Crowds greet the latest Big Brother evictee

The Hansard Society is publishing a Tale of Two Houses, examining how MPs can learn from the reality television show which attracts millions of votes.

Some of the Big Brother viewers interviewed for the study suggest having "diary rooms" and regular electronic referendums.

Oxford University's Stephen Coleman, who wrote the report, says MPs need to find exciting ways to use interactive technology to give people more control over how viewing the political process.

And they need to build up respect between political junkies (PJs) and Big Brother watchers (BBs).

Poles apart?

The Conservatives are already trying to build up some of their strategy by identifying the split between those two groups.

A YouGov internet opinion poll surveyed PJs, who are very interested in politics but never watch Big Brother, and BBs, who vote in the show's evictions but have little or no interest in politics.

The poll suggests BBs respect PJs for their interest in politics, describing them as "sensible" (22%), "thoughtful" (21%) and "interesting" (63%).

GROUP PROFILES BBs: Female; under 40; semi-skilled; unskilled or students; no religion; Labour voters; infrequent talks about politics PJs: Male, over 50, professionals or self-employed, attached to a religion; Tory voters; frequent talkers about politics 10 things politics could learn from Big Brother

But that respect apparently does not flow the other way.

Of the PJs questioned, 63% called BBs "voyeuristic" and almost a third of them (29%) said they were "dull".

In a foreword for the study, Peter Bazalgette, chairman of Big Brother producers Endemol UK, says it is useful to compare the two different types of televised house.

He says: "The relationship between the electors and the elected is fracturing. Parliament is remote and unresponsive.

"The government cynically dominates the agenda, backbenchers have become invertebrate lobby fodder while an unrepresentative coterie of pressure groups burrow their way into the central nervous system of the body politic."

Language barrier

Professor Coleman, who specialises in e-democracy, says the split between PJs and BBs is a story about a "failure of translation".

"Moving from the political speech is not to abandon politics, but to mediate it in a more accessible and humane way," he says.

And something needs to be done so regular viewers of Parliament on television move beyond being merely "impotent strangers whose only interactive options are to watch inertly, switch over or switch off".

'Nothing sacred'

Prof Coleman says PJs view BBs as the "great unwashed" but says more needs to be done to explain what happens when and why in Parliament.

He adds: "To so much as suggest that there are lessons to be learned and bridges to be built is to risk condemnation by those who want to protect the sanctity of politics as a privileged space.

"But what is at risk if the uncomfortable chasm between the engaged and the disenchanted is left unreconciled?...

"The way to liberate political democracy from its current cultural ghetto requires a new conception of two-way accountability; a creative and exciting use of the new technologies of interactivity; and the nurturing of genuine respect between PJs and BBs."

YouGov director Stephan Shakespeare, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith's pollster, says the audience would love it if they saw an edited version of the personal tensions, feuds and friendships of political life.

"The problem is they don't," he says. "The cameras just show the staged version, the bit that doesn't interest most of us."

He adds: "The time will come when there is a political party which conducts all its affairs in front of the camera, and in whose proceedings the viewers can take part."