Jayne Dowle: Celebrity crusades no substitute for people standing up for themselves

Hauled before MPs to account for the disappointing outcome of the Portas Review, her campaign to transform the retail fortunes of 12 towns suffering from high street blight. Accused of misleading those same MPs over a £500,000 fee for presenting her Channel Four series, Mary Queen of the High Street.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, her fancy ideas have been dismissed as hopelessly nostalgic by Bill Grimsey, former boss of DIY chain Wilkes and supermarket group Iceland.

Those who live by the dazzling glare of publicity must also be held to account under its penetrating gaze.

Much of what Ms Portas suggested was common sense. However, too much of what she came up with to bring back life to our town centres was downright silly and out-of-touch. Bicycle rickshaws, guerrilla gardening and something called yarn bombing should never have been considered serious replacements for proper policy based on investment, job creation, utilisation of empty shops and sensible car parking.

Although Ms Portas has her faults, this mess is not entirely of her own making. She has become a victim of a modern phenomenon. In place of strong political leadership, inspirational role models in community life and self-reliance, we find ourselves turning to an army of TV friendly “experts” to advise us on everything from where to shop to how to clear out our cupboards.

What did the Government think it was playing at? Shouldn’t it be the responsibility of Ministers to undertake serious matters of policy-making themselves? To give a matter as important to the economy as the future of retail their full attention instead of sub-contracting the job to a woman off the telly? And although such “consultants” might offer their time for free, we give over our taxes to fund any ideas these gurus might come up with.

The best thing we can do is to draw a line under the whole affair and hope that everyone has learned some serious lessons. The most important one is that Ministers should no longer be seduced by celebrity. Westminster is not an outpost of The X Factor. Politics might prove highly entertaining from time to time, but it is not the job of government and its associates to entertain us.

It is patronising to assume that we will only be able to summon up interest in difficult subjects if they are fronted by someone vaguely famous.

Remember TV property show presenter Kirstie Allsopp getting drafted into Number 10 to talk about house prices? I always thought we employed erudite government economists for that kind of thing.

I am pleased that Nick Clegg proposes free dinners for every child in the first three years of primary school. I’m not sure how the country will afford it, but if the money can be found it will help thousands of children in need who don’t technically qualify for free meals. And it will encourage healthy eating. But was it really necessary to bring in restaurateur Henry Dimbleby to sort out school food?

Dimbleby’s a good chap. His fantastic restaurant chain, Leon, proves that fast food can be all about fresh ingredients. But did we really need him to spend his time coming up with the School Food Plan? It is already blatantly obvious to anyone – or it should be – that school food needs to be as nutritious as possible. That it should be cooked on the premises. That children shouldn’t be sitting in lessons hungry. And forgive me, but I thought Jamie Oliver told us all this five years ago with his television series, accompanying campaign and 
his trip to Rotherham to embarrass the people of Yorkshire. Shouldn’t something have been done before now?

That’s the problem with celebrity-led crusades. However serious the subject matter, they become ephemeral in the end.

They turn into just another vehicle for personal publicity, instead of digging in to bring about root and branch reform. Also, I suspect they make us rather lazy in our thinking. Why bother to engage directly with a tricky matter such as talking to our daughters about anorexia when we have “celebrity stylist” Gok Wan to launch his own body image campaign in schools?

I’m sure that much of this celebrity advice is well-meaning and not simply craven attention-seeking. However, the knock-on effect is that we gradually lose confidence in our own individual judgment. And when people lose confidence in themselves as individuals, communities begin to suffer. We stop speaking up because we think that no one takes any notice of what the little people think. Before we know it, we find ourselves incapable of coming up with solutions to our own problems and disengage ourselves from the democratic process.

Let’s launch a campaign of our very own then. The Portas Review might not have taught us how to rescue our high streets, but surely what we have learned is that the best way to move forward is to start by standing on our own 
two feet.