School Gate: Why today's decision is a bad example for children

It is a basic rule of democracy that the person who wins always deserves to. The same is true in competition. If no rules have been broken, the winner deserves their victory. So there is no doubt that John Sergeant deserves his place in Strictly Come Dancing. And no doubt either that it's time to get rid of him.

The glorious British tradition of radical dissent now has a dancing footnote. Establishment figures have rarely come as camp as the four judges but the Vote Sergeant campaign has been as much a two-fingered salute to authority as it has a verdict on his footwork.

On that matter, the actual dancing, everyone knows he's hopeless. He's Eddie the Eagle in sequins, the latest in the long line of sorry losers whom we mistakenly assume to be charming because they have achieved the distinction conferred on all of us of being rubbish.

The whole point of competition is that rubbish gets rooted out. Competition without a winner is just people doing something odd, for no apparent reason. And Strictly Come Dancing is a competition. There would be no judges if it were not. There would be no public vote. The drama is not that everyone is trying to dance. It's that everyone is trying to win. The competition is the entertainment, even when the dancing is no good. To say it is just light entertainment is to miss the point.

And if it's a competition - which it obviously is - then it ought to be judged according to the rules, which are, surely, about the ability to dance. Of course we are free to choose our own criteria. We could call it Strictly Having a Laugh and be done with it. Might as well make it a parade of national treasures and give the award to Alan Bennett every year. But it's not about being genial. It's about dancing.

The best competitions reward skill. Games are not matters of chance and, although luck plays a part, if fortune is the arbiter then it is a dull game. Rules are a framework for talent, and to enthrone someone whom we all know is useless makes a mockery of the other contestants. There has been a lot of guff about how hard Sergeant is trying and how much he has improved (he hasn't). But what about Rachel Stevens? How do you think she feels?

And even if Strictly Come Dancing were just entertainment - which it is not - it would rapidly cease to be entertainment if all the contestants were like Sergeant. Apart from the irony of knowing that he is hopeless and yet may survive, the entertainment value of watching Sergeant dance is nil.

William James said that a sense of humour was common sense dancing. The joke is wearing thin. It's time the dancers prevailed.

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