Peterborough is the stage for an all-out political fight. James Clarke takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the campaign over the weekend.

It was 10:21am on a sunny Saturday in Cathedral Square, Peterborough, when the confrontation began.

The charge was led by half a dozen turbo-charged mobility scooters, pimped out in party flags and aggressively driven by a guerilla force of extremely motivated individuals who clearly meant business. They were backed up by a large, somewhat slower-moving but ambulatory group of equally fair-skinned and mature warriors (or ‘white-walkers’ for brevity). It was an intriguing match-up of the UK’s newest two political forces; Renew’s ‘happy few’, bright eyed and carrying messages of reform and renewal versus The Brexit Party, with their stubborn, curmudgeonly determination and vast (cumulative) centuries of bitter experience.

“Thanks for splitting the vote!”, called out one venerable gentleman.

“Likewise!”, we replied.

Luckily for the good people of Peterborough, the riot police were not required, milkshakes were kept sheathed and the Werthers Originals remained unspat. Renew lives on to fight another day and the Brexiters went off for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

Much has been made of the emergence of the Brexit Party and what it means for the future of UK politics. There are two ways of thinking about this. One is that their existence heralds a new era of nationalism, populism and even some new form of British fascism, and that the party is seeking to normalise these ideologies in the guise of defending Brexit and democracy.

Another (perhaps hopeful) view is that the mass mobilisation of generally decent, older people may serve to temper the extremes of the English Defence League, UKIP, Tommy Robinson crew. It’s important to note that there is a real distinction in the tone and age of the two groups. Whilst the Robinson rallies are attended by small numbers of people who would otherwise be sharpening 50p coins or paying late-night visits to Jewish cemeteries, The Brexit party activists are far larger in number and would otherwise be doing the garden.

What we are witnessing may be the start of an overdue transition away from two-party red vs. blue politics in this country. It’s not hard to imagine a great cleavage on the horizon, a realignment where the right-wing of the Tory party coalesce with The Brexit Party to form a closed, nationalist, populist party and the moderate wing of Labour join the Lib Dems and other Remain parties to form an open, progressive and centrist grouping.

This by-election has quite an odd feel to it. The ‘resurgent’ Lib Dems are nowhere to be seen, the lesser-spotted Tory is even lesser-spotted than usual. Labour have been extremely sheepish (for some very good reasons indeed) and the Greens are hiding in foliage.

Next Thursday, the people of Peterborough may gain the unwelcome distinction of being the first constituency to return a Brexit Party MP to Westminster. But the town may also go down as the place where Conservative and Labour’s decades-long and undeserved dominance received its first mortal blow.

The political system itself is breaking apart - and fast - before our eyes. Throw your rules and assumptions about voting patterns out of the window. Brexit has ushered in an entirely new era of politics. Ciara Murray offers her analysis.

The latest YouGov Westminster voting intention polls have reflected the results of the European Elections. The Liberal Democrats and The Brexit Party, on 24% and 22% respectively, outpace the traditional parties. Labour and the Conservatives are left in the dust at 19% each. While many speculated on Labour and the Tories’ eventual demise owing to their spectacular incompetence these last years, many do not truly believe that Britain would put their money where their mouth is and vote to put them out of office. They are wrong.

While such a phenomenon has occurred before for the Lib Dems - during Cleggmania in 2010, the Lib Dems climbed to the top of the polls and dropped back down on election day -, this is the first time in decades that two smaller parties have outranked Labour and the Conservatives in both an international election as well as in national polling. And there are of course the local elections...

What does this show? It is evidence to suggest that the British people are no longer happy to offer their support to the traditional parties out of blind allegiance and loyalty. Brexit has awoken the British electorate from its political apathy, driving millions to action online, in the streets, on doorsteps - and now in the polling booth. Labour and the Tories’ behaviour - over Brexit, over allegations of racism, over their own internal squabbling - has pushed their loyal bases too far. They have taken advantage, have assumed blind loyalty, have acted with wholly undeserved entitlement and have not listened to the people they claim to represent, despite their cries to be heard. Their members, their supporters, their voters have received nothing in return, at a time when they are more charged than ever. So they have left. Now they are turning en masse to alternative voices who are claiming to offer change.

