcement speech.

You may have gathered, from the softly erotic tone if from nowhere else, that Dale Winton is a fan of Donald Trump. And truly, is there any greater endorsement of a candidate than Dale putting the footrest down on his recliner? Perhaps we could add that as a section on Question Time? Dale sits in the corner and whenever he agrees with something, he lowers his footrest.

Dale, at this point footrest firmly down, goes on to detail the quite aggressive physical response he has to the announcement of Trump's candidacy. He describes himself as "exhausted" and "emotionally stretched" as though "the man had reached through the TV screen and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck." Finding Trump offensive and reassuring in equal measure Dale Winton, one-time host of Channel 5 endurance gameshow Touch the Truck, concludes, "I needed to separate the bellicose bluster from the assailant fiscal message."

In this important section of Dale Winton's essay about Donald Trump he pays tribute to some of his favourite political commentators from the US. Among many of the Fox News usuals like Greg Gutfeld and Harris Faulkner, Dale also pays tribute to Pat Buchanan. Perhaps alarmingly, and whether Dale knows or not, Buchanan once wrote of the AIDS epidemic in 1983 that homosexuals had "declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution". For someone who is a well-known LGBT figure in British culture, this endorsement seems both strange and a little sad.

But then Dale starts talking about how he is too old and not brave enough to take hallucinogens so I got distracted by thinking about that.

Dale, in an attempt to understand just why is so obsessed with the presidential race, and in particular Donald Trump's candidacy, suggests that maybe it is because he is a quiz show host, and the race for the White House is the "ultimate game show."

It is at this point that he refers to Trump as being "In It To Win It". This is sadly the only explicit reference to any of Dale's shows in the piece. There is no mention of Trump enjoying any kind of "sweep" in the primaries, nor is there any defence of Trump's bombastic rhetoric that includes the phrase "threats win prizes", which is sloppy writing quite honestly.

In case you hadn't guessed it by this point, Dale Winton is endorsing Donald Trump. Not only because he is "fearless" and "loves his country" but because, above all, he is attacking "political correctness". Dale believes that the "liberal Left and political correctness have bullied us into silence", which is presumably why they don't make Celebrity Fit Club anymore. Can't say anything on telly these days.

Then we come to Dale's big finish—which coincidentally is probably what he'd call it before shooting a wry look into camera. To conclude, Dale basically says you can't please all of the people all of the time but if Donald Trump pleases enough of them then maybe he will win the election. Which is sort of an anti-climax really, because that's just what elections are. If enough people vote for you then you win. But perhaps looking for a truly incisive final note is missing the point; perhaps the real joy here is much more in the Dale-Winton-has-written-an-essay-about-Donald-Trump-ness of the whole thing.

That all bets are off. That's it. The thought a year ago of Donald Trump becoming the Republican party's nominee is one thing, but the suggestion of Dale Winton writing a think piece on the matter has moved the international political landscape into genuinely new territory. Where does the political discourse go from here? Edmonds on Sanders? Tarrant on governmental federalism? Steve Penk on the legitimacy of appointing a Supreme Court justice in the final year of Obama's presidency?

Everything has now changed, the bar has been reset. We have passed the age of Leonardo DiCaprio on climate change and moved into the age of Dale "Supermarket Sweep" Winton on Why Donald Trump Would Actually Make a Great President.

2018. The Mexican border. Hundreds of thousands of Americans wave placards in the sweltering southern sun. President Trump takes to the podium to launch his infamous solution to America's "immigration problem". Another equally tanned figure stands behind him, their orange faces like the Tijuana sand beneath their feet. The crowd is hushed, and a single voice bursts from behind a megaphone.

"BRING ON THE WALL"

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