Rarely do proposals arrive so unequivocally ill-concieved. Rarely does a project offer almost nothing to commend it. But the continuing talks between ITV and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over the possible television show, Jeremy Kyle Gets Britain Working, offer up one such rare occurrence.

District Judge Alan Berg’s comments that Kyle’s show represents “human bear baiting” have been reprinted often enough over the twelve months since he pronounced them to have lost some of their initial force. But it is worth remembering just how awful Kyle’s show—which sees the relationship and behavioural problems of mainly working-class individuals laid bare on television—is. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report last week named the show “a rather brutal form of entertainment that is based on derision of the lower-working-class population.”

Indeed, one ex-producer has felt compelled speak out about the live spectacles, lamenting the producers’ control over “a Machiavellian game of ‘he said, she said’ to ensure feelings run high.” Another whistleblower talked of the “grey area” which constitutes the mental health of the show’s “guests.”

Still, here is a show watched by over one million people each day. Here is a show which maintains popularity in spite of its critics. Surely if anyone can “get Britain working,” Kyle is the man with the ear of the stay-at-homes?

In fact, the number of levels on which this proposal falls flat is quite striking. First and foremost, Kyle’s proposed quest to “get Britain working” makes a prior assumption that Britain is, for the most part, not working. Most recent figures from the Office of National Statistics (July 2008) put Britain’s unemployment at 5.4 per cent – as a comparison, 7.2 per cent of French men and women are out of work. Fewer people claim unemployment benefits in the UK than regularly watch Kyle’s afternoon show. Really, Britain is working already.

Moreover, is it really responsible for a government during an economic downturn to deflate confidence in the economy and in Britain’s seemingly layabout workforce? The association of any government department with this merely re-enforces a declining economic climate in which cuts in social spending—including jobseekers allowance—must be made via whatever bizarre means necessary.

There’s a further issue in terms of how programme-makers expect the format to actually haul individuals into employment. Clearly not even Kyle has the energy to bully a CV and cover letter out of all 864,700 of Britain’s benefit claimants. Meanwhile, the DWP claim that their involvement with the programme is part of a project “to motivate and support people into work” rings hollow when set against the Rowntree Foundation’s findings: “The Jeremy Kyle Show present[s] those less fortunate in society as undeserving objects to be used for the purpose of public entertainment.” Motivation indeed. Stripped of any inspirational pretence, this is pure, cruel entertainment.

Jeremy Kyle Gets Britain Working has nothing to commend it whatsoever.