If Boris can harness this British pride, he’ll be a vote winner too

That’s how to win the patriotic vote. While politicians and pundits bicker over next month’s EU referendum, serving soldier Richard Jones cut straight through all the claptrap on

Britain’s Got Talent (ITV) — by paying tribute to the Greatest Generation.

the conjuror from the household Cavalry opted to tone down his magic tricks, telling instead the inspirational story of World War II veteran Fergus anckorn, whose sleight- of-hand skills helped him survive three-and-a-half years as a Japanese prisoner of war.

Richard demonstrated one of the classic card tricks that Fergus used to keep morale up among his fellow PoWs. and then he capped the performance by presenting 97-year-old Fergus himself to the judges and the audience.

the old hero stood straight as a pikeshaft and saluted the judges with a twinkle in his eye.

BGT’s first prize is the chance to appear at the Royal Variety Performance, and the Queen will love Richard — an army bandsman who is also practising for the Royal Birthday parade next month.

But it wasn’t his magic that saw him win the phone vote. there were other, far more spectacular routines: the dirty dancing of the star Wars stormtroopers, the West End voice of 12-year-old Beau Dermott, trip the acrobatic dog in a superhero cape.

there’s no doubt that the millions who voted were moved to salute the courage and sacrifice of Fergus and his comrades. this wasn’t a talent show — it was Britain’s Got Pride. and if Boris can harness that emotion next month, Brexit will be a foregone conclusion.

From the opening sequence, the show invoked our national spirit, with opera singer Katherine Jenkins performing Rule Britannia and Land Of hope and Glory, and former champions attraction, the shadow-play artistes, creating a silhouette of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill against a rippling Union Jack.

the phonelines were open for just 20 minutes, which is all it took for magician Richard to triumph. With the country so fired up, it’s a pity they couldn’t have stayed open for another half hour to get the referendum done — then we could all Brexhale, instead of holding our breath for another three weeks.

the judges kept saying this final, BGT’s tenth anniversary, was the best the series had ever seen, but it really wasn’t. Without the patriotic fervour, it would have fallen flat.

Runner-up was Wayne Woodward, a crooner with a baritone like sixties icon Matt Monro. the stormtroopers came third.

One cruel touch BGT should ditch is the announcement of the last-placed acts. We’d all guessed that the married ballet dancers and the mother-and-son country duet were out of the running — no need to rub it in — by assigning them 11th and 12th places.

Not much point either in the big reveal at the end of Yeti: Myth,

Man Or Beast (C4), which saw vet Mark Evans traipsing all over the himalayas in search of the abominable snowman, to bring fragments of fur and bone back to a British lab.

Mark mapped all the remote places he had discovered these relics — in caves and monasteries from Nepal to Bhutan — on a wall- chart. then, amid drum rolls, a scientist in a white coat announced the verdict of the DNA analysis for each one.

the first was from... a bear! and the second was... also a bear. Next, a piece of... bear. In fact, all Mark’s samples were — go on, have a guess. a much more compelling account came from Reinhold Messner, perhaps the world’s greatest mountaineer, who believes he ran into a yeti while crossing a mountain stream in tibet in 1986. he had only the evidence of his eyes, and his nose — ‘it had quite a strong smell’.

the presenter also quizzed Messner about the ss captain who claimed to have shot a yeti in 1938. ‘surely that was a joke?’ Mark asked. the mountaineer frowned. ‘No,’ he said, ‘he was not British. he was German.’