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The tight focus this week on the PM by the BBC's 'political correspondents' is not a temporary aberration or a mistake. In the BBC's view, the political resides in Westminster. Its job is to convey information about it to a population that becomes political on Election Day.
In other words, the BBC's conception of the political is shaped by the decisive fact of British politics; the centralisation of power at Westminster, and the draining of initiative and agency from the rest of the country. Devolution has qualified this ...
... But in England the old constitutional order is intact. Westminster itself is captive to the interests of the land-credit combine and its allies in the private media. Instead of describing this, the BBC naturalises it, integrates itself with it.
The centre works on the body politic, in service to its core constituencies, through unaccountable agencies, fiat ministerial decisions, and public sector 'reforms'. The BBC reports this, if at all, on terms dictated by government, with minority reports from the opposition.
As a creature of Parliament it can do nothing else. As a result political coverage is rarely distinguishable from court gossip. In the midst of overlapping natural and social crises we are now going to be treated to months of chatter about Tory leadership contenders and Brexit.
A few thousand insiders are enthralled by a drama of ambition and calculation. Meanwhile vastly consequential changes take place without substantive comment or debate - striking actual people as a slow, mysterious blighting of their lives' potential.
A new constitutional and communicative order is desperately needed - one that permits us to make sense of the world together, from the ground up. This need is inexpressible in the main circuits of communication, and has been for decades.
This piece by Ian Jack, on land and what we don't think to ask, is worth a read. lrb.co.uk/v41/n10/ian-ja…
