Question: Big Brother has been accused of coarsening British culture - from concerns over the surveillance society to dumbing down in celebrity Britain - how do you feel about those criticisms?

Peter Bazalgette: Anyone who accuses British television of dumbing down is making a very dumb remark.

If you look at the television schedules of the '50s and '60s when there were only two or three channels they were often are positively banal compared to today. I'm sure they were fine for their day, nowadays you have hundreds of channels offering an enormous amount of choice. Part of that choice is entertainment and Big Brother has a very important role to play in that.

As for coarsening, these are very, very snobbish remarks. It's only recently that a certain sort of people in society got on television on their own terms. People like Jade, in the past if they had been on television they would have been either been found in some Man Alive documentary cast as social victims by middle class producers or been ciphers in some sort of double your money game show, such people can now get onto television on their own terms. being themselves. It is, I think, wonderfully refreshing.

There is a whole other side to Big Brother in terms of its importance in terms of technology.

Question: The recent series saw press attacks on Jade - comparing her to a pig - attacking her over her looks and calling her stupid - were you shocked by the ferocity of these attacks?

Peter Bazalgette: To be shocked by anything a British tabloid newspaper does would be naïve wouldn't it? Did I like them? No I didn't like them.

In fact it was interesting that the one or two papers who went in for that, for quite a brief period of time, actually recanted and ended up supporting her, being very supportive of her.

But we picked Jade because we knew she was a robust person and she's come out of the house, she's very happy, she's made quite a lot of money, she's put all that behind her.

But I didn't particularly like what they wrote, no. But I don't control the tabloid newspapers.

Question: In what circumstances would you pull a contestant from the programme for their own good?

Peter Bazalgette: If somebody is not prospering in the house, if they are not happy or not well, they come out. Anybody can leave any time they want to.

But we have a screening process which is exhaustive and very careful and we only pick people for the house who are judged by experts to be robust enough and extrovert enough to not only survive but benefit from the experience. The experience of our three series show we have got that about right.

Question: Is Big Brother a marker for modern Britain? Does it have any of the deeper meanings some pros and antis have given it?

Peter Bazalgette: Well if you put 10 or 12 people in the 20 - 40 age group in the house and listen to them talk, and their inter-relationships, you do get a flavour of modern Britain.

But only a flavour as represented by those 12 people, straw polls are not that accurate, or not in all respects.

In some respects it holds a mirror up to ourselves and I think when, for instance, Jade admits to ignorance to certain geography and everyone puts their hands in the air and says 'how dumb is Britain'.

They forget that a hundred years ago half the country couldn't read or write. They forget people like Jade on the whole didn't get on to television on their own terms until the last few years.

Television was in that sense not democratic at all. So it has a significance but you could overplay its significance by taking a straw poll to be completely reliable, which straw polls aren't.

Question: Following a big poll participation for Big Brother, politicians of all parties worried about voter apathy. They talk about learning lessons from the series - do you believe there is anything politicians can or should learn from Big Brother?

Peter Bazalgette: It is true that a lot of young people like voting in Big Brother and a lot of young people don't like voting in general elections.

Yes we can see the turn-out fall from 72 per cent to 59 per cent in the last election, and people are toying with modern ways of voting like being able to email your vote in and so on.

But if people think bringing in modern methods of voting in the technological sense are the answer they're wrong.

That's just technology and technology has got nothing to do with it.

The reason people vote in Big Brother is not because they like sending text messages in a technological sense or because they like sending emails, it's because they are emotionally engaged by the programme - as they are indeed by East Enders or Coronation Street.

They've made an emotional investment in it, they identify with the people in the programme, they have views on them, they like some, they dislike others, they want to vote them out of the house, and they are very attracted by the interactive proposition that they can affect the outcome of the programme. And that's why we took something like 22 million votes in the last series.

So it would be a mistake to become obsessed with technology over substance. At the end of the day people are not voting general elections because they are not engaged by politics. We all know that membership of the political parties is tiny compared to the 1950s.

Take a phenomenon like the young Conservatives. Goodness me you used to join the young Conservatives to get a snog in the 1950s. There are lots of different ways getting snogs nowadays.