However, are these parties the anti-establishment forces they paint themselves as being? The Liberal Democrats are emerging from their near-total annihilation after the Tory coalition with its austerity and tuition fees catastrophes. However, for almost three years after the Brexit referendum they did not make any headway or impact with their Remain message, despite being the only party (at the time) who unequivocally backed staying in the EU. Members left in droves, dismayed at their complacency and lack of action at a time when they should have been dominating the discourse to counter the Brexit-peddling Tories, Labour, and UKIP. They kicked themselves into gear three weeks before the European elections on the back of positive local election results. But these punctual waves of energy are unusual - the natural state of the Lib Dems since the referendum has been insignificance.

The Brexit Party is a rehashed UKIP serving as a vehicle for Nigel Farage’s ego, whose UKIP failed to win a single Westminster seat in the 20 plus years of their existence and their near-total domination of political discourse. While they have tapped into a legitimate anti-establishment and pro-Brexit sentiment, they offer nothing new and apart from a pro-Brexit stance, they do not have any other policies as yet. While they have distanced themselves successfully from UKIP’s far-right ideology, when the time comes to create policies, values, and political positions, will they follow the values Farage has espoused for his entire career: anti-immigration, anti-diversity, anti-Muslim, anti-women far-right ideology? With the equally right-wing Anne Widdecombe as their most seasoned political representative, it seems likely.

The people are hungry for change and they are voting for the parties with the biggest imprint available who seem to offer it. Within this renewed landscape, there is an opportunity to present the British public with the real alternative to the current system - smaller parties from people outside politics who also want to radically reform the system. Britain wants radical change - Renew’s lifeblood is to dismantle the old power structures and put the British people in the driving seat of their country. Now is the time to take up space, shore up support at this moment of energy and hope. Renew is the change Britain wants - the polls and the elections prove it.

London resident and member of the New York Bar John Nucciarone breaks down where the UK’s European strategy went so wrong.

David Cameron’s negotiations with the EU in early 2016 were both rushed and amateurish. Discussions should have commenced under his first mandate and the obtaining of emergency breaks on free movement within the European Union should have been made part of broader EU-wide reform.

External EU border security, the allocation of refugees between member states, the 3% of GDP deficit rule and Euro were all issues which Italy, Greece, Poland and the eastern Europeans were seeking and needed support with. Served well by London’s employment market, these same member states, along with the Baltics, could and should have been recruited to persuade the EU power brokers that emergency breaks on the mobility right were more than a reasonable demand by the UK.

Cameron could easily have taken the position that the banking crisis of 2008 and the fall of Communism were both epic events which resulted in a historical movement of peoples into both London and the rest of the UK. The emergency breaks he sought would be aimed at the tail end of such times and not free movement in general. Helping the UK obtain emergency breaks would be in the long term interests of these member states and would be more than a suitable price for the UK helping resolve the issues of immediate concern to them. It is just such an alliance that could have taken the reins in negotiations with Paris, Berlin, and Brussels.

If the Tories had kept to this type of traditional British foreign policy, we would not be looking at Brexit, a Salvini, Le Pen, an AFD electoral alliance or the Hungarian and Polish governments on the sidelines waiting for someone to talk to.  

Misguided and old-style European nation-state leadership

The gatekeepers of the de facto EU political leadership structure, however, are the ones that created the conditions that led to these developments.

The European Union will eventually tear itself apart if Brussels, Paris, and Berlin continue to think that every economic, political, and cultural policy without exception could or should apply in the same manner and form to every member state despite the different social consequences for the various member states.

Liberalism, multilateralism and leadership are not found in expecting societies which have come out of 45 years of communism to react in the same manner as western European societies when dealing with refugees.

Nor were these progressive characteristics present when the EU scolded Poland for its use of coal as an energy source but stayed silent when Germany began to do so after the 2008 banking crisis. France, which preaches to Italy when it comes to refugee allocation but then does not take in the numbers to which it agreed, cannot then expect to be listened to by its Italian partner.

Moreover, France, which has an economy reliant upon public spending to function, cannot but raise eyebrows when it advocates an EU Finance Minister, just as Spain does, when with its youth unemployment rate of over 32% and large numbers of citizens searching for work in London, makes noises about joining the Paris-Berlin alliance.  

The return of old Europe

Fanning the flames of nationalism in Europe has generally not ended well and this is what Stephen Bannon, the right-wing American political activist, is poised to do with his academy in Italy.

