Have the media’s critical faculties been restored?

It seems now like it comes from a different age but the above was how that normally level-headed paper, the Guardian, was reporting British politics less than a month ago.

To have equated the bungled and amateurish attack on Glasgow airport, the consequences of a couple of heavy rain-storms and a few cows getting a disease with, say, Churchill’s first month in May 1940 was just plain silly.

The journalist who wrote such drivel and the editor who passed it, no doubt, feel embarrassed. But it does reflect the mood of the time that seemed to affect all parts of the media.

But reminding ourselves of the extraordinary honeymoon that Brown enjoyed does put the current polling turbulence in context.

After the Blair years there was a collective sigh of relief and Brown’s very different approach seemed to chime with the public mood.

How else can you explain the three YouGov polls in just fifteen days that had Labour’s lead moving from a breathtaking 10% to 8% and then on Monday 3%? All this from a pollster noted for its stability.

The question is where all this will settle down? My £32 a week buy spread bet on how long it will be before the general election is showing a nice profit. Maybe I’ll order a better vintage of Burgundy at dinner tonight!

Mike Smithson reflecting on a beach in SW France