Congratulations to Channel 4 who've discovered - following the success of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding - the elixir for TV success: a tabloidy title; a hackneyed premise; a sprinkle of polemic farcical characters; a dash of cultural superiority; and a simple reduction of complex issues into black and white. Or in this case, brown.
Rightfully, the Twitterverse and critics have descended on the show with delightful disparagement, accusing it of being either an unfair portrayal of Bradford, putting in racially stereotypical characters, or simply couching its lackluster content in reality TV hyperbole. All these criticisms are valid.
However, few people seem to have questioned the racist tone of the show itself, and the culturally superior terms of the debate.
The programme starts with the voiceover, speaking with the unsubstantiated self-belief of God, saying: "Multicultural Britain needs help. Some people just aren't mixing and our cities are becoming increasingly divided." Integration, God is commanding here.
But consider the concept of 'integration' - a word the PC brigade thought would be more acceptable than 'assimilation', though the sentiment is the same: fit in with 'us'.
Then consider - who is 'us'? The British? 'Diversity and community expert' on the show, Laurie Trott says: "I don't think we've got a clear view of what Britishness is, because one section of the community thinks of it one way, and another section thinks of it another way."
Okay folks, it's about time we get one thing straight. 'Britishness' is nothing more than lines drawn on a map - arbitrary borders that keep people in and out, and a collection of laws that apply within those borders. 'Britishness' is not a cultural entity in itself. In fact, 'Britishness' is produced by the people. The inevitable reality is that everything which exists within these borders - whether we like it or not - is British. So yes, the hijab and the bacon, the corner shops and the Chinese takeaways, the Synagogues and the strip clubs, the museums and the halal butchers, the theatres and the terrorism - it's all British.
So when Make Bradford British participant Desmond thumps his chest and proclaims "Being British is in my heart," he's very, very wrong. It's on his passport. This preposterous parochial sentimentality for a mythical cultural identity is sickening, dangerous and left unchallenged by the producers of this degenerate show.
If someone marries a British citizen and thereby obtains a British nationality, or a persecuted individual is granted asylum, do you expect them to erase their entire social and cultural background and adopt some fictitious marmite-loving Morris-dancing persona? If so, then you really must check that cultural superiority of yours.
The whole notion of assimilation or integration is a fallacy - how is it not culturally imperialistic to say, if you live within these borders you have to conform to this dominant culture? How is it different from telling gay people that they have to look and act 'straight'? Apart from the obvious problem with the bigotry of that suggestion, there's the other problem of - well, what does 'straight' look like anyway? Turns out it can look like anything and everything. Exactly.
The sooner we get away from the notion that 'Britishness' is an actual identity that we need to conform to, the sooner we'll move past these stagnant race debates.
Sadly, this show, whilst pretending to take the (flawed) liberal position of tolerance and open-mindedness by allowing 'Muslims' an equal voice, it fails to relinquish a position of cultural superiority. Even sadder is that I'm sure Channel 4 know exactly what they're doing and why it's simply appalling. Yet, it seems they care little for engaging in constructive debate. Instead they are quite happy to ride off fallacious but incendiary subject matter for the sake of ratings and media attention, living out Oscar Wilde's witticism - "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" - to gross and shameful extremes.