Ban The Celebrity!

The expression "famous for being famous" should apply equally to those that achieve celebrity status despite the absence of any discernable achievement and people whose fame is wildly disproportionate to their degree of talent. Who would you most like to see removed from our TV screens in 2014?

Thankfully common sense appears to have finally prevailed at ITV who say they have "no plans for Katie (Hopkins) to appear on This Morning at this present time." Or at any other time I hope. This is hardly surprising when a petition to ban her from TV gained 87,000 signatures following her awful Tweet about life expectancy in Scotland. Personally I would have done it much sooner in response to her equally ridiculous, but rather less offensive, views on children's names and parenting in general.

What other celebrities, or even programmes, would you like to see consigned to the scrap heap of fame?

I had some disagreement with my colleagues at JEM over the answer to this, but top of my personal list is Jeremy Clarkson. This is partly because he dismisses everyone that doesn't have a political viewpoint somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan as a "leftie", but is mostly because I am sick of his disdain for every car that doesn't possess a massive petrol engine and do 0 - 60 in less than 5 seconds and contempt for drivers who don't own such a machine. The fact that this criteria for motoring happiness is irrelevant to almost all of us seems to be lost on both him and the makers of Top Gear.

A close second for me would be Keith Lemon. A fictional character portrayed by the "comedian" Leigh Francis, whose "flamboyant" personality, ludicrous clothes, and grotesque face pulling I am sure I would have found hilarious when I was 10. I know my former colleague Kevin Annables disagrees with me, but there isn't a character on television that has me reaching for the remote faster.

Next there is Russell Brand. I'll be honest and say that I have never found this guy funny but until recently I did find him fairly easy to ignore. He has now, however, decided to appoint himself as some kind of political campaigner appearing on programmes such as Question Time and Newsnight to express such balanced and intelligent views as "They're like snickering little posh people, sort of w***ing into their sock. I think if your job is to look after the country and you don't care about the people who need it most, you're out of order. And you're a dirty, filthy, posh w***er." I must admit I could take him more seriously as a people's champion if he wasn't happily pocketing $10m a film and living a lifestyle to which very few people can ever aspire.

Well that's the top 3. Jonathan Ross was a close runner-up but didn't quite make the cut amongst such illustrious company.

So, who would you like to see off our screens? Should Ant and Dec (which one is which anyway?) stay in the jungle? Is the X-Factor, X-Factor-less? Let us know.

Written by Mike Gamble: Director JEM Retail Consultants.