The Critical Commentator

  Some will say that all the contestants on I'm a Celebrity are perfectly aware what they are letting themselves in for; that unlike the innocents whose lives were ripped apart by formats like Jerry Springer, they know how television works and have signed lucrative contacts as part of the Faustian bargain. And in some ways I'd agree. But I also think it leaves us with the question of what has gone wrong in a culture where people are willing to debase themselves in return for fame, not to mention why there is such a lucrative market for this kind of entertainment... But this is really my point. I'm a celebrity is in no way trivial. It is not mindless. It is explicitly and calculatingly vindictive. Producers are not seeking to make people laugh, or learn, or switch off, but to participate in what the psychiatrist Sir Simon Wessely has called "the theatre of cruelty". One is reminded of Dostoevsky's line in The Brothers Karamazov : "People speak sometimes ...

 This inquiry is costly, overblown and poorly focused. But those hearings revealed with ruthless efficiency the lamentable political leadership that plagues our country. They exposed a floundering political system along with the rampant egos, strutting vanities and dangerous delusions of dismal people in power when our country was struck by a health catastrophe. Their stunning arrogance and horrifying deceit was shown with stark clarity when Helen MacNamara, a senior civil servant, admitted she would struggle to pick a single day when the draconian rules imposed on Britain with such drastic consequences during those long days of lockdown and social distancing were followed in Downing Street. So much for all the Partygate denials... Despair Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson (1887-1941) Photo Credit Glasgow Life Museums [CC BY-NC-ND)  Yet behind the exposure of government dysfunction and ineptitude, the details of power struggles and pathetic vendettas, lurk profound questions exten...