` "The Challenge" has been one of the more interesting things to have come out of the recent problems and changes in legislation here in England and Wales, and really shows how public attitudes have changed.' So said the Minister for Labour last week, and he's right.
As you'll be all too well aware, England and Wales found itself in a very difficult position a few years ago. First Scotland very unexpectedly got her independence, then UKIP managed to push through a Yes vote which led to England leaving the EU and England and Wales were left very much on their own. Then when the second financial crash occurred, it looked like there was going to be no way back. The NEW GB party swept into power in the 2020 election and set about changing things radically. One of their less trumpeted, but biggest impact, policies was, of course, on law and order. The decision to close most prisons, to only send the most violent offenders to a prison and to introduce what they called community servitude' for all others made life for the law-abiding so much better. All those menial and difficult jobs that no-one wanted to do could now be filled by men and women condemned to a 5 year, 10 year or life term of community servitude. After a couple of years, community servitude' was broadened so that businesses could use those who would formerly have been prisoners to be cleaners and other low-level jobs. Business then didn't mind the increased taxes they were subject to, as their wage bills were drastically cut – community servants', of course, are not paid a wage, they get what prisoners used to get as a wage – around £1 per day. And then the law changed again, allowing the sale and transfer of community servants' and allowing debt management companies to sell recidivist debtors into community service'. And then the rich and others started buying community servants' to work in their homes and on their gardens and in their fields. And the high taxes levied on sales of community servants' swelled the public purse, paying off debt and making live all the easier for the general public. So, by the 2025 election, slavery, albeit fashioned as community servitude' was a generally accepted fact of life in England and Wales. And it had made a difference – the free population was better educated, better housed, better paid and happier.
And so "The Challenge" was launched. Except for a six week break in August and September and a two week break over Christmas , the shows runs all year, live at 9pm on a Saturday. It' s one of the highest rated shows in the country. Each run' (as they call it) lasts for six weeks, and a lads' run alternates with a `lasses' run. In each run three contestants compete against each other in a series of mental and physical tests. The schedule usually looks something like this:
Week one – introduction to the contestants, backgrounds, family, gossip, etc.
Week two – a series of physical challenges of some kind involving dexterity, agility and physical responses
Week three – a series of mental challenges of some kind involving mental agility, logic and deduction
Week four – a general and specialist knowledge quiz
Week five - a series of strength and endurance challenges
Week six – results, winners and losers.
For each run there is a winner, a runner-up, a loser and a winner from home'. As soon as the first show of the run has finished, phones lines are opened for the public to vote on which of the three contestants they want to win. The lines are closed 24 hours after the broadcast of the show in week five. In each challenge, points are gained by each contestant. Each week, a scoreboard' shows who has the most points and who the fewest. Each week, points are added to the score of each contestant, and after all four weeks of Challenges have been completed, the scoreboard shows the total points accumulated by each of the contestant. These points are then combined with the proportion of the audience votes that each contestant has received to come up with a final score. So, if a contestant gets 25% of the public votes, he or she will have 25 points added to their score. The contestant with the highest final score is declared the winner. He or she receives prize money of £1 for every phone vote recorded for any of the contestants throughout the run. The contestant with the second highest final score is declared the runner-up. He or she receives prize money of 1p (£0.01) for every phone vote (i.e. 1/100th of the prize money of the winner). The contestant with the lowest final score is the loser. The loser is immediately legally entered into a 10 year term of `community servitude'.
The part of the show, though, which gets the viewers, and gets the phone votes in, is the winner from home', a really genius idea. After the phone lines are closed in week five, one caller is selected at random and is called at a randomly chosen time within the next 24 hours. If the phone call is answered, that person becomes the winner from home', if it not, another number is chosen and another until a winner from home' is picked. The winner from home' gets two prizes – prize money matching that awarded to the winner of the run, and the `community servitude' contract of the loser. In effect, one viewer each run gets themselves a decent amount of money and a free slave!
Let's look at a recent run of the show in detail. One of the most watched and commented on runs of the show was run three of the fifth series. A lads' run, it featured three lads in their twenties: Scott, 22, a recent French graduate from Neath, 6' tall, and with short blond hair and green eyes; Luis, 26, originally from Portugal, but now living in Manchester, a painter and decorator, 5' 9" tall with thick dark hair and brown eyes; and Pete, 28, from Kent, unemployed, 6' 4" tall with neck length black hair and hazel eyes. As always, the contestants had been trailed in the previous results week and in ads during the week before the run started, and lots of online chatter began fairly quickly – this looked like being one of the most evenly matched and best looking of the lads' runs for a while.
Week one's show, though, began, as it always does, with a look at what had happened to the last loser of a lads' run. In this case Dale, a 25 year old trainee solicitor, had come in with the lowest final score and had been won' by Gareth Timms, 55, a business man from Carlisle. Dale was shown working in Gareth's factory. Reduced to a slave, Dale was, as is so often the case, working completely naked. One of the amazing changes in life in England and Wales has been the acceptance of public nudity from slaves – interestingly, the public are much more comfortable with a naked male slave than a naked female one, and female slaves are much more likely to be covered in some way. One benefit of the slight warming due to climate change is that there is now more of the year when slaves can be kept naked without danger to them! Gareth had, as is his right, renamed his slave. Dale had had his name removed, and was referred to only as the lad'. He was cleaning toilets, washing tables in the canteen, sweeping floors and doing general menial tasks. In a number of the shots, his rear was shown as being bright red – Gareth was exercising his right to discipline his slave. The catch-up also showed the lad's slave tattoo, his registration number in the usual place in the small of the back. Gareth had also exercised his right of marking and had had tattooed Property of Gareth Timms, Ltd.' above the lad's pubic area. His pubes had been closely trimmed, as had all his other hair. Unlike some owners, Gareth had not decided to lock his slave's penis away in a chastity device, and so the lad's meat was swinging away between his legs as he worked. The segment closed with a shot of the formerly free trainee solicitor yelping and crying while being spanked over the knee of Gareth's 19 year old son for not cleaning his trainers properly. As Lionel Peel, host of "The Challenge" always says at the end of these catch-ups – that's what you risk when you take up "The Challenge"!
The three contestants are then introduced. Film of them at home and at work, with interviews with friends and family follow. Each of the lads talks about why he's taking up "The Challenge" – Scott wants to win so he can start a new life in France with his girlfriend, Luis wants to be able to be a full-time artist and Pete wants to get off the dole (even though it is pretty generous) and start up his own IT business. They're all asked what they are dreading most in the event that they lose. Luis is worried that his new owners would keep him naked and use him sexually (which they have every right to do, if they choose). Pete thinks being a slave would be `even more boring and soul-destroying than being unemployed', and Scott hates the thought of losing his girlfriend (slaves are only allowed contact with family three times per year) and worries that he might be sold into an unpleasant situation. A panel of commentators are, as always, asked for their views on the contestants. They talk about what, from first impressions, they think the likely strengths and weaknesses will be of each of the lads and they give odds on their performance. For week one, the lads do all look pretty evenly matched and they come out fairly close in the first set of odds: Scott 3/1, Luis 4/1 and Pete 4/1. Scott just inches ahead because of his good looks – the panel note that the public sometimes baulk at condemning a good looking lad to slavery. Mind you, sometimes it plays against them – the public want to see a good–looking lad exposed as a slave!