Blue Cheater

I am rarely shocked these days, but the slippery slope of responsibility has society falling even further from the way things should be. It has been reported in the news today that the BBC children's TV show Blue Peter has been involved with the recent phone-in competition scandal going on in the country at the moment.

I would expect commercial channels, and trashy programmes to be implicated, but Blue Peter! This show has for as long as I can remember upheld middle class beliefs and principles even when they were unpopular, when I was a kid I remember watching and thinking; this is boring, but also that it was something good and just. It taught kids how they should behave and how help their parents and the community, the Blue Peter christmas star made out of wire coat hangers and tinsel has achieved iconic status, as has its heavy use of sticky backed plastic.

So it is with genuine shock that I hear that the show has been cheating children in a phone in competition. Last November it ran the competition but had a technical problem and people phoning in couldn't get through to the studio, so rather than admit this to viewers while on air, the staff decided to fake it and found some poor little girl in the building to pose as the competition winner on an internal phone line.

The presenters, producers, cameramen, all went along with this scam, no one thought to blow the whistle on this tragic episode in the programmes history, it just goes to show how far down we've gone. I can't believe that nobody thought it was wrong, but despite this, it is apparent that nobody did anything about it and only following complaints from the public did anything happen. An apology is now due to be aired as a result.

Why would it have been such a loss of face to admit there was a problem with the phones and the competition would have to be cancelled? How difficult would it have been for a presenter to say that it is not right and speak out?

It really seems that nobody has any morals anymore, and everyone is so weak. I can't stand all these liars cheats and scum bags!