by mark green

Last updated 09:00, Saturday, 22 November 2008

It's an absolute outrage and one that simply cannot be allowed to stand. Centuries of a basic human right have been swept away in a fit of pique.

This country gave the world fair and free elections and universal suffrage: one person with one vote has the power to decide who can rule.

But in one swift move, the rights that our forefathers have fought for from Forfar to Falmouth and further have been trampled on. Perhaps it’s entirely appropriate that John Sergeant is responsible for the trampling.

The man dubbed ‘the dancing pig’ has decided to quit the BBC’s light-hearted reality talent show Strictly Come Dancing.

But he is ignoring the votes of zillions of viewers, snubbing ordinary people who actually made an effort and paid their money to vote for him so he could reappear and make us laugh. Week after week.

The Beeb should force him to return before there is a run on the Pound.

He claims he has not been hounded out, but the torrent of barbs from the judges had to wound even his thick skin and talk of him being snubbed by other contestants is all too easy to believe.

It seems those involved forgot that it is a light entertainment show. Contestants are C-list has-beens and those-who-never-really-made-its.

At its most basic level, it is an entertainment show and the public wanted to be entertained by him.

A short, tubby, balding, middle-aged man with the looks of a cheerful bulldog, he added spice and flavour to a show made up of dull people who seem too far up their own cha-cha-chas.

Watching him was like the home video of your dad dancing at a wedding and all the highlights of this series.

I particularly liked the way he dragged his partner across the dancefloor like a caveman hauling a dead deer back to the cave.

Tonight is John’s farewell appearance. We shall all weep, probably with laughter.