Lead singer of the Inspiral Carpets, Tom Hingley, who currently lectures at Salford University on pop music, told Channel 4 News at Noon: "I think it's quite extraordinary for Simon Cowell to describe anyone else as being Scrooge."

He said that Simon Cowell and Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller "have kind of monopolised the top ten in Britain".

"It's like if the people who owned (Aintree) owned all the horses and all the bookies and voted on the winner at the Grand National.

"I don't know why these records from these reality TV shows have ever been eligible for the charts…it's not a fair playing field for all the rest of the music industry."