I agree with you, Rock Chick, it's a crying shame that he has felt led to withdraw from the show. If the BBC puts on shows which are open to a public vote, then the BBC must take the consequences and let the public choose all the way.

Shows like this always have the token "ordinary people" in them - (as opposed to the "beautiful people"), to hook in the public and get them watching in the first few weeks. These "ordinary people" are then expected to stay just for the first couple of weeks. I can't help but feel that the programme makers choose to invite such contestants because they can also be a figure of fun in the eyes of some, which I think is despicable.

The great success of John Sergeant in gathering votes week after week must have taken the programme makers totally by surprise. An "ordinary person" was supposed to be out of the game by now ! Now that everything has to be so totally above-board in the BBC as far as counting the public votes are concerned - after the Naming the Blue Peter cat fiasco, amongst others - their only recourse is to manipulate the voting public.

The manipulation against John Sargeant has been particularly nasty, and I don't blame him at all for wanting to be out of it. Reading between the lines of his interview last night on "It Takes Two", I get the feeling that there is a lot more he would like to have said about the vitriol, but he is too much of a gentleman, and he knows that those responsible are making a very good job of showing themselves up in their true colours anyway, without him needing to point it out any more.

As an example of the vitriol: At the end of Saturday's programme, one former contestant urged the public to "vote for the dancing, not for your favourite". His anger and nastiness was plain to see when he said that people were being voted off this show at the expense of someone who should not still be there.

No wonder John Sargeant made his decision to leave yesterday ! Poor man is damned if he did and damned if he didn't: That *very same* nasty contestant had the effrontery to say on TV last night that he "thought it very selfish of John to leave the contest." Nasty, nasty, nasty. John Sergeant is well out of it - and we have all been shown just what those people are like. It is, after all, meant to be harmless family entertainment !! I very much doubt if it can ever re-gain that again, and viewing figures will go down. Maybe this will prove to be the last series of the show. I certainly shall not be watching it.

- jeanie