Reality TV

From Thailand.

With his popularity badly flagging, Thailand’s Prime Minister, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon with an eye for the limelight, has taken to the road with a flurry of cameras to star in his own reality show.

After pitching a tent in a back garden in At Samart village, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra has launched a programme entitled Back Stage Show: Prime Minister the basic premise of which is to throw money at the problems of the rural poor who bolstered his landslide victory last year and to magically eradicate their poverty in just five days.

You can't make this stuff up.