Leader: Strictly provides a welcome break from reality

ome of the contestants for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing will make us groan aloud – former MP Edwina Currie, astrologer Russell Grant, football executive appendage Nancy Dell’Ollio and East Enders star Anita Dobson: can’t we fly them out to Libya to torture Gaddafi out of his spider hole?

But in the world of TV light entertainment we are, as they say, where we are. It is an enormously popular show. And it is particularly popular for this reason: the worse the news gets – the sinking economy, falling house prices, the decaying high streets, the lousy weather, the appalling football – the more we switch on Celebrity Come Dancing to escape it all. Whatever aspect brings on the grinding of teeth – the rictus grins of the contestants, that ghastly glitter-ball trophy, the over-the-top (literally) judges, the cloying “interviews”, the camp high drama as the winner (long pause, camera pans over the faces) or the orgasmic whoops of joy – Strictly is our underground bunker, the ultimate bolthole from reality, the Great Escape from those all-too regular grim reapers of BBC TV news, bank shares crashing – Robert (“I can exclusively reveal”) Peston and Olga (“I’m standing in the stench of death”) Geerin. The nation can’t take it any more. We surrender. Grim austerity? Give us any break.