Over its four decades, Channel 4 has been responsible for a number of significant television firsts. It was the first channel to broadcast properly in Welsh; the first to show that famous lesbian kiss on Brookside; and, well, nobody had quite dared to put anything quite like Naked Attraction on the air before C4 decided to make dating go full-frontal in 2016. Now, and quite without warning, Channel 4 brings us the first ever glimpse of a ministerial gonad. I mean literally, not as mere vulgar abuse. The b*****k is attached to the Right Honourable Johnny Mercer, former veterans’ minister, and we spy the lower portion of the knacker dangling like a clock weight as he is subjected to a full strip search in Banged Up.
As one of seven well-known names interned as prisoners for a few days in this pioneering series, Mercer is, like any other jailbird, ordered to strip and squat, and, incidentally, make history. It is just the first of many indignities meted out to Mercer, ex MP Neil “Tractor Porn” Parish, Gogglebox star Marcus Luther, Sid Owen (Ricky on EastEnders), actor Tom Rosenthal, singer HRVY, and the columnist Peter Hitchens, who styles himself as a “one-man think tank”. All have to offer up their bottoms to prison officer George Shipton and his colleagues for inspection.