Bannon's goal of dismantling the EU may have unintended consequences, as European revolutions often do. It may see judicial independence in Poland further eroded and Viktor Orban moving to reduce economic freedoms in Hungary after already curtailing political ones by his attacks on state media and academic freedom.

For these reasons, a Europe in which populism and nationalism are becoming mainstream is not in the interests of the UK.

Going forward

The future viability of the EU rests with both a French realisation that this project cannot be a search for France’s lost glory on the world stage and a German acceptance that the Eurozone has provided it with an inherent economic advantage that needs to be addressed.

The British would do well to realise that they cannot view the EU solely in economic terms and as a source of cheap labour for its hospitality and other low wage industries.

When Harold McMillan decided it was in the United Kingdom’s interests to join the European Economic Community he was simply pursuing 400 years of English and British foreign policy of ensuring that no one country dominate the Continent. At that time he had France in mind; things have not necessarily changed since then.

Jobs are no longer a route out of poverty:

Getting into work is the best route out of poverty for families in the UK. At least, that’s the line the British government takes.

The cabinet seems very proud of the fact that the national employment rate, currently 74%, is at its highest ever and unemployment, at just 5%, is at a near-historical low. As of April this year, minimum wage for workers aged 25 and over stands at £8.21 per hour, up from £6.19 at the end of 2012. At first glance, you might think that these glad tidings mean that there are now fewer poor people in the UK. We live in complex times, however, and it’s unwise to take the Tory’s self-affirmations at face value.

More Britons might be working than ever before, but the rate of absolute poverty in the UK has been steadily climbing over the past ten years after housing payments are taken into account. Rough sleeping has soared by a whopping 165% since 2010. Life expectancy has stagnated, and millions of children are going to school hungry every day - and numbers continue to rise. There are now 2000 food banks across the UK, having sprung up in their thousands after the financial crisis (before which there were just 29).

Not least, the composition of households living below the breadline has changed for the worse. A decade or so ago, the number of poor people living in ‘working’ households was 40%. Today, it’s over half. Most disquieting is the effect of this change on children - nearly 3 million children from working families are now living in absolute poverty.

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. Pensioners, for example, a group largely shielded from cuts, have seen a huge decrease in levels of deprivation - the number of pensioners living in absolute poverty has fallen from 50% in the early 90s to just 15%, thanks to welfare benefits and a generous state pension which is adjusted for inflation. The numbers of people in work also shouldn’t be dismissed entirely; anxiety levels are down and general wellbeing in the UK is up, which can likely be attested to increased pervasiveness of stable employment.

But Britain’s workers really are struggling, and Britain’s experience shows that being in work is not always enough to keep afloat. Austerity has hit working families hard, and benefit cuts have left thousands struggling to stay above the breadline. Working families with small children have recently seen their child benefits frozen and working tax credits unpegged from inflation, now rising at only 1% per year.

It’s not just the government’s austerity programme that’s to blame, however; after all, as numbers of working poor have risen, many un-working families have been lifted out of poverty. Housing prices are an obvious culprit - since 2009, the average cost of a home in Britain has increased by 10% in real terms. Londoners are some of the hardest hit by the housing crisis, spending a third of their disposable income on rent.

Changes to the labour market have also damaged worker’s long-term employment prospects. Full time work is increasingly scarce, and more and more people are trapped in unstable, part time or temporary jobs. This issue hits those at the bottom end of the labour market, whose skills are typically least in demand, disproportionately hard and many do not work enough hours to make a living wage. The IFS estimates the number of workers in the bottom quarter of the income spectrum in relative poverty as 21%.

The logic behind Conservative welfare reforms has been based on incentivising people to get into work. The centre-left is equally guilty; Clinton’s benefit cuts were aimed at tackling dependency culture and promoting personal autonomy. Blair’s ethos was largely the same - encourage people find work, and stay there. The above presents a challenge to the intellectual basis these types of reform.

Jobs simply aren’t doing enough to keep people out of poverty. With burgeoning housing costs and a skittish labour market, low-paid workers with volatile incomes are in need of a safety net, as well as a job. Universal credit in its current incarnation (which involves a five week wait period before claimants receive their payments) is a meager exacerbating the problem, rather than healing it. In this kind of climate, it is essential that social policy focuses on more than just employment.

As nationalists gather on one side on the wall, it's time for those who believe in the EU to say so.

