Bikinis in beauty contests again? As wokery gets increasingly absurd, others seem intent on resurrecting Benny Hill – Aidan Smith

The controversial Miss World events were once on a par with the Eurovision Song Contest and the Olympics

A lot of my growing up was concerned with descending numbers. The “Five!… Four!… Three!… Two!… One!” title sequence of Thunderbirds. Radio 1’s countdown to the new chart-topper in the Hit Parade, enlivening gloomy Sundays. And the moment when a man in a dinner suit with a glistening head pulled himself up to his full 5ft 4ins and said: “As is traditional, I will announce the result in reverse order… ”

Miss World, presided over by the heavily Brylcreemed Eric Morley, used to be one of those big, communal televised events watched by the whole family. Like the Olympics and the Eurovision Song Contest, it provoked excitement and patriotism. We wanted Miss Great Britain to win, even more so if she’d claimed that title as Miss Scotland, even more so if she’d earned that crown by putting an unfashionable town on the map – as Miss Pumpherston, say, or Miss Skinflats.

And then beauty contests were deemed bad. Shockingly sexist. Nothing more than cattle markets. A blatant excuse to ogle women and perpetuate the patriarchy. Young boys who didn’t know what patriarchy meant were disappointed. Their dads, who did, more so. And Michael Aspel, who was allowed – no, expected – to be flirtatious and even a bit lustful when interviewing the girls, went back to reading the news.

A Women's Lib protest against Miss World in 1970 before the flour-bombing of guest star Bob Hope (Picture: Pierre Manevy/Getty Images)

I must admit I assumed the contests had stopped. Maybe some cavemen in South Africa tried to keep Miss World going for a bit. Perhaps other pageants, driven underground, were able to continue in secret like bare-knuckle boxing and cockfighting. But eventually, with TV not interested anymore, they died out completely.

But no. Miss England survives, as indeed does Miss Scotland, although, maintaining that competitive element, we might just be able to claim some moral high ground here. It’s down south that they’re thinking about reviving the most notorious element of the contests – the bikini round.

It originally featured in the Paleolithic age of the sex wars, when there was no fighting and men simply ruled. After evening dresses and in Miss World’s case, national costume, the contestants would parade in swimwear. Comparisons with farm-show displays of prize cows and sheep could not have been more accurate as the hopefuls would have rosettes slapped onto their hips and numbered discs on their wrists.

This charge was once put to Morley who responded: “If these are cattle markets then I see some very prime beef.” And during a show he taunted the growing number objecting to beauty contests by commanding from the stage: “There are always two points of view and here’s a convenient moment to examine the other one: girls, will you please turn… ” This was his invitation to the judges to study the contestants’ bottoms.

Now, if bikinis are reintroduced, it must be unlikely there will be the same lubriciousness. These days, contests are run by women and not men like Morley, the late ruler of Mecca, the entertainment empire. And TV, while heavily promoting Love Island and its rip-offs where competitors spend all day in swimwear, preening and primping in self-adoration, is highly unlikely to be tempted to screen proceedings again.

But as Morley stated, though his meaning was different, there are two sides to every story. Women involved in the shows, organising or competing, speak enthusiastically of empowerment, a sisterhood, taking control, career advancement and, in the wake of #MeToo, participation on their terms being an expression of a new wave of feminism.

A documentary for BBC Radio’s The Why Factor found aerospace engineers, doctors and barristers who’d entered contests and very few bimbos. The programme, broadcast in 2019, also recorded the achievements of Women’s Lib who the previous year, after a struggle lasting half a century, had finally persuaded the Miss America competition to drop the swimsuit section.

These campaigners will surely be dismayed by the prospect of it returning – and so will the veteran activists who got Women’s Lib going in Britain. It was in 1970 that the movement took off in the UK. Libbers had been rooting around for a cause and when Bob Hope rolled into London that November they found one.

“I’m very, very happy to be at this cattle show tonight… moo!” declared the veteran comedian and Miss World top draw. He was less pleased, however, when bombarded with flour thrown from the gods of London’s Royal Albert Hall. The protesters, who were also equipped with smoke bombs, water pistols and rotten fruit, were arrested, spent the night in the cells and fined – but with an audience of 24 million tuning in to the contest, they’d made their point spectacularly and a movement was born.

There have been other protests from the catwalk. It had been a tradition during Miss Peru for the girls to shout out their bust, waist and hip measurements but 2017’s contestants used the moment to list a spate of attacks against women and complain about police failures to bring the offenders to justice.

As justification for the return of the bikini, referencing Love Island is about as risible as insisting that what Miss World was really about was the promotion of world peace. So maybe it could be seen as another form of protest, an anti-woke blast. If feminism is having the right to choose, then this is choice.

Well, ex-Miss England Katrina Hodge says she now regrets campaigning against the swimwear round. “By successfully ending it, I took away women’s choice and freedoms,” she says. “I also made the competition highly boring.”

Wokery is beginning to get absurd, no doubt about that, but I’m not sure fighting silly with silly is the best way to combat it. Even if Benny Hill, Dick Emery and Frankie Howerd are all laughing from beyond the grave.