Big Brother is a mirror of our times - and Sartre's

This perfect example of Parisian existentialism, set in a hypothetical Hell, explores the relationships of men and women in circumstances over which, deprived of any consciousness of freedom, they have no control other than their ability to exploit and manipulate their peers.

I have, in a sense, experienced much the same constraint in the basic training of the squaddie as a National Serviceman, except that in those weird disciplines there was a fundamental good, and we hapless boys learned the essential lesson that for the sake of the platoon we must mould ourselves into a self-regulating society of inter-dependent equals with the occasional sacrifice of self.

In Big Brother, however, I doubt if anyone learns anything worthwhile, and the pot of gold at the end of it is a temptation not only to throw aside any and all affection, respect or regard that may have developed between players, but unhesitatingly to scrap any decency or scruple that might put one in an honourable light but jeopardise the victory.

Take John Loughton, for example, a pale-skinned, carrot-topped giant of a Quasimodo among the otherwise pretty young things who occupy the stage in this Big Brother series. At 20 he is a budding politician, chairman of the Scottish Youth Parliament, a man whom one might have supposed to have some independence of mind and strength of character, and yet he allowed himself to be the utterly humiliated puppet of Matt Lucas in his temporary role as Big Brother.

The lad's growing discomfort with the things that he was required to say and do was evident, the torment as childishly obscene as tearing off the legs of a spider, and yet he continued to obey the preposterous commands.

Why doesn't he do the decent thing, I wondered, pluck the poisonous transmitter from his ear and end this sickening charade? But that would have been for him to throw away the reward for his cowering subservience - the promise of a place in the final for £50,000 and all the supermarkets he can open in a year. He did the bidding and Lucas kept his promise. Had I been Big Brother for that night I'd have taught him a lesson and expelled him for being such a worm.

John Loughton did what every self-seeking British politician would have done - count the personal cost of an honourable stand and promptly do the other thing. Young John will go far as a politician. Why was I so naive as to hope that he might stand on principle when abject compliance could put £50,000 within his grasp? Big Brother is indeed a mirror of our times.