Daily Mail says it ain't right

It's not often that I agree with the Daily Mail but I think it's on the button with this. Something has gone wrong with our values.

Something for the weekend

I don't know which is worse - day after day of ever more worrying financial headlines or the unedifying behaviours of celebrities that have crowded this week's news in the UK.

I do know that continuing fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo should be dominating discussions among world leaders just now. According to some estimates as many as 5m lives have been lost in this troubled country over the past 40 years. The factional fighting in eastern Congo is symptomatic of the conflicts ravaging Africa in which the western powers are reluctant to intervene (it never stopped them in the days of empire and it does not stop western mining interests today).

Chattering classes

Sadly, we live in a self-absorbed materialist world that has far more enthusiasm for debating the rights and wrongs of a BBC radio broadcast, than it has to debate a solution for the troubles in Africa. After all, the chattering classes need something other than house prices for the pudding course.

Do I think Jonathan Ross is talented? Yes. Do I think he is overpaid? Vastly. Do I think he should be fired? Without doubt. Do I think the BBC has lost its way? Yes. Do I think Andrew Sachs was right to feel offended? Of course. Do I think his granddaughter stands to make a small fortune by carefully exploiting the celebrity earnings potential of all this publicity through the well-paid advice of Max Clifford? Yes, in less time than it takes me to say Jade Goody.

Do I believe that the real tragedy of this story is that it exposes our society's distorted value system? I do and I don't think I am stretching credulity to say that weakening values have created an alarming moral vacuum in Western society that continues to be exploited by Islamic extremism.

Mosque sermons

It's not the reason behind such extremism, but it makes it more difficult for Islamic parents in western countries to impose their own value systems within their families when they see them undermined in this way.

We have seen the BBC stories in the British press but few of us in the UK will be exposed to the way such behaviours are condemned in Friday afternoon mosque sermons. Of course, there will be sermonising in all religions over this affair. But not all will have the potential to feed the disaffected minds of young hot heads who may, too readily, allow themselves to fall for the dangerous anti-western doctrine of Al-Qaeda.

One sermon does not an extremist make. It doesn't happen like that. The outrages of 9/11 and 7/7 were underpinned by drip-fed, hate-filled ideologies emerging initially from those who demanded Islamic states in Islamic lands. Britain is not an Islamic state but we know that Al-Qaeda's influence has taken root here.

Bomb victim

The leader of the 7/7 bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, had a middle class background, earning enough to make frequent trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He and his fellow bombers killed 52 innocent people that day in 2005 and one other indirectly. This was Jean Charles de Menenzes, whose inquest is being held this week.

Whatever the verdict of the inquest, whatever blame is directed at the armed police who shot him, de Menenzes was as much a victim of the bombings as those who died in the initial blasts.

If there was tragedy in that death, we can recognise heroism elsewhere in the George medal awarded to Royal Marine lance corporal Matthew Croucher who saved the lives of others and his own by throwing his body over a grenade as it was about to explode.

Servicemen and women have paid a high price fighting what George W Bush has called the "war against terror." They sign up for a life of active duty as an alternative to the frothy, shallow existence that characterises our gossipy obsession with celebrity.

Juvenile actions

It's difficult to set such heroism against the juvenile actions of Ross and his co-presenter Russell Brand who used valuable radio air time to such dismal effect.

Soldiers are not innocents. They have their own prejudices. But most of them do stand for something, even if, in some cases, it is little other than the laudable principle of fighting for your friends.

I couldn't see any principles, however, in the behaviours of Brand and Ross. Brand, at least, did one honorable thing and resigned. Ross has not even been capable of that, allowing managers to take the blame for his irresponsible actions.

Incredibly the BBC, even now, has yet to be convinced that it does not need these people, such is its attachment to a fickle and distracted "youf" audience. Ross is paid large sums because of his ability to connect with younger viewers.

Moral guidance

I'm not saying he should be dispatching moral guidance in every breath but he understands full well that some of the things he does are reprehensible, then does them anyway simply because he knows (or thinks) he can get away with it. Being outrageous has paid his wages. There should be no second chances this time.

Others have flown too close to the sun in the past. Remember Simon Dee, the former BBC presenter who abandoned his given name, Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd? If not, then perhaps I have made my point that contrition can go only so far.

Guilt fests

Meanwhile, when the dust has settled on this nasty little drama, much greater suffering in this world will continue to struggle for our attention. But perhaps we needn't worry about that until Children-in-Need and Comic Relief days when the luvvies, Ross included no doubt, will lead us in these perennial chuck-some-money-at-it guilt-assuaging fests.

No I'm certainly not blaming Jonathan Ross, the BBC and the rest of the media for Islamic terrorism. But I do think there is a link between Islamic intolerance and Western moral decline. Every terrible outrage demands that we hold a mirror to our own behaviours, actions and beliefs.

The BBC used to stand for something important and solid in our society that attracted and continues to attract the respect of foreign regimes. Its values used to be our values. It really is a power for good in this world but, with power, comes responsibility and that must be exercised judiciously. The second chance should be reserved for a rare lapse of taste. There was nothing rare about this one.

Virtual talent

I’ve created an imaginary “talent basket” for people with imaginary talent. To be internet trendy I might call it “virtual talent”. The idea is to have a balloon debate, chucking out those with the least talent, leaving anyone who has real talent in the basket.

Here are a few candidates: Jade Goody, Heather Mills, Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, Piers Morgan, Pete Doherty, Liz Hurley, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. Who should go and who should be saved?

Jade Goody and Tracey Emin, as far as I can see, have no talent whatsoever. Of these two, I think I would chuck out Emin first simply because - although I can’t find any evidence of her ever having said so - she believes she may have some talent. Jade Goody, on the other hand, I’m sure, has never given it much thought.

Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards had guts, no doubt about that, but there wasn’t any talent, not even any showmanship. He simply launched himself down a ramp with a pair of skis, bounced over the edge and fell over. So he has to go.

Heather Mills has a famous ex-husband-to-be but not much discernible talent as far as I can see. Out she goes. Liz Hurley? Like Mills she has good looks. Specifically she has a big chest that was shown off in a Versace dress with gold safety pins which she wore when accompanying her then boyfriend, Hugh Grant, to a film premier in 1994. Thus she became famous. But does she have talent? Well not as an actress, her chosen profession. For superior acting talent pick any one of the Woodentops. Goodbye Liz.

So what about Piers Morgan, former daily Mirror editor? I would contest that Morgan does have some talent. Not much; certainly nowhere near enough to edit a national newspaper. He has plenty of chutzpah which you could say of most of these people. In fact they are brimming over with chutzpah. But talent has to be more than that. Sorry Mr Morgan, I just don’t think that “a little bit more talent than Jade Goody” is quite enough to secure your place in this balloon basket. Out you go.

That leaves Pete Doherty and Damien Hirst. My eldest son tells me that Pete Doherty has some talent because “he writes good lyrics”. Some say he’s a poet because he steals lines from people like Emily Dickinson.

This is a bit from a song called Stix and Stones:

“They said that I was as good as dead
And there was hope, but not for us together
My friend, oh my friend, oh my true friend, my phony friend
Oh well you know that that's the end, that's the end,
so far away down, down.”

Great lyrics? Poetry? Whoops, he’s out of the basket. And that leaves Damien Hirst. I do think that Hirst has some talent. His spot paintings were original and nicely arranged, as were Jackson Pollock’s paintings. Even the dead animals Hirst suspended in formaldehyde had some originality in the arrangement. So what about his pill boxes on pharmacy shelves? No. They were just pill boxes on pharmacy shelves.

Comparing greatness in art is the hardest thing. How do you compare Michelangelo with Monet, or Vermeer with Rothko? Impossible. But all were talented. Against all my expectations when I started this blog, I’m going to leave Hirst in the talent basket for his spot paintings alone. I might be wrong here, confusing fame with talent as many do. But there you go.

If I can think of any other potential talent basket rejects I will list them here in the weeks to come. Or list some yourself. But the idea is that they have some fame. I’m looking for people whose fame and earnings (on the back of their imaginary talent) have surpassed their real talent by some margin.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson would be a difficult candidate since she does have real talent as a classical pianist but she is famous for being famous, not as a pianist. I would argue that there is some honesty in that. She is not pretending to be an artist or a poet and that thought has led me to another candidate: Yoko Ono. There must be many more.

You are watching Big Brother

If you look closely at your television set you will find that somewhere, usually down in the bottom right hand corner, is a button marked "off". If you push this button it will deactivate your TV set. Alternatively, if a TV programme is not to your taste, you can switch to another channel.

But, for reasons I can understand (as a Daily Telegraph reader who hates its "little Englander" image while drawing some guilty nourishment from its understated voyeurism), thousands of people who perhaps should know better, do not press the "off" button when watching "Big Brother".

I do not watch the programme but I have hovered there a minute or so occasionally when flicking between channels. That's all you need - that and the acres of newspaper coverage it receives - to know what is going on.

There is no doubting that this kind of television stirs opinions. Even David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, has something to say about it.

British diplomats need to have an opinion too because rioters in India are burning effigies of Big Brother producers. Thousands of people who did not press the "off" button want the programme banned. Why? Because they regard aggressive comments made by some of the people in the house as offensive and racist.

I regard them as offensive too. But this is reality TV. It is not an episode of Eastenders or the Archers, the kind of dramas that present the acceptable face of multicultural Britain. Big Brother presents another reality: the dark underbelly of society.

Jade Goody, the protagonist in this latest row, displays the kind of brutal demeanour that can emerge from social deprivation in childhood. Her confrontational behaviour is typical of that portrayed every day on the Trisha or Jeremy Kyle daytime TV shows.

In America Goody would probably be dismissed as "trailer trash". In the UK , for no other reason than she has appeared on TV, she has acquired celebrity status, a source of abiding irritation for the Telegraph readers of Tunbridge Wells.

Goody is the reason that the middle classes send their children to private schools. There are thousands like her. Most of us, however, can feel smugly secure in our superior intellects and standards. This is a woman who thought the Mona Lisa was painted by someone called Pistachio. On the ABC social auditing scale, she would probably slip off the register.

But Jade Goody is not only part of reality TV, she is reality. Moreover, her xenophobia - and this is the big ugly secret that most of us would rather not share - is not confined to a single lower class. It exists at all levels.

Remember Alan Clark and his suggestion that immigrants should be sent back to "Bongo Bongo land" and the Duke of Edinburgh's comments about the "slitty eyes" of the Chinese?

You don't hear such comments in trendy London bars where people of all ethnic backgrounds mix freely in a spirit of intellectual liberalism. But racist language, and the attitudes that inform it, remain as a persistent stain on our national character.

There are those who will highlight racial differences in most societies. For those who support multiculturalism, who have struggled to close the racial divide, who try to understand, even celebrate, cultural and ethnic differences, to be reminded of such undercurrents is painful, hence the thousands of complaints against Big Brother.

But how can you complain against reality? If Big Brother does one good thing, it is to reveal the grubbier side of life that we prefer to sweep under the carpet. It strips away pretension to expose the squalor of ignorance that no amount of celebrity can conceal. The bad thing about Big Brother is that it invites us to wallow in its social meddling in the name of entertainment.

So what is Big Brother? Social window or trash TV? Both, I would say. In the meantime Big Brother exists and will continue to do so just as long as we continue to watch.

See a judge's opinion.