Simon Cowell, American Idol and The X-Factor co-creator and judge, has his targets set on politics. Not for public office, but with a new reality show.

In a recent interview, the English music executive and television producer said he was pondering the production of a “political X Factor” in the U.K. The participants would debate issues and the public would phone in their votes before an upcoming parliamentary election. Cowell suggested that the initial series could focus on “five or six issues, which I think are really, really important in people’s lives.” He hinted that a show like this might allow him to refocus his own career. “It would be a good way for me to get involved in politics,” he said.

David Cameron, a conservative in U.K. politics, was asked today about whether he could use the talents of people like Simon Cowell in any future Conservative government.

The Tory leader told the Daily Mail that he thought Cowell was ‘incredibly talented’. “There probably is something we can learn in politics.  Frankly, people are not just apathetic and switched-off, a lot of the time they are pretty angry at what’s been going on in politics,” Cameron went on to say.

Cowell says that a live political debate as seen in the US would have little impact in the UK. “I think there could be some kind of referendum-type TV show where you can speak on both sides and then open it up to the public to get an instant poll as to how they feel on the hot topics,” says the 50-year-old Cowell. “That kind of show would interest me, because I’m more interested in hearing what the public say than politicians.”

Topics Cowell would like to see covered ranged from hunting to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He asked to himself, “Should we or should we not be in Iraq and Afghanistan? I don’t know why we’re there. I knew why we were in the Falklands, I don’t know why we’re over there.

‘So when I see all these people coming back dead, I think we have a right to have a say in something like that.”