Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our range of experts tackle this question and identify the individuals whose decisions caused the country’s biggest problems. • David Cameron: The unlikely villain who casually killed the Conservative Party• Tony Blair: A sincere deceiver who broke Britain’s trust on migration• Ed Miliband: the man to blame for the wreckage of this Labour Government• Denise Coates: The queen of a 24/7 gambling culture that ‘destroys families’• Steve Jobs: The twisted genius who turned us all into lonely, anxious addicts• The historic blunder of one ‘Tory toff’ that means your council is utterly useless• The man who buried students under a Himalayan mountain of debt• William Beveridge: the man to blame for Britain’s disastrous benefits system

Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our range of experts tackle this question and identify the individuals whose decisions caused the country’s biggest problems.

• David Cameron: The unlikely villain who casually killed the Conservative Party• Tony Blair: A sincere deceiver who broke Britain’s trust on migration• Ed Miliband: the man to blame for the wreckage of this Labour Government• Denise Coates: The queen of a 24/7 gambling culture that ‘destroys families’• Steve Jobs: The twisted genius who turned us all into lonely, anxious addicts• The historic blunder of one ‘Tory toff’ that means your council is utterly useless• The man who buried students under a Himalayan mountain of debt• William Beveridge: the man to blame for Britain’s disastrous benefits system

Peter Bazalgette, the TV producer and executive who has spent a considerable chunk of his life as the most important man in British television, will always be best known as the person who brought Big Brother to the UK.

Which he probably finds at least a little bit tiring, now he is 72 and given his other successes as a defender of public service broadcasting, a champion of the creative industries, the former chair of Arts Council England, English National Opera and ITV.

But he has never been ashamed of it. No matter how many credited him with the degradation of popular culture, or blamed him for the debasement of standards and social mores, he has only ever revelled in criticism, amused (he once described Rebecca Loos’s unsavoury pig incident on his Channel 5 show The Farm as “charming”, and a “serious exploration of animal husbandry”). Bazalgette has made a career by provoking a reaction. And as the godfather of reality TV, he has transformed society as we know........

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