The strange obsession with Phillip Schofield

As I have noted before, there is always another circle. I thought that last week’s scandal (originally entitled ‘Suellagate’ or ‘speedgate’ by the papers) could not be surpassed for its sheer vacuousness and pointlessness. But then I did not foresee that the next week would be one in which every newspaper and news bulletin would lead with a story about a morning television presenter. Yet here we are, after more than a week of national debate about Phillip Schofield.

I first became aware of Schofield when he was presenting children’s television from the BBC’s ‘broom cupboard’ with Gordon the Gopher. I have not followed the career of either character very closely since. Nor, I think, have many other people.

In case you think that claim an exaggeration, I just checked the viewing ratings for ITV’s This Morning, which Schofield until recently presented with Holly Willoughby. For their last Christmas special, they had more than a million viewers, but in recent times they had been bumping along with a bit over 500,000 viewers a day.