The Don't Cares One effect of this sort of propagandist
excess, I fear, is that it furthers the estrangement between the electorate and politics which has been de- plored from many quarters in recent years. People complain that they are wearied or irri- tated by politicians who insist on seeing all issues in black-and-white party-political terms, and all but the most emotionally committed can observe that no party has a monopoly of wisdom or fore- sight or even luck, any more than ,it has that freedom from human failings to which Mr. Hogg made ill-advised reference. Television, by dis- playing for close scrutiny the spectacle of party spokesmen arguing that everything on one side is right and everything on the other side is wrong, has encouraged scepticism about this unrealistic presentation. One cannot blame politicians for offering a simplified picture of Right versus Wrong during an election: but that makes it all the more important for journalists to preserve their sense of reality, and not to indulge in inflationary nonsense which devalues the cur- rency of controversy.
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