Those of you in the UK might already know of a breakfast show called Good Morning Britain. It’s shown on ITV from Monday to Friday. Those of you who don’t know it, be thankful for small mercies.
The show is essentially clickbait television. Pretty much everything about it is designed to provoke a reaction from the audience, including the questions being discussed. And “should we ban” questions are one of the programme’s main tactics for this.
Typically, this involves having two extremes fighting it out and no one changing their mind about anything at the end. Just like the internet. And Tuesday’s edition was no exception. Following the emergence of footage of Michael Gove dancing in a nightclub, they asked “should we ban over 40’s from nightclubs”.
A ridiculous and unhinged question, to be discussed by the ridiculous and unhinged. And here they are!
On the one side, Tallia Storm. (or Natalya Storm Hartmann, to use her real name) An okay-ish singer who knows the power of clickbait. Which means she could do alright in an age where talent isn’t the main thing that gets you to the top.
Storm believes – or at least claimed to – that anyone over 25 is already clinically dead and should spend the evening at home with a nice cup of tea, watching classic episodes of Coronation Street. Which means she gets another 18 years in nightclubs, being the terribly young age of 22.
On the other side, Tony Blackburn – a man as mad as a box of frogs, but at least one with the decades of knowledge and experience to back it. And as he correctly pointed out, this policy would mean a huge number of DJs – including Carl Cox, Pete Tong, Yousef, Low Steppa and Judge Jules – would no longer be able to appear in nightclubs, with them all being 40 and above.
Inevitably, the discussion goes round and round for a while, with no one having re-evaluated their opinion at the end of it. The whole thing is a complete waste of time, yet serves its purpose for the show – it’s more clickbait which wins them visitors and views online and their next set of meaningless awards.
But on the plus side, this policy would mean Hannah Wants – currently 35 years young – effectively being banned from dancefloors in 2026. Decisions, decisions…