LONDON (AP) – He has appeared on television screens hailing Saddam Hussein and excoriating U.S. senators. But nothing prepared British viewers for the sight of maverick lawmaker George Galloway lapping up imaginary milk and purring like a cat.

Galloway’s eyebrow-raising antics on the reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother” prompted calls Friday for his censure, with a senior government legislator accusing him of “a shameful lack of respect” for his constituents.

Galloway, who founded the Respect Party after he was expelled from Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party for opposing the Iraq war, has spent a week in the camera-studded “Big Brother” house, alongside a collection of celebrities including former NBA star Dennis Rodman, ex-“Baywatch” actress Traci Bingham and topless model Jodie Marsh.

Galloway, 51, said before he joined the show that his appearance would be “good for politics” and was a chance to reach a young audience.

But he has been criticized for missing a House of Commons vote on a rail project that affects his constituency, and many of his political comments have been edited out by producers.

“We call on him to represent and respect his constituents, not further his own ego, as he is by remaining totally out of touch in the Big Brother house,” read a petition that Hilary Armstrong, the government’s chief enforcer in parliament, said she planned to circulate.

Scenes flashed across television screens on Friday showing Galloway pretending to be a cat, rolling around and lapping up imaginary milk while actress Rula Lenska scratched him behind the ears.

Galloway’s spokesman Ron McKay said the producers’ decision to censor Galloway’s political comments was a setup and added that the legislator would have refused to be on the show had he known that some of his comments would be bleeped out.

Galloway, who is locked in the house with the other participants, could not be reached for comment.

His appearance brought a flood of comments on the British Broadcasting Corp. Web site and other Internet forums. While some praised the politician’s nerve, many were unimpressed.

“To see George Galloway pretending to be a cat was absolutely scandalous,” Emma Henderson from Aberdeen wrote on the BBC site. “His constituents should have him removed from office.”

Contestants on the show are evicted one by one until a single winner remains to win a cash prize for charity. If he is not ejected by viewers, Galloway could remain in the house – and away from Parliament – for another two weeks.

A pugnacious, populist Glaswegian nicknamed “Gorgeous George,” Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 for urging British soldiers not to fight in the Iraq war. He was re-elected to Parliament under the banner of the anti-war party Respect in May.

Lionized by his many supporters but reviled by mainstream politicians, Galloway has denied persistent allegations that Saddam Hussein’s regime allocated millions of barrels of oil in his name as part of a huge fraud in the prewar U.N. oil-for-food program.

In May he called a U.S. Senate committee investigating the oil-for-food scandal a “lickspittle Republican committee” and accused it of “the mother of all smoke screens.”

On a 1994 visit to Iraq, he told Saddam: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” Galloway later said he had been referring to the Iraqi people, not their leader.

AP-ES-01-14-06 1032EST