Rawl plugs in a handbag - the TV quiz swindle

Recent years have seen a bad run for the nation’s politicians and credibility. That any think the public believe a word they say is amazing, considering the ‘do as I say, not as I do attitude’ adopted.

A brief trawl through recent memory delivers some gems. Green taxing air passengers while expanding the nation’s airports; telling long suffering passengers that actually trains are affordable and improving; cycling to work while your driver takes your stuff.

Stand up for your round of applause Chancellor Gordon Brown and environment minister Ian Pearson, transport secretary Douglas Alexander, and leader of the opposition David Cameron.

But hopefully we are finally about to see some MPs actually do something properly. A gaggle of politicians (is that the right collective noun?) are currently investigating the plague of quiz phone-in shows coining it in on late night TV.

These quiz phone-ins are such an obvious fiddle that it would be funny if two companies who have managed to get the ultra-rare privilege of a terrestrial broadcasting licence weren’t involved. And if you think the ITV and Five TV quiz swindles are bad, they’re nothing compared to the cable channels.

If you want a good laugh read the select committee report here featuring bearded dragons as household pets and balaclavas and rawl plugs as things found in a lady’s handbag.

Hopefully this report means something is going to be done about these shows and I will leave the last words on them to a politician, who I hope sticks by his convinctions and gets his fellow committee members to act.

Summing the fiddle up beautifully, Alan Keen, Labour MP for Feltham and Heston, said: ‘Suppose you decided to change the National Lottery so that when people buy their ticket on a Saturday afternoon not all the tickets are entered into the draw. You say: 'You can buy your ticket and pay your pound and we are just going to throw most of them in the bin behind the counter'.

‘Can you imagine what that would do to sales of Lottery tickets? Yet that is what's happening with these quiz shows.’

Mr Keen, you are in the running for my new favourite politician - don't let us down.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

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Comments

[SUSAN NEIL]

Sorry Simon, well just taking the rawl plugs out of my handbag and I have been known to carry screwdrivers and plumbing equipment also! Must say though the balaclava is not my style! I agree however that we are turning into a Nation of gambling "junkies" so I think a Health warning might be appropriate on these programmes never mind the clues.