OPINION: The media must focus on what really matters if they are to avoid going the same way as politicians.

There is an absolute crackerjack of a piece by Charles Moore in the Telegraph today.

It’s about the EU, and the edge of controlled anger makes it one of the  best articles ever written by Mr Moore – which is saying one helluva lot. Its bottom line is simple: every EU citizen is being raped by the EU and its mad SuperState fantasies.

Moore suffers from the same affliction as all we rational realists: we DO want the best for people, we just don’t believe in taking away their liberties and impoverishing them in order to do it. But there is something about Europe in general (apart from the weather) that leaves the British cold. Talking to a Cabinet Minister just before Christmas, I was horrified at the urbane cynicism with which he observed, “The British don’t like the EU, but they’re never going to march about it”.

He’s wrong about the ‘never’ part, but history supports his thesis thus far. Why?

I believe ultimately the problem lies with a distracting, dumbed-down media set reporting with just two considerations in mind: the lowest common denominator, and the highest possible sales. As a result, everyone became incensed about MPs expenses, but totally disinterested in their national Exchequer being emptied by an evil combination of scheming bankers and faceless Brussels. So the Mailite cancer running the Barclaygraph at the moment quite rightly slaughters the UK’s political class….but quite wrongly ignores the EU’s fat controllers. They do so because the latter evoke the “Yeh – whatever” reaction.

The situation is exacerbated by unprincipled, idea-free politicians. Neurotically vote-centric, ironically they garner votes through the media, as if they might be some sort of wholesaler. Which in a way they are.

Our politicians in 2011 sell only to the media, their assumption being that our views are 100% formed by that set. They are largely right, but individual macro-views are also informed, in the end, by personal events – insolvency, being burgled, being fired, the amount of tax taken from salaries and so forth.

That sort of experience is about to be shared on a massive scale – certainly, a scale never before seen by those under 75 years old. If they fail to both foresee and sympathise with this, the media too will be deserting the People. With all its myriad, yelling, foul-mouthed flaws, the blogosphere is easily the media sector most aware of this. The mainstream papers and TV stations are still crammed with airhead content about ‘Why women yearn for the 1950s’ and pretentious pillocks who want to entertain, but can’t cook. The FT still has a weekend section called ‘How to spend it’.

As The Slog posted last week, British citizens of every hue and class have been deserted by our politicians. No vulnerable individual EVER forgets (or forgives) desertion once it has become apparent. The media need to be careful they don’t lose the plot any more than they have already.

In the meantime, I thank God for sending us Charles Moore; and I curse her for sending us Nigel Farage.