07/03/2015
As we run into the general election period, there are growing indications that the public boredom threshold has already been crossed, with people retreating from the campaign in their droves.
With the top political news being whether or not Mr Cameron is going to take part in a one-on-one debate with Ed Miliband, there is a level of unreality which is hard to come to terms with. One wonders how, with so much at stake, how such trivia could dominate the agenda.
But even that competes with the headlines
reporting how Farage has been told by one of his adoring supporters that he had been "sent by the Messiah" to protect us from the EU.
Against this, one is left asking what it takes to get serious issues on the agenda, or whether even the media or the public are actually capable of serious discussion any more â and whether it is even worth trying to raise serious issues.
I'm minded to recall a piece
earlier in the week by James Delingpole in the Mail, on the supposed "EU ban" of halogen light bulbs.
It would have taken little effort to establish that, in fact, there are no current plans (or any) to ban low voltage lamps â which accounts for most installations. And there are adequate replacements for high-voltage lamps â bulbs with integral transformers which can be used with existing fittings.
In fact, halogen lamps are interim technology, and relatively recent in large-scale domestic use. The end state is the LED lamp and these are coming down in price. Low energy and with long life, these will square the circle, providing high quality light at affordable cost.
Had the
Mail set out the real issues, there would have been no story â but real issues isn't the media game. They give their readers what they want to hear, and if the truth gets in the way, then the truth goes. But one also gets the sense that the readers don't want the truth anyway. They go for the stories they want to hear.
Thus the
modus operandi becomes the likes of
Business for Britain going for the
easy shot, selling a false bill of goods in order to grab the easy headlines from a gullible press, too shallow to check the accuracy of what they are given.
Much the same is happening in the immigration debate. We see a veritable torrent of material but, yet when the European Commission makes an
important contribution to the debate, it is only the
Guardian that reports it. Shallowness becomes the watchword.
Even the election analysis rests on the slender foundation of a "
leading expert" who fails to distinguish between a genuine political party and a cult. What party ever had a (male) member inscribing a heart, professing undying love to "Nige" (pictured), only then almost to get trapped by the tide.
Grown-up analysts, however, are
reading the runes. But the analysis is not to be found in the media, a welcome relief from what the
Sage of Seaham calls "tittle-tattle". But, if shallowness is the new reality, then we will
have to adapt. The question is, though, whether a bored public even cares any more. Tedium, it would seem, is the new black.
