A Yorkshire tale or "We get the media we deserve. And it ain't pretty."

This morning I went to listen to the Prime Minister. And he had a lot to say - about prison reform, promoting digital government, the case for deficit reduction, payment by results and getting decision-making closer to ordinary people through devolution. It was interesting and important - it doesn't matter whether you agree with the Conservative agenda or not, what he said mattered.

As I left the venue for the PM's speech a BBC TV reporter poled up to me accompanied by a cameraman. The camera was pointed in my face and a microphone shoved at me.

"Did you listen to the Prime Minister's speech this morning," asks the reporter.

"Yes" I reply.

"Would you like to comment on something Mr Cameron said before the speech that we picked up and recorded. Something about Yorkshire people hating each other?"

"No" I reply.

This conversation was repeated (only more brusquely) with another BBC reporter - this time a local one.

Now I could at this point have a good old go at the priorities of the media - how a mild gaffe by the Prime Minister is more important to them, a sort of "ha ha ha, he he he, gotcha, you're an idiot" approach to the news. But the reality is that the media are just a mirror to society - this petty and irrelevent news-making reflects our sad pleasure in schadenfreude and childish slapstick. Instead of reporting the actual news, we prefer to either point and giggle or else (and worse) adopt a faux-outrage for the sake of political point-scoring and the indulgence of our prejudices.

The problem here is that people who disagree politically with Cameron will dollop their prejudice all over social media, will ring up phone ins and generally behave as if the Prime minister had suggested the rounding up and summary execution of every Yorkshireman (perhaps followed by raising towns to the ground and ploughing the earth with salt). It's not simply that these people have conveniently mislaid their vestigial sense of humour but that they see Cameron's comment as the most important element of the news.

It's fine for such an approach to feature in gossip-mongers like Private Eye or Guido Fawkes but the BBC is not there to peddle eavesdropped gossip but to report the things that matter. Ramming a microphone in my face is fine if you're going to ask me about the speech I've just heard but not if you just want to find someone to express the faux outrage that will make your pathetic piece of tittle-tattle into a better story.

In the end this sort of focus - taken up with self-important comments like "this shows the utter contempt that Cameron and the Tories have for the North and exposes the whole devolution agenda as a con" - shows the complete lack of any depth or substance in much of our political debate. And the fault lies with us, with our preference for ad hominem, our obsession with trying to catch people out, and our tendency to conduct political debate in the manner of two ten-year-old boys - 'my Dad's bigger than your Dad', 'we've got a bigger car and two tellies', 'you're stupid with a snotty nose', 'bogey boy, bogey boy, na na na'.

I'm not being partisan here - it's just as bad when the focus is on Ed Miliband eating a sandwich or Andy Burnham talking to a fake donor (isn't is odd how the media think it fine to use deception but are so judgemental about deception in others). Not only are we a staggeringly hypocritical society but we a in danger of becoming down right nasty - only a degree away from picking on someone because they've a runny nose or spectacles or ginger hair or a funny walk. For sure we can all have a laugh at what Cameron said and, if you like that sort of thing, at his discomfort. But it really has nothing to do with the Government's programme or with what are today's important news stories.

We get the media we deserve. Petty, insubstantial, snide, gossipy and, at times, just nasty. The media do this because it seems to be what we want. Laughing at others misfortune, ogling celebrities' divorces, manufacturing offence, and conducting debate on the basis of gotcha rather than a considered assessment of the issues and challenges facing political decision-makers. Not very pretty.

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The politics of trivia and the triumph of gossip

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The little frisson of silliness that was a stray tweet from a Newsnight editor about Rachel Reeves reminds us that the trivial is more important than the substantive in politics. As Marbury reminds us:

It's a tiny, trivial thing, a bit of fluff. It should have been brushed off with a joke: a little self-deprecation, or a punchy retort. It should have been forgotten about within 24 hours. But no. Syria burns, the British economy makes its joyless progress, the Royal Mail is privatised. Meanwhile, here is one of the most senior members of the Labour Party's front bench whining on about her hurt feelings on the front page of a national newspaper, four days after this non-event, ensuring that this nothingy story - this story about her, and her magnificently sensitive ego - runs across the weekend. Yes, here is a serious person. Here is a person ready for government.

I didn't see the offending programme. Indeed probably 99% of the British public didn't see the offending programme (and many of those who did will have been half asleep anyway). So why the sensitivity? Or is this a case of using faux offence to get onto the front page of the Guardian, to milk the sensibilities of that sympathetic audience?

All this - much as is the case with opinion polls of councillors asking whether they like their party leader - is simply the dumbing down of politics, continuing its transition from a serious business to something akin to a second rate soap opera. Rather than discussions of the things that matter - war, wealth and health - we get endless dissection of the minutiae of politics, which politician is up, which one down, who said what to whom and what effect something someone said will have on elections, polls or the opinion of party members.

We are treat to 'star' interviewers who are more important than their guests. And who resort of interruption, endless 'when did you stop beating your wife' questions and snide asides rather than doing the real job of the interviewer. This is followed by the intonations of some bloke stood outside Number 10 and who is treated like some shaman or soothsayer - an expert rather than just another journalist. A man who doesn't talk about the issues but in a bizarre post-modern way, of the effect some decision, event or argument might have on how the prime minister (or some other leader) is perceived at some unspecified future election or poll.

We are in the age of the trivial and politicians have figured this out. Hence Rachel reeves being 'oh so upset' about a mildly critical comment from a BBC producer. This is a story in the way that the Labour Party's policies on banking, finance or pig farming simply aren't.

Gossip has triumphed!

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A couple of thoughts from somewhere other than Manchester - on what matters and mental illness

I'm sat in the Earl of Doncaster Hotel (a fine art deco building in Donny) and have decided - nothing better to do you see - to post a couple of comments about politics that aren't informed by the hothouse of a party conference.

The first thought relates to the point at which the rather occult discussions around politics that we all know and love actually impinge on the public consciousness. As conceited politicians, wannabe politicians, hangers-on and anoraks we tend to assume that everyone out there takes the same degree of interest in politics and - more importantly - sees the same things as important. I'm pretty sure this isn't true - ordinary folk care not one jot about the niceties of governance, the endless titttle-tattle of political gossip or the semantic deconstruction of the party leader's speech. Such people - and that's most out there - see the party conferences as needless posing rather than as serving any useful purpose. But they also get a feel for politics from the coverage - not the content but the body language, the questions asked of political leaders and the confidence with which the leaders present their great thoughts.

What we see, hear and feel about the conferences is far more important than the content of speeches, the decisions made or the who's up and who's down gossip.

The second thought more significant. Yet again we have seen the manner in which, as a society, we stigmatise mental illness. I don't like Gordon Brown, he's a self-important, bullying and rather nasty man. But if he has a mental illness and is taking medication to manage that illness he is no different to other politicians - or indeed anyone else - taking pills to control a heart condition, an over-active thyroid or chronic arthritis. Yet we act as if Gordon being a little depressed is a big deal. It's not so long as he faces up to it and gets treatment. But of course we're assured he isn't ill and doesn't need pills.

Is it not time to start changing how we view mental illness - to address the discrimination against the mentally ill in the same way we have done for women, gays and the disabled?