I think the reason for politics being less engaging for young people is not to do with politics per se it's to do with the fact that young people have money and plenty of ways of spending it and, indeed, of entertaining themselves. I don't actually believe young people are less engaged by issues. But I think they are less engaged by formal politics.

This is only partly the fault of politics. but technology is not really the answer. It is merely the means to a cure.

Question: How can politicians better engage young people?

Peter Bazalgette: What would I know?

One would have thought that discussing issues that young people care about in a sincere way - if that's not an oxymoron. Things like drug laws, the environment or issues young people do care about.

All parties have been pretty cynical on the environment, certainly we have a very unenlightened drugs policy in this country, mostly because the current government is afraid of offending middle Britain that they won over 1997.

They are afraid of offending the Daily Mail. They are obsessed by the Daily Mail in Downing Street, but the Daily Mail is of no interest to young people, because it's such a narrow-minded right-wing newspaper.

So if I know anything about it, it's to engage sincerely in issues that young people care about.

Question: Conservatives are in open debate about their image - should they be focusing on their traditionally strong policy areas or appealing to new audiences - what would be your advice on this?

Peter Bazalgette: Well my advice to them would be my advice to any politician. And that is to talk about what you believe in, that way you will impress people.

You don't chase voters by telling them things that you think they might like, they just feel patronised, they see through you. You have to talk about the things that you believe in.

So, if, for instance, the Conservative Party genuinely believed in liberalising the drugs laws that's what they ought to espouse - if they did, I don't know if they do. But they shouldn't start by saying 'how shall we chase Big Brother viewers', 'oh let's be trendy'. They should talk about things they believe in.

Question: Reality TV and lifestyle programming, gardening cooking etc. has changed the face of broadcasting - as a TV producer in the vanguard of this shift how would you change the way people view politics, particularly in terms of TV coverage?

Peter Bazalgette: There is a crisis not so much in politics as in what you might call parliamentary affairs.

In that it is the cornerstone of our democracy but younger people are less engaged in it and it is evidenced by the fact that fewer young people buy newspapers than they used to and fewer young people watch political programmes than they used to.

That is a worry, it's a concern.

Whether current affairs can be reformatted for television to get a younger audience or whether we are witnessing a genuine shift away from an interest in organised politics, it is difficult to say.

But politicians who kneejerk against the BBC's current wish to modernise or spruce up some of their political programmes by saying that the BBC is dumbing down politics are talking the purest drivel.

Anybody who uses the phrase dumbing down should be locked in a darkened room for a couple of years. Anyone who uses the phrase dumbed down is normally offering some kneejerk view not backed up by any evidence or statistics at all - just prejudice.

The BBC's is absolutely right to try modernise its political programmes, it remains to be seen how they will do it or how successfully. For an aspiration it is absolutely spot on.

The BBC is another cornerstone of our democracy, we all pay for it, we want it to do certain things and one of those things is it needs to engage in the political debate which is the basis of democracy. So it is absolutely right for the BBC to look at its political programmes and ask why are younger people not watching.

Question: Do you think that political coverage has in any way deteriorated, the spin debates, the fact that many politicians blame the way in which the media focus on presentation rather than substance?

Peter Bazalgette: The relationship between the media and politicians has developed over 30 to 40 years and is developed really by the media being more sceptical and politicians attempting to control the situation more as the media has become more sceptical.

It is been like a nuclear weapons arms race, tit for tat, rearmament on both side as it were, escalating over the years. I don't think its going to change and I think its inevitable.

It's good we have a more sceptical media and that we have a more sceptical media makes it inevitable that politicians will be more wary of it and attempt to control it more. I think you might as well complain about it as you might complain that it rains in the winter - and the summer.

Question: Have you ruled out a career in politics?

Peter Bazalgette: Personally? I haven't thought about a career in politics for 20 years, but I did consider it when I was much younger. And now at the age of 49 I don't think it's much of an option.

Question: Which party did you consider?

Peter Bazalgette: I take an entirely neutral position these days.

Question: What put you off, your expanding role in the media?

Peter Bazalgette: Certainly I made a career in the media, and secondly my wife would have divorced me.

She regards it as a nightmare profession and she regarded being a politician's wife as an appalling prospect.