X Factor's Jedward - don't back them to win

People in Britain are always complaining how skint they are - and then go throw away what little dosh they have by backing the Grimes twins to win X Factor.

It emerged this week that the twins were both born three months premature - which you have to say is one hell of a coincidence - but whoever is backing them must have been born yesterday.

Haven't they heard of Chico, Same Difference, and the MacDonald Brothers? All played the twins' role of hopeless contestants who couldn't carry a tune; all eventually perished - generally about a fortnight after newspaper campaigns to keep them in.

The raison d'etre of X Factor is not to unearth a superstar, it is to get you to pick up a phone and vote - assuming you can prise it from your teenage daughter. Creating pantomime villains like John and Edward is key. In the first weeks we voted for everybody else to get them out. Now, after hugely sympathetic stories in the press, we vote for them to get everybody else out, especially if it's Danyl.

Pantomime is good for the show's supremos (because of cash raked in); it's good for Simon Cowell (because he's the show's supremo); and it's good for Louis Walsh (because he's BEHIND YOU).

But the pantomime season is a short one, particularly if Les Dennis is in it, and sooner or later the twins will find they have served their purpose. Three weeks from now the stories about the twins will be negatives ones.