The European Union has been a victim of its own success for a while now. Its increasing reach over the decades has had a big impact on the lives of EU citizens, making them richer, more mobile and more interconnected.

However, undeniable successes, from Schengen to uncompromising standards on food and commercial goods, have provoked a backlash from those who have a rather different idea of European governance. The feeling that the EU’s top dogs, such as Jean-Claude Juncker and Guy Verhofstadt, want the ever-closer union to become a federal Europe has created millions of nationalists who wish to return to a Europe of competing nation-states.

There are many reasons for this, from immigration to sovereignty, but at the heart of the phenomenon lies a battle of ideas outlining a world either open or closed.

On one side of the wall, the nationalists seek to fortify their battlements, retreating from Brussels and putting up borders. They are often opposed to the unregulated free movement of people within EU borders and blame Europe’s politicians for failing to handle the migrant crisis.

On the other side, a Europe of young liberals, along with older generations who see the EU as the best guarantee of peace on the continent fight for its Union, see strength in openness and weakness in walls. Renew sits firmly on this side of the argument.

This is the defining conflict of our time. But at some point, these two diverse sets of people will need to come together and compromise on their visions for Europe. If they do not, the seeds of division will be sown deep into EU soil. It will be hard to uproot the thorns that grow from them.

The reconciliation may come through the strengthening of Europe’s external borders that keeps Schengen intact, appeasing those who fear (irrationally) an invasion by foreign peoples. Yet appeasement is not enough; the nationalists will need to see the EU as a positive success story rather than something that holds back their communities.

Renew has been clear that this must come by unequivocally backing the EU’s ability to tackle our biggest problems, which transcend national borders. Climate change, the AI revolution and the overbearing surveillance capitalists of Silicon Valley all threaten the future of democracy in the West.

None of these can be tackled alone by a Britain, a France or a Germany. They demand multilateral action and a common framework of regulation.

In the UK, Pro-European parties won the largest proportion of the vote in the EU elections. Now MEPs must take that mandate, for however long they can, and make a no-holds-barred case for the EU’s existence.

By James Dilley

It’s often said that a free press is essential to a healthy democracy. When compared to standards elsewhere in the world, the British press looks to be doing pretty decently.

We shouldn’t get too carried away, though; in the absence of a Xinhua News equivalent, control over our national media has been granted to an entirely different (though perhaps equally troubling) faction. Most British media outlets are controlled by a tiny and very wealthy elite, who are typically as elusive as they are unaccountable.

It was Napoleon who once argued that “four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” Judging by the situation today, he seems to have been on to something.

News broadcasters wield tremendous power over politicians, who for the most part, do everything they can to avoid unfavourable coverage. It’s easy to see why, given the considerable influence papers can have on voting behaviour.

With SW1 at their heels, media moguls are free to present whatever version of events they so choose – however far this may deviate from the truth. Indeed, Brexit has made this more obvious than perhaps ever before.  

It’s no secret that some of Brexit’s major backers have already got richer as the rest of the country’s economy has wavered post-2016. All the while, it’s been easy enough to funnel public anger towards Westminster and Brussels and away from their own misgivings – unchallenged by a government more than happy to dance to their tune.

If anyone needs convincing, they need only look back on Westminster’s response to 2016. Its unquestioning insistence on respecting the referendum result, despite the serious legal failures of both major Leave campaigns, is telling to say the least. In any other circumstance, such violations would have been more than enough to entirely cripple any mandate. In fact, the only thing preventing courts nullifying the result altogether was the fact that it wasn’t legally binding.

Yet, politicians were complicit and the right-wing press in particular was handed full control of the narratives surrounding the referendum. Why? Put simply, being tarnished with the ‘Enemies of The People’ brush doesn’t exactly strengthen your electoral prospects.

Of course, we’ve come to accept a level of bias in major publications as being pretty much par for the course. Most papers are unashamedly prejudiced in their political leanings, and after all, sensationalism is how they sell their wares.

It’s no secret that people are drawn to papers that create echo chambers for their own views – a problem no doubt, but the phenomena’s very existence relies, at least, on a conscious public awareness of newspaper bias. We’re perhaps less susceptible to spurious headlines from the usual suspects, but they’re by no means the only offenders.

