I would also like to add that I think Jade’s treatment by Davina on leaving the house was utterly abominable. If we really are so against bullying, how can we justify her being villified and humiliated like that? Maybe it’s the only language she listens to, but I still think it was sadistic and cruel, not to mention hypocritical.

If this was happening in a school – ie a group ganging up on someone, you would weigh up the situation as to how the person perceived to be bullied was handling it – did they have any part in what was going on with their friends etc and then deal with it, but I, for one, would want to stop it – also if it happened in the work place. I wouldn’t hide around the corner and “enjoy” watching it going on but this is in fact what is happening. Shame on us all and it is encouraging that so many complained.

This brings me to Anne Robinson – again (poor lady and her Weakest Link programme) but people enjoy watching her taking the mickey out of people and trading insults – children watching will think this is ok and for them to do it, in my view, is not. She is an intelligent woman? who, I am sure,could find a better and more acceptable angle for her quiz.

I agree with Rob, this is envy and bitching and Shilpa happens to be Indian. If she had been Catherine Zeta Jones, I dare say there would be snide remarks about sheep and only being able to cook welsh cakes.

I think that most Indians living in India, if they had been able to watch the programme rather than to view edited pieces, would probably agree with Rob too, so sorry but maybe the media are to blame again.

Maybe it will show Channel 4 that BB has had its day. They want people to be nasty and that is NOT healthy

I don’t think it matters though, whether the invective levelled at Shilpa was directed at her specifically, or at her whole culture. Where her cultural practices are the source of the invective, it is both she and her culture that are being attacked. What I mean is, if you think it’s legitimate to attack someone (personally and specifically) for something which in fact is just a matter of cultural difference, then you must have some objection to the difference in question, and by extension, the culture that contains it. On the other hand, of course, if Shilpa really is so educated and erudite, might she not have predicted that ignorant uneducated (even if through no fault of their own) chav scum will not react sympathetically to the complexities of cultural differences. You could say she brought it on herself, though I have to confess, I didn’t actually see it.

As for class prejudice, it appears to me that the chav scum are at least equally guilty on that score. But it is worse than that, because, as you say, Rob, “they do not realise the subjectivity of their criticism”. If we forgive them this, either because they are uneducated, or because they are unintelligent, I think that bodes ill for society, for democracy and for equality. No power without responsibility.

And on the subject of objecting to chav accents, I think as long as they are, as BB seems to be demonstrating very nicely, an indicator of ignorance and wilfull stupidity, then I see no problem with that whatsoever.

When people wish to insult eachother, they often pick on something superficial (eg cooking practices or accents) as a marker, or a short-hand if you will, for what it is they are really objecting to.

BB has done a good thing by highlighting how utterly awful “normal” people in the uk actually are. This is what our country has come to, this is the legacy of Thatcher and Blair. And has nobody noticed the hideous post-po-mo irony of putting a previous BB contestant in as a “celebrity”?

I complained to Ofcom not about the racism, though that does breach the broadcasting code, however you construe the details of it, but about the ethical question of putting someone who is apparently mentally subnormal on the television for entertainment. I am talking about Jade of course. Because that is what it amounts to. Laughing at the idiot. Only I don’t think Shilpa is laughing. I heard she was crying.