This wisdom of crowds stuff has always seemed a bit double-edged: for every silent and courageous candlelit throng gathering outside the cathedral in Leipzig in the 1980s before eventually bringing down the Berlin Wall, there are always far more examples like the braying boo-boys at Twickenham last weekend doing their bit to damage our reputation for sportsmanship.
But if Britons have been collectively enlightened and witty enough to vote in their thousands, week after week, to keep John Sergeant in what is after all a dancing contest, not a political reporting contest, then let’s hope that the people mobilise once again in the name of a different cause: ensuring that Rebecca Adlington, and not Lewis Hamilton, wins the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
It’s extraordinarily galling to plug the BBC, as they spend so much time doing it themselves, but let’s go with it just this once — it matters.
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