There is a crisis at the very heart of democracy. Last week, just as the American media proved that, yes, they could manipulate the man they loved into the White House, so it was here in Britain, mother of parliaments. The crisis is that the electorate have got it all wrong in two polls — on The X Factor and Nonentities Come Dancing. All right-thinking people realised the masses had made a desperate error, akin to Germany in 1933, by voting off some dumpy-arsed, tearful cruise-ship warbler from The X Factor. Cheryl Cole said it was a travesty, and Simon Cowell that it was plain the public weren’t voting for talent. In the Upper House, on Strictly Come Dancing, a terpsichorially challenged audience failed to dismiss the political broadcaster John Sergeant for not dancing properly, or at all. One of the judges — the strangest collection of human effluvia this side of Grimms’ Fairy Tales — admonished us by saying we must remember this was a dancing competition.
Now, I think it’s time I called the old dancing judges, Cheryl and Simon into my office to remind them of a few home truths. Listen carefully, all of you. Strictly Come Dancing is not a dancing competition. The X Factor is not a talent contest. The Queen Vic is not a real pub, and Basil Brush isn’t actually a talking fox. They are all entertainments. TimesonLine
