We appear to live in a strange world where serious public figures are failed pop stars, pop stars act like political leaders and “wild” young rockers turn out to be stage-school products trained in the arts of spin. So much for all the talk of “keeping it real” today .

Sting is offering a “lost” band the chance to reunite and support the Police at Hyde Park. The One Last Dream contest is open to bands that split up years back and “may have not played since school, university, or even prison”. As The Times points out, those qualifying could include anybody from the former Prime Minister Tony Blair (guitarist with the Ugly Rumours) and the Health Secretary Alan Johnson (recorded a single with the Area) to the BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce (sang in fishnets with the new romantics Chez Nous), or the crusading chef Jamie Oliver (Scarlet Division).

Many public figures were children of the celebrity culture, who seemingly wanted to be famous above all else and were drawn to pop posing long before The X Factor x-isted. Nothing wrong with youthful fantasies, but some never grew out of it, to judge by the childish egocentricity and infantile emotionalism of their serious careers. When Benjamin Disraeli told MPs that “we're here for fame”, I somehow doubt that he had quite the same thing in mind as young Tony's impression of Mick Jagger (although his new portrait makes Mr Blair look more like Keith Richards). The ephemera of pop culture has topped our public and political life.

Gordon Brown might look an exception, having practised to be seriously boring from boyhood. Yet now Mr Brown appears to be trying to catch up with pop politics and celebrity culture, as he hugs Bono and George Clooney and turns up on American Idol. Even such an un-punkish Prime Minister seems unable to resist the bright lights and glittery make-up that he hopes might help to hide a lack of political substance. When our leaders act more like pop tribute acts and mistake celebrity for authority, it is little wonder that pretty vacant pop stars such as Bono, Sting or Madonna want to act as statesmen.

One group who could not qualify for that re-formed band contest, however, is today's young pop stars. Few have ever formed a band spontaneously at school or university or in prison (Pete Doherty may prove me wrong on the latter, except that he is reportedly in solitary confinement). Many of them look more like the “spun” products of stage school. The Brit School for Performing Arts in Croydon produced not only the X Factor “discovery” Leona Lewis and Kate Nash, but the Kooks and mad Amy Winehouse. These young rebels turn out, shockingly, to be slightly less rock'n'roll than Tony Blair.

When the indy band Arctic Monkeys tried to poke fun at all the groomed Brit School graduates at the Brit Music Awards, they were hustled off the stage by security like dangerous dissidents. Seems the pop world has learnt something from politics, too.

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