Leading article: Irony factor

Who says the British record-buying public lack a well-developed and mischievous appreciation of irony?

The fact that Peter Kay's spoof of the sort of song that winners of The X Factor TV talent contest tend to release placed higher in the charts yesterday than one of those very saccharine releases would seem to demolish that particular theory. And that's certainly the optimistic message being drawn by the indie singer Amy MacDonald who has remarked: "If the British public have all bought a CD by a man dressed as a female transvestite singing a song about every reality TV show cliché, it proves that the British public have had enough of reality TV. I really hope that this is the case."

It's easy to sympathise with the MacDonald view. But a horrible thought lurks: what if the public just preferred Kay's tune? Those pronouncements of the death of irony might turn out to be true after all.