Worse, arguably, is the bias that now exists within broadcasters with an explicit duty to be neutral. I’m referring, of course, to the BBC. BBC complaints have reportedly been flooded by remain voters angry at the lack of coverage given to pro-Remain MPs and anti-Brexit marches.

Despite his recent outburst on BBC’s Andrew Marr show, Farage has a lot to be thankful for. Even his most pernicious claims, and those of others on his side, continue to go largely unchallenged despite their (in some cases obvious) untruth. Lest we not forget, talk of leaving the single market was “absolute madness” until an overnight U-turn in the direction of a no-deal; a decision that flew seemingly under the radar of the mainstream media.

Last week, an episode of a BBC panel show was cancelled, due to it featuring the interim leader of new pro-Remain party Change UK. The feature was deemed inappropriate to run during election time. Meanwhile, Farage’s countless fish-related photo-ops continue to get air time (needless to say, the fish do not look best pleased).

While it might be doubtful that the BBC is harbouring an express pro-Brexit bias, it’s easy to see where it’s unwillingness to challenge key Leave supporters has come from. The corporation is consistently under pressure from the reactionary right, and its fearfulness of this is palpable.

It is hard to imagine a world in which even the most popular frontmen of Brexit will escape the process unscathed; as the realities set in and public opinion turns against them, the democratic process will hold them to account. But writers, journalists, media fat-cats – the less discernible architects of Brexit – are unlikely to suffer the same consequences. People will be buying The Sun long after Rees-Mogg is cast into political irrelevancy.

We must maintain a free press, but there is no freedom without responsibility. Our media is responsible for public education, which we cannot do without if we are to place trust in democracy.

Londoner Alex Seale implores you to vote for Renew's Change UK candidates in tomorrow's European elections.

If you are an EU citizen living in London or elsewhere in the UK, you have the right to vote in the EU elections. As you know, EU citizens cannot vote twice. EU citizens vote for the candidates or parties of their country of origin or residence provided that they are registered.

If you are still hesitant who to vote for or where to vote, then you should vote for Change UK.

I know the French living in Britain are worried about the threat of the far-right in France, but Brexit is a big worry too for many French people living and working in London and in the United-Kingdom, as well as for Italians, Spaniards, Polish citizens, etc.

These EU Elections here in the UK are important for the future of the country. If we want a chance to have a final say on Brexit, then EU citizens should vote for Change UK.

Change UK has joined forces with Renew Britain during the EU Elections in order to keep Remain parties together.

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party might win these elections, so it is important that EU citizens in the UK vote for Change UK in order to stop Brexit happening.

I have a few French friends in London who will vote for the parties of their country of residence and most of them told me they will vote Change UK.

This is a crucial time for our country and we should seize this opportunity on May 23rd.

Storm clouds are gathering over Peterborough. Who will win the mantle to reform politics in the UK? 

You might think of Peterborough as an unlikely candidate for a political battleground. Nestled in the heart of Cambridgeshire, this relatively small city has found itself on the frontlines of the battle to revolutionise politics in the UK.

On one side of this new struggle, you have the Brexit Party and their ideological forebears, UKIP. But the latter is dying, pushed to the fringes of the far-right. Instead, Farage’s new vehicle has done an excellent job of corralling the support of disenchanted voters and currently polls around the 18% mark for a future general election. The Brexit Party also seems to be successfully colonising the ‘people from outside politics’ message - except their people believe we should leave the European Union and retreat behind wall and border.

On the other side, Renew, backed by Change UK, as well as other pro-European parties, are fighting for a vision of Peterborough and the United Kingdom that is quite different. They believe in a European society that is socially liberal, open to the world and welcoming to newcomers. They shun the fearmongering tropes of the populists, instead placing faith in hope, reason and science. They believe that Britain is better off at the heart of European decision-making and as a key part of its union.

So the two great storm clouds meet. Yet what is perhaps most interesting is the fact that both agree on one big issue: our political system is in need of a great change.

For example, the average Brexit Party voter in Peterborough is likely to want electoral reform. You can bet your savings that they would support a proportional system that allows for new voices to be heard in Parliament. And you can bet with confidence that the Renewer thinks the same.

Do not be mistaken; this is not naked self-interest from new parties unable to gain a foothold at the highest levels of politics. Both Brexiter and Renewer recognise that the unfairness of our elections increase voter apathy and damage our nation’s democratic credentials. They know it needs to change.

