Big Brother

A bit of a row has blown up over Channel Four's Celebrity Big Brother. I am not personally acquainted with the programme's subtle pleasures, which appear to involve watching celebrities make fools of themselves - an occurrence whose rare and precious instances are reported in the national news, in the local news, in the printed news, in glossy magazines and on satellite television far less often than they should be. The object of the game, aside from providing workplace gossip-meat for those whose real lives are too dull to merit malicious attention, is for the housemates to get one another evicted; so it is always a bit of a shock when somebody starts behaving as though they were an exhibitionistic mediocrity fighting over shared accommodation. In the real world, after all, people who want their neighbours thrown out tend to be quiet, gracious, unassuming types; the kind of person with whom it would be a privilege to be confused by the National Identity Database and sent upon one's way without a stain on one's reputation, deserved or otherwise.

It seems that one of the current housemates has been subjected to "alleged racist bullying" by some of the other housemates. The result has been a tidal wave of condemnation by the kind of people who expect Celebrity Big Brother to provide them with positive role models, or whose imaginations are unable to compass the idea of lowering the show's ratings by pressing the OFF switch - people like, for example, the Vicar of Downing Street and the Prince in Waiting.

The Prince, who is in India, has had the pleasure of seeing Channel Four executives burned in effigy, and responded by condemning anything that detracts from getting Britain seen as "a country of fairness and tolerance", Rupert naturally if implicitly excepted. The Vicar, commenting through a spokesbeing, said that "the message should go out from this country loud and clear that we are a tolerant country and we will not tolerate racism in any way." The spokesbeing stressed that his reverence was not talking about the programme, had not seen the programme, would not be seeing the programme, and did not regard it as his role to comment on the programme. He was just being loud and clear and agreeing with Gordon.

Despite having nothing to do with the programme, his reverence's comments did mention the programme: "What the response to the programme has shown is ... that there is no level of toleration in this country for anything which, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to be racist." The spokesbeing evidently had been ordered not to confine himself to the gist of Tony's remarks; this is the ipsissima verba, direct from the Presence himself. Not "there is no toleration for racism", or even "the level of toleration for racism is very low"; but "there is no level of toleration", which ranks among his most comfortably meaningless pronouncements: the standard saccharine coating, if you will, on the inevitable shit sandwich.

What is it for which Tony, speaking for the country as he invariably does, has no "level of toleration"? Nothing so cut-and-dried as racism, an allergy for which might well be interpreted by dear Rupert's minions as something approaching the Islamo-socialist; what takes Tony's level of toleration down to the nonexistent is "anything which, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to be racist". As always, it is not the act which Tony finds problematic, but the perception of the act, as perceived by some anonymous party conveniently concealed behind a resonant passive voice; and, as always, it matters not a bit whether the perception is accurate. Under the provisions of Tony's legacy, of course, the whole country will soon come to resemble a vast Big Brother house: an endless media-manipulated squabble under continual surveillance. Who needs television?