Khalid Aziz: Bread and circuses? (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Khalid Aziz: Bread and circuses?

2:51pm Wednesday 21st May 2008 in

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IT is said that during the dying decades of the Roman empire, emperors fought an increasingly losing battle for the hearts and minds of the populace through ever increasing bribes.

They handed out free food and provided amphitheatre spectacles, each one designed to outdo its predecessor in savagery and debauchery.

The Hampshire Chronicle is a family paper of repute, so there is no need to go into detail on either.

In 2,000 years has much changed? Against an increasingly febrile background of predicted world food shortages, any thought that individuals might seriously have to make choices about whether to spend less on entertainment than food would be immediately branded as unreasonable.

In effect that is what is happening. The furore over ITV and to a lesser extent the BBC gerrymandering telephone polls to obtain results already preordained by arrogant producers, ignores the fact that the calls were made by individuals exercising their choice to spend £1 or more a call in the sad belief that they were somehow becoming part of a really important event, namely the promotion of someone who, like many of those who phoned in, were no hoper nonentities.

However, through the magic of the media they could be plucked from a short and brutish life in obscurity and catapulted to stardom and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.

And of course it is avarice that drives this frenzy, coupled with the thought that it is really only luck which shapes our futures as we bob along like corks on the sea of life.

Of course, many premium rate diallers are whipped up by game show hosts of the likes of Ant and Dec (surely a name suited only to a start up house painting company hoping to be listed higher up in Yellow Pages).

When the scandal broke they anxiously distanced themselves at the speed of light from all responsibility, even though, no doubt through delusional self aggrandisement, they had insisted on an executive producer credit.

The announcement of record fines for ITV by Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, followed hard on the heels of the government's 10p income tax debacle.

Gordon Brown admitted they hadn't thought it through. Several groups would find themselves over £200 a year worse off.

This couldn't be allowed to happen, and so provision would be made to compensate them for the extra tax paid.

An interesting concept and a luxury those of us paying considerable more that £200 extra in tax since 1997 would be pleased to try.

Still, our Prime Minister hasn't lost all his political nous. Much better to offer people free bread.

That way they can continue to involve themselves in ever outrageous TV promoted circuses which demean them further and in many cases, rip them off.

It's a tried and tested tradition which goes back 2,000 years - but ultimately it leads to downfall.