Electoral Fraud

There is a great scene in the movie Election where Matthew Broderick angrily tries to deflect questions from one of his young charges, who is scrutinising the vote he has fixed in favour of his preferred candidate.

“We’re not electing the fucking pope here” he retorts, dismissing the goofy teenager’s reservations about the count, given that in the greater scheme of things, it means sod all.

Over the past few weeks, a series of similar voting shenanigans have been taking place over on BBC1’s flagship Saturday evening show, Strictly Come Dancing. John Sergeant, the man with two left feet, the joke candidate who couldn’t possibly win has been finishing bottom of the pile on Saturday only to be resurrected by the voting public the following evening. This has visibly riled the judges, as one superior dancer after another has been eliminated, while Sergeant ambles his way through another routine each week. The latest dancer to suffer this misfortune was Cherie Lunghi, whose demise was simply a bridge too far for the judges and the 15% of viewers who take the programme seriously as a dancing competition.

Initially, the judges adopted a tactic of implying that the voting public were morons, who should do as they say. Strangely, this only served to strengthen the resolve of the Sergeant supporters, and so this week they took a different tact; disappointment - agonising over whether to keep Lisa Snowdon or Cherie as if they were facing Sophie’s Choice. The one judge I’d absolve from this criticism is Len Goodman, who I actually think is a nice enough man who DOES want this to be a dance competition. Unfortunately a dance competition alone is unlikely to be popular enough I’m afraid.

The furore surrounding him clearly made John uncomfortable, as he sheepishly lingered on the edge of the survivors commiserating their fallen comrade. Then came the stories (rumours from ‘insiders’ mostly) of an uprising among the remaining contestants; if Cherie could go, then it could be any of them – yikes, JOHN MUST GO. John Sergeant is not a man to be easily intimidated – when Thatcher resigned there he was in the thick of it prodding her with a microphone (you could argue that this was her weakest moment, but I wouldn’t get in her way). However, eventually the sniping must have got to him and he decided that enough was enough and yesterday stepped down.

The backlash has been swift and vicious. The Facebook groups established when rumours spread of a passing bandwagon on which to jump, are incandescent in their rage. Here is a flavour of the wall…

"Can't believe he's gone. Those tosser judges should go as well. Silly old bas***ds!!!!!!!!!!"

"As far as I am concerned the judges are just a silly bunch of rude, egotistical nitwits with their heads placed so far up their proverbial bottoms they wouldn`t know what entertainment was if it slapped them in the face"

"Noooooooooo!"

Several comments refer to the judges and their egos, but even more hit on the real nub here, that this is an entertainment show, and John was, entertaining…in a way. And even if he wasn’t, the reaction he generated among the judges sure was. He got people (even me) taking an interest and talking about this programme – give it a week, who knows I may even have voted. Now, all that is gone and SCD will have to hope as many people take an interest in a show that is so strictly about the dancing. I rather doubt they will.

A lot of people have questioned why John was in the show to begin with if he ‘wouldn’t be allowed to win it’. Many suggest, and I’m inclined to concur, that he was there at best as light entertainment, at worst so there’d be a contestant the judges could smugly mock for lacking in dancing talent. What is most unsavoury about all this is that when he turned the tables against the bullies, he was forced out because it didn’t fit with what the judges and the producers wanted.

A lot of people criticise X-Factor, and it mostly deserves it. However, there is none of the pretension of SCD. It knows what it is and what is wants to be, and abuse these days is essentially pantomime abuse. It also has the esteemed Cheryl Cole, a trailblazer in that she is someone your wife or girlfriend doesn’t mind you fancying as they do to a bit too.

It is a damn sight better than Strictly which will now produce a winner forever tainted by the nature of John’s exit. Does it really matter who wins? Does it? Of course not. I’m afraid it’s another spectacular BBC own goal. After all, it’s not like we were electing the Pope…