But that is where similarities end. It is what these new politicians do after gaining power that really matters - and the Brexit Party lot want to retreat from our closest allies and pull up the drawbridge.

So, Peterborough becomes a clash of open versus closed, friend versus foe.

If you are a voter reading this, you must then decide - which party do I back to reform politics? Do I run from Europe, or towards it? Do I embrace my neighbour, or view them with suspicion? Do I open my arms, or do I close them?

These two grand visions are now being played out all over the world. Time to choose wisely.

If your homework is bad, you can't just keep handing it in hoping for the best. But that's just what Theresa May is doing with her Brexit deal, says James Dilley.

When you write a bad essay in school, your teacher hands it back to you. The red ink scrawled all over it tells you just how poor an effort it was. Perhaps you will get a detention; you will probably have to write it again.

Imagine your teacher’s ire, then, when you hand the same essay in again the next day, only with a few words changed. “Demonstrates” becomes “shows”, “explains” becomes “elucidates”. But no matter how many synonyms you swap in and out, the content stays the same (rubbish).

You can imagine what happens next. The teacher shoots you down and you have no choice but to go back to the drawing board. It’s time for another blank sheet of A4 and a rethink.

That will be the situation facing Theresa May when she brings her Brexit bill before Parliament one last time on June 3rd. Despite the red marker pen staining the previous iterations of her bill, the student still hasn’t got the message. The teachers want a complete redo, but May can only hand in a botch-job.

Never mind Theresa’s protests that this bill is different from the last. Sure, there are a few moves to better protect workers’ rights after Brexit in a bid to appease Labour MPs, but the fundamentals of previous bills are still there - most importantly that Irish backstop which prevents so many MPs from backing the deal.

It has been clear for some time that the jig is very much up for May’s Brexit. In the words of Gandalf the Grey, it shall not pass.

The responsible thing to do now would be to hold a second referendum with remain on the ballot, since it has become clear that Brexit is an impossibility without accepting the disastrous no-deal route. Many millions around the country can see that - indeed, those millions could now constitute a majority.

If you are one of those people, then be sure to back Renew’s Change UK candidates on Thursday’s European elections. Brexit deserves an F, and we must mark it.

Has bear-baiting reality TV finally had its day? In this opinion piece, James Dilley suggests that the parallels are not as obscure as one might think.

That might be the conclusion after a terrible week for veteran host Jeremy Kyle, whose eponymous show finally met its demise after it emerged that a guest had committed suicide after appearing on the show.

Kyle’s programme, one of Britain’s favourite daytime TV fixes, has long been criticised for exploiting its guests, who are usually poor, troubled and working class. Their tribulations are put on full display in front of an audience, who laugh at their misfortune and boo when Kyle makes them a baddie.

But it is the treatment of the guests after their appearances that proved the final nail in the coffin for Kyle and his circus. After one-time guest Steve Dymond commmitted suicide, it emerged that other guests had been driven close to the brink, too. That’s hardly a shock, given the obvious mental illnesses suffered by many of those featured and the cruel treatment they were subjected to by the nasty moraliser Kyle.

It is unsurprising, but depressing, that it took the death of a person for people to realise that Kyle’s colosseum should never have been built. It is often the way with these things.

Yet the real question lies in whether or not the Jeremy Kyle debacle will herald the end of the reality TV era, which much like political populism has hooked viewers for a number of years now.

The parallels are clear. Populism, peddled by UKIP, the Brexit Party and, to an extent, Corbyn’s Labour, relies on a scapegoat, whether it be the foreigner, the immigrant or the rich. Those we laugh at on reality TV are also scapegoats of sorts and we paint them as willing representatives of social ills or moral failings. We laugh and shout at guests and contestants on the screen just as we are prone to do to minorities in society. Then we vote for the populists because they give us simple solutions.

“You’re evil!”, Jeremy Kyle would snarl at an adulterous guest.

“You’re a criminal!” snarls Farage at the Romanian immigrant.

It’s much the same lie. Both men portray themselves into the moral ambassadors of Britain, even though both are cruel individuals who do not deserve that post. As viewers and voters, we risk legitimising that.

So if we can wake up to the cruel nonsense of reality TV shows, particularly those that prey on society’s most vulnerable, surely we can also see cheap populism for what it is: a disease that we need to cure.