Naive politician who thinks newspapers' influence is on the wane

Tory MP George Eustice appears blissfully unaware of the continuing significance of newspapers despite having once been David Cameron's press secretary.

"They have been in decline for many years and that decline may even be terminal," he said on Tuesday. "Their influence is certainly far less today than several years ago."

Really? He offered not a shred of evidence to support that remark, made during his lengthy parliamentary speech about party political broadcasts. Didn't he listen to his former boss, plus three other former prime ministers, when they appeared before the Leveson inquiry?

All of them spoke with some passion about their tricky relationships with national newspapers, making it clear that they see them as being of enormous importance.

Though those papers may be losing sales at a rapidly increasing rate, there is not the slightest sign of them relinquishing their influence.

They remain the locus of what we might call the national conversation, most notably in setting the daily political news agenda for broadcasters. That's why political leaders continue to cosy up to editors and publishers.

Eustice went on to speak more nonsense by accusing the broadcast media of "undermining public trust" in politics because - wait for it - journalists refuse to give politicians credit for "saying what they believe" .

He did make a better point in his complaint about "hostile interview scenarios, with a duel between the interviewer and the politician." He contended that "the programme's objective is to make the politician look evasive and on the back foot."

But that problem, which emerged gradually over a number of years, was the result of media-savvy politicians becoming adept at avoiding giving straight answers to straight questions.

It is true that some interviewers sometimes treat their work as a branch of entertainment, or even a sport, by baiting politicians. Most often though, the hostility stems from the interviewer's frustration at not getting a decent response to a decent inquiry in order that the public are properly informed.

Eustice wasn't alone in his naïveté. Immediately after his contribution, up stepped the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, to suggest that politics will be enhanced by the advent of local TV. This will enable MPs to get their message across to the people, he said. Can he be serious? I'm afraid he thinks he is.

Sources: Parliament/BBC See also Guido Fawkes's take on "useless" Eustice