EU X-Factor

Sort of. Rummaging around EU press releases, as you do (well it was Argentina vs Germany in the World Cup - a classic case of pity they both can't lose) I came across this little beauty:

“Music against poverty” 2010: get your message out!

Something needs to be done to fight poverty worldwide... so join our fight with your music as the weapon to get your message out!

Two winners will be chosen from across the 27 EU countries: one chosen by our jury of professionals and the other by Internet users.

A great chance to take part in an event with wide media coverage!

To join, just submit your song and enter the Music against poverty contest. Nothing could be easier.

You’ll have your own webpage where you can advertise your song and explain why you want to fight poverty.

You can join us if:

you're an EU citizen between 15 and 25 years old
you can write a song on fighting poverty around the world
you submit your song before 30 September 2010 at noon CET.

Of course the EU could help fight poverty a bit better by not actually closing steel plants or increasing people's fuel bills. But never mind, just a mere detail. On to more important things; what can we win (see, the url says prizes)?

First of all, you get to do your bit in the fight against poverty.

Excellent that gets the conscience bit out of the way, but there's more...(my emphasis):

...you can also get to record your song in a professional studio, and perform at a widely publicized event in Brussels during the European Development Days in December 2010. Accommodation and travel expenses paid!

I bet they are, after all it's only our money. Now it's not for me to say that any willing participants won't be altruistic about this, but the precedent suggests otherwise - all publicity is good publicity, especially for budding singers hoping to make the big time.

And the net result from a song trying to fight poverty? Bugger all.

Political X-Factor?

A record 19 million viewers watched Joe McElderry win X-Factor last Sunday and 10 million voted, earning ITV an estimated £18million.

Inevitability, after the celebrations have subsided slightly, there has followed the usual nonsense of suggesting whether this format is a way getting the electorate interested in politics (personally I thought the expenses scandal did a rather good job of that on its own).

What everyone seems to have forgotten, though, is that a similar format was actually tried five years ago for a series on ITV called Vote for Me which was described at the time as a political version of Pop Idol.

So why wasn't it a success?

Well the winner was a taxi driver, and a convicted fraudster, called Rodney Hylton-Potts, with his “cabbie’s manifesto” which included policies such as:

• the mandatory castration of paedophiles,
  
• the repeal of the human rights act,
  
• a massive prison-building scheme and
  
• an immigration deportation programme to reduce Britain’s population by 20m –
  

and various other policies which put him right in BNP territory, even the Sun described him as a “swivel-eyed right-wing lunatic”.

The format was swiftly dropped.