There is a standard snobbish reaction to popular shows such as Britain's Got Talent: that it must be absolute trash. The lowest of the low. Anything that popular has to be, doesn't it?

Well, the truth is that instead of being the worst thing around, it's actually the best. Britain's Got Talent is quite simply brilliant, uplifting entertainment, a benchmark for the resurgence of popular culture that defies all the received wisdom about the dumbing down of television and the ills of a zombie society.

For those who saw it, there is no need to explain why the mix of schmaltz, warmth and innocence is so successful. Television, routinely, is blamed for everything wrong in modern society: depression, obesity, illiteracy, violence, consumerism, dumbing down. But Britain's Got Talent provides the counter-argument, which is that entertainment is now smarter than it has ever been. And the essence remains nice, harmless, heart-warming human stuff - the medium for tender memories and a sense of a shared centre.

Britain's Got Talent is a model for a competitive, compassionate, cohesive, colour-blind society that the politicians haven't quite managed to deliver. Telly got there before them. The show taps straight into some wellspring of happy ordinariness. It is endearing because it's an snapshot of British life: unpredictable; inspiring; sentimental; humorous: a celebration of national eccentricity.

And so the debate rages. Did the impish 14-year-old George Sampson, with his splashy dance routine, really deserve to be crowned king? Wasn't it a case of we-wuz-robbed for the favourite, Faryl Smith, an elegant, unselfconscious 12-year-old with a voice that relegates Charlotte Church to the level of karaoke singer? And shouldn't Gin the dancing collie and her sweet, shy owner Kate Nicholas have at least been specially commended?

Such is the charm of the show that it manages to unite us, however fleetingly, in that rarest of rare states - televisually homogenous Britain.

This, of course, gives the show political cojones. Gordon Brown and David Cameron must have watched, enviously, the irony-free use of the Union flag, featured everywhere. It presented a fascinating model: Conservative in its ruthless meritocracy, individualism, patriotism, and timeless “have a go” entrepreneurial spirit - but also fiercely new Labour in the way the competition erased differences of ethnicity, class and gender.

A wise politician might indeed understand that millions of viewers were telling them exactly what kind of country they wanted to live in. And if it had a performing dog as well, then so much the better.

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