I had not expected to be writing in my column about antics on reality TV.

But when the PM discusses Big Brother in Parliament, and the Chancellor is met by protesters in India, it shows how powerful popular TV can be.

With power comes responsibility. Broadcasters receiving public money (Channel 4 gets £100m) have a duty to ensure codes of conduct are respected on air. Racist bullying on TV highlights the risk inherent in cheap-to-make so-called reality TV shows and the dangers of instant celebrity.

I condemn bullying of all kinds on screen and off screen. I doubly condemn racist bullying. A good way to signal your views would be to use the On/Off switch.

Channel 4 has just committed 10% of its programming budget for the next three years to pay £180m for 550 more hours of Big Brother programming.

But if enough people switch over, the producers and programme schedulers at Channel 4 might be persuaded it is time for this contrived and discredited format to be scapped.

PS One thing Gordon Brown will not have mentioned in India is that Britain now has the dubious distinction under his Chancellorship of recently overtaking India as the country with the longest tax laws in the world.

The tax code, which describes our complex tax laws, has doubled in length under Labour.

I am sure Mr Brown's hosts were too polite to remind him that Mahatma Ghandi's original protest was against Salt Tax - imposed by a previous British Chancellor.