For journalists to argue that politicians are remote is to forget that MPs have surgeries, which is more than any TV executive does. For a major media organisation to advertise its election coverage by inviting voters to "Read between the lies" before a manifesto has been published is practically to instruct us to be cynical.Eight weeks ago, I arrived back from a short trip to Sicily, switched on the TV and found Rory Bremner doing a skit strongly implying that Maff had known about the foot-and-mouth outbreak weeks before it was announced, but had suppressed the information for electoral reasons. What was the evidence for this semi-criminal conspiracy of JFK dimensions? I haven't seen any, but if Rory wants to get in touch and put me right, I'll be happy to print a correction. And if not...And now we come to the bit I wasn't going to do. For three consecutive days this week John Humphrys interviewed the three main party leaders on the Today programme I think he had about 20 minutes with each. Such interviews are difficult to conduct, particularly at election time, when politicians are so determined to get their slogans in. Nevertheless it was pretty clear to me what the main emphasis of the questioning should be for each leader.For Blair the major (and seemingly intractable) problem is the reform and funding of public services.

For Kennedy it is much the same, with the additional twist of wondering why we need two major parties devoted to much the same agenda. And for Hague it is surely the tension between populism and a modern agenda for the new right.Humphrys barely touched on any of these questions. For Blair it was sleaze, for Kennedy it was the old "wasted vote" routine and for Hague it was a mish-mash of questioning of his judgement, asking about Prescott's pugilism and ­ finally ­ pushing an entirely mystifying point about whether Hague could envisage Portillo as next leader of the Tory party. I have no idea what Today listeners thought of this final, utterly fruitless question, but it completely baffled me. What was to be gained from it, other than to trap Hague into some headline-making indiscretion?All this grandstanding was making me rage at the radio, and then I read my old friend Suzanne Moore in the New Statesman and parted company with my pram. In her diary she revealed that two weeks ago she had told readers of her Mail on Sunday column that, once again, she wouldn't be voting, but had been "ticked off" by patronising Blairites on other papers."This is nothing to do with apathy," she added "It is anger and it's growing." Oh yes, Suzanne.

But anger (especially with politicians) is easy ­ doing anything, now that's hard So what exactly is it that you do?Here's my take on it. Remaking our public services after 20 years of mismanagement and underfunding followed by 20 more of cuts and demoralisation is the most difficult task we face as a nation. Even if you have the right strategies, progress will be slow, patchy, messy, unpopular and uneven. But, as Margaret Beckett admitted on the BBC yesterday, "We [ie, journalists and politicians] don't talk about how easy or difficult it is to do things." Instead our public political culture has gone from speaking in the deferential tones of the 1950s to yelling in the shrill, accusatory tones of Watchdog.