Not content with our being the most spied-upon democratic country in the world, with one CCTV for every 14 people capturing our movements up to 300 times a day, Gordon Brown apparently wants to turn the country into one big reality TV show
In what one aide described as an effort to ’show what a Brown premiership will look like’, the Chancellor told The Observer yesterday of his vision for an ‘ X-Factor’ Britain. He said the reality TV music programme, as well as shows like Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice, promoted ‘aspiration, how anyone can achieve things’ – key to the agenda he hoped to bring to Number 10.
I suppose he’s right, in a way; they certainly demonstrate how lots of people — reality TV production companies, entrepreneurs peddling deals that fall through, premium rate phone line companies and the like — can quietly make bucketloads of money by promoting spurious contests between the mediocre, who themselves can make bucketloads of money by being famous for being famous if they manage to attract sufficient support in a meaningless vote.
Not sure it was a good idea for him to point this out, but I suppose he knows his own business best.
I see Justin at Chicken Yoghurt is even less impressed by Brown’s remarks than am I, and considerably more eloquent about it.
Technorati tags: UK, Politics, Reality TV, Gordon Brown
