Riots? What riots? Sally Bercow and Simon Cowell return us to normal service
Greetings pop pickers ? and welcome to a Return of the Opiates edition of Lost in Showbiz. Just relax, as our scarred nation slips back into the easeful oblivion of reality television, and wonders how it ever cared more about possible tears in its very fabric than whether or not Louis would get the groups again this year.
I don't want to make any rash assumptions, but something tells me we'll be staring down the barrels of a Sally Bercow special next week, so we shan't dwell too long on the wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons and her decision to enter Celebrity Big Brother. All we can say is that ? at time of writing ? Sally was due to enter the Bungalow of the Damned tonight, and take her place alongside the likes of Jedward and the vajazzler off The Only Way is Essex, in a move sure to convince the country that the laundering of the mother of all parliaments is officially complete. (Incidentally, in answer to any readers wondering why we're not using the picture of Sally wrapped in the bedsheet, it's because we can't afford it. And if that isn't a sign that Britain's economy has recalibrated itself in a fairer manner, then the fact that Mrs John Bercow is pocketing �40,000 for her appearance on the show certainly should be.)
Of course, madam would object to me referring to her as Mrs John Bercow in this context. And you know, I think the thing I respect most about Sally is her belief that any of this would be happening were she not married to the Speaker of the House of Commons. So convinced is she of her soon-to-go-blockbuster appeal that she has now retained the services of fellow self-styled lefty Max Clifford, and there are suggestions the relationship may continue afterwards should her CBB outing bear fruit. According to reports, Sally wants to meet fellow Clifford client Simon Cowell, and believes Clifford could get them in a meeting room together (minutes taken by Jean-Paul Sartre, obviously).
And so to the Karaoke Sauron, who resembles his namesake ever more closely now that he has shed his judging duties and is merely the vast unseen eye watching over his creation. The X Factor returns on Saturday, and the four emperors giving the thumbs up or down to combatants in the karaokosseum will be Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow, Destiny's Child luggage Kelly Rowland and Tulisa from N-Dubz. Singing gladiators, good luck to you all.
Meanwhile, has anything about the riots made you feel more unsettled than the X Factor supremo's silence on them? Aside from donating to the Reclaim Our Streets fund, Cowell has not been persuaded to make a public statement explaining how to fix things, and this in itself feels the most glaringly unfamiliar of oversights. After all, in recent years, it has felt almost as though we were living in a Cowellocracy, with Simon invested with a near-messianic quality by politicians, and leaders of every stripe gibbering witlessly about what they could learn at his knee. Cowell appeared to be post-Blairism's maharishi, with Gordon Brown announcing he had a vision of "an X-Factor Britain", claiming the programme displayed "the value of ambition, how anyone can achieve things". Then leader of the opposition David Cameron hailed Cowell as "incredibly talented", agreed politicians could learn from him, and declined to dismiss the idea of a place for him in a Tory administration. At one point Cowell was invited on to Newsnight to discuss his idea to revolutionise UK politics ? a TV show in which the public would debate issues with a red phone on stage, allowing Downing Street to call in and explain its position.
So are we witnessing a sea-change? In the riots, have today's politicians finally run up against the policy problem that they don't at some intellectually and ideologically bankrupt level believe could actually be solved by Simon Cowell? After all, if what we shall euphemise as "recent events" have shown us anything, it is that The X Factor is merely a light entertainment show, and is the answer to precisely nothing, unless it's the inquiry: "What apocalypse-hastening reality format shits a gazillion quid into Simon Cowell's bank account every week?"
But perhaps I am too hasty. The eye is caught by reports this week revealing that the venue for the X Factor bootcamp is the Selsdon Park hotel in Croydon. My dear! Forgive the lapse into anoraky areas of interest, but what a history-laden choice. As Tulisa never tires of pointing out, the Selsdon Park hotel's claim to fame is as the location for the 1970 conference of Edward Heath's shadow cabinet, which gave birth to a radical free-market agenda. Though denounced as "the work of Selsdon Man" by Harold Wilson, and largely abandoned by Heath under pressure, the flame was kept burning on the right, and when its advocates formed the Selsdon Group, it was at the Selsdon Park that they met again. Goodness, what tales those walls could tell. 1973: they bear witness to Nicholas Ridley et al enshrining economic theories that will dominate the Thatcher years. 2011: they stare mutely down at a cavalcade of X Factor contestants ? hopped up on Cowell's free booze ? who believe fame is a basic human right and are willing to murder any number of Westlife standards to prove it.
It's been a funny old journey, hasn't it? Naturally, it would take a media historian of the calibre of David Starkey to make some point about what has happened to Britain in the intervening four decades, and to declare some causal link between the ideals of Selsdon Man and the hellscape of the X Factor bootcamp and all it represents.
But given that Simon is an avowed free marketeer, who is on record as saying that he hero-worships Margaret Thatcher, Lost in Showbiz insists you regard his choice of the Selsdon Park as a clarion call indicating where our befuddled nation should go from here. Unless Cowell gets in touch to say otherwise, you may hereby assume that Simon's prescription for healing Broken Britain is not a craven, Heath-style abandonment of hardline free-market capitalism, but an even more rigid adherence to its principles.
Politicians, you have your instructions. It's time to face the music.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2011/aug/18/celebrity-simoncowell
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