After an opening night showcasing 12 personalities almost guaranteed to clash, Big Brother producers had to endure five nervous days of half-hearted mock rebellions and group camaraderie before the sparks finally began to fly.

Ahmed, a Somali former asylum-seeker turned successful businessman, and camp law student Marco, had been experiencing a little friction for a couple of days, but had managed to keep it relatively civil.

But during today's plate-painting task confrontational Kitten began a tirade against the treatment of minority groups like homosexuals and asylum seekers by the government and by society, which ended in her storming off shouting "What you're all saying is ignorant!"

Being joined by Ahmed, who had an opinion or two about asylum seekers himself, what began as an attempt to comfort furious Kitten rapidly degenerated into raised voices and a head-on clash as Marco joined in, arguing that Britain was a splendid place to be for either asylum seekers or homosexuals, with much greater freedoms than other countries.

As Marco flounced off to the spa telling Ahmed "You have a very fluffy view of the world", Emma took his place, and she and Ahmed shouted their opinions at each other heatedly for several minutes without either really stopping to listen. Emma wanted to get across that if she went to another country and took advantage of their facilities it would be rude to criticise their government, Ahmed wanting to counter that country and governement are different, that when he arrived here it was John Major in power and he's a lot happier with Tony Blair.

Things eventually cooled and housemates got on with presenting each other's painted plates to each other in the culmination of the afternoon's painting - but, with nothing really resolved the temporary truce may turn out to be somewhat fragile.

Stay tuned to Digital Spy for more coverage from the battlefronts of war-torn Elstree.