The trouble with democracy, as someone very wise who's name we've forgotten once said, is that every bugger gets a vote. The problem with TV talent contests is similar, but made worse as every bugger gets multiple votes and invariably votes wrongly. So it was last night when Steve beat off G4 - a pairing which was somewhat unexpected by ITV, judging by the break-bumpers used throughout the week featuring a cartoon Sharon and Simon fighting it out - in a result which can only be described as utter nonsense, but serves as a reminder that you should never underestimate the power of a bored, middle-aged housewife, unless that middle-aged housewife is Verity, of course.

Given the general rubbishness and dullness of Steve, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he'd pulled out all the stops and produced a masterful performance, filled with excitement and energy and pizzazz and all sorts of positive adjectives, to secure his victory. Did he bollocks. He produced the same competent, level boat maintaining, hotel bar performance that he'd given throughout the contest. First up was a rendition of Jackie Wilson's Higher and Higher, which started off rubbish, but improved dramatically at exactly the same point that the choir joined in. Hmmm... He followed this up by redoing Smile from earlier in the series, which was nice enough, but he might as well have had someone parading up and down holding a banner proclaiming "Look ladies! He's got a nice smile! Please vote!", which was clearly the blatant underlying message.

G4's first song choice was a bit more interesting - Nessun Dorma, from the famous opera Italia 90 - but was clearly chosen to remind the public that "Hey, these guys are proper singers, you know". This was followed up by them redoing Bohemian Rhapsody which, given that it was only last week that we'd heard them do it, probably wasn't the best choice in the world. If they were desperate to do Queen, then they should really have redone Somebody to Love, but that's all somewhat academic now.

After an initial judging session - all very positive - and more filler material than the plaster section of B&Q, the acts performed what, if they were the winner, would be their debut single. Steve did Against All Odds, his second song of the night that had previously been covered by Westlife. Indeed, given that Westlife tracks were also used as backing music for a number of the VT segments, the whole show seemed to be a subliminal advert for the Irish irritants. Had G4 done a poperatic version of When You're Looking Like That we'd be screaming "conspiracy" from rooftops throughout the land. As it was, however, they did Radiohead's Creep, as seen during their time in the Boot camp, and it was all quite impressive, even Simon found himself unable to fault it during the final judging. Sharon also loved it, much more, as it turned out, than she loved Steve's performance. After his first two songs, Sharon had asked, apparently rhetorically, "How can you not like Steve?", by the time of his last song, however, she'd clearly given it a bit of thought and had come up with a number of reasons, most notably that he's a cocky twat who puts on a fake humble attitude to win over the public. This onslaught, while not reducing him to tears, did nearly reduce him to swearing, but fortunately for the censors - though unfortunately for us - he managed to hold back on telling her to "Fuck off", which is a shame as we might have actually wanted him to win, as it would have been the first time he'd have demonstrated that he actually had some balls.

Alas though, by the time the results show came around - and Kate Thornton committed the cardinal sin of not changing her dress for this, remaining in a sparkly, silvery, netty number which did little for her chest throughout the evening - it was quite clear that the public had once again made the wrong choice. Despite Kate's usual attempts to build up the tension by pointlessly announcing how many people had voted and excitedly lying about it being too close to call, in the end we all knew what the outcome was going to be and, when Steve's win was officially announced, our jaw remained resolutely undropped. He seemed quite chuffed with it all though, laughing his way through the second performance of Against All Odds while G4 were unceremoniously shuffled off of the stage to let the winner take the limelight. Confetti swirled, the choir appeared again and we were all left ultimately with a nagging sense of disappointment and the realisation that once again we'd wasted 15 weeks of our life.

What happens now then? Well Steve has his '£1,000,000 Record Deal' - and if anyone would like to explain to us exactly what that means, we'd appreciate it - and will no doubt foist two singles and an album on us, before vanishing into the relative obscurity of the cruise ship circuit. G4 will undoubtedly get a record deal as soon as they're contractually able to, though despite our support for them, we get the feeling that an entire album's worth of their music would prove to be somewhat grating. As for the other finalists, they have the tour to look forward to before returning back to their day jobs and will, at the very least, be able to look forward to a future of sitting drunk in scabby bars telling anyone that'll listen that they could have been someone. The only people who can really claim to have won in this contest is the judges, who rake in their pennies no matter what. One thing's for sure though, no matter who may officially have won, the ultimate loser in this show is pop music itself, and that's probably the saddest thing of all.