Who exactly is running the country?

Media Matter Nick Thomas
Next week the Oxford Union is to debate the motion: 'This House believes the media have more power than politicians", which should be interesting, if the last time this question was aired in that august chamber is anything to go by. It must have been about two years ago, when the two heavy hitters, for and against respectively; were Simon Kellner, editor of The Independent, and Boris Johnson, Editor of The Spectator; except that Boris cancelled at short notice, and I, who had turned up in good faith to have an enjoyable dinner with an old friend, was obliged to take his place. Still, the opposition won.
A couple of weeks before that debate I called Boris to say hello, and inform him that I would be of the party, and he was somewhat dismissive of the president who had invited the editor of The Spec, and Telegraph columnist, to speak in a media debate, describing it as "a gis-a-job exercise".
"Hang on a minute, Boris," I said. "I seem to remember that when you were president, News International had just moved to Wapping, while all the other nationals were still clinging to their cramped, archaic premises in their traditional location, and one of your motions was 'That Fleet Street should move with the Times'. And, er, where was your first job, again?"
"Ha ha! All right, old bean. Got me bang to rights."
I should say so. A large part of the point of taking on the top job at the Union is the networking, and you can't blame young, bright ambitious people for making the most of it. And the current incumbent has repeated the choice of her predecessor, with a Kellner/Johnson rematch, except that we are told that Boris, who of course is now an MP as well as a journalist, "will decide his side on the night". I hope he turns up this time. He's speaking last, so presumably he will join the side that seems to be winning, like the independently minded backbencher he is. I have rather fixed views on the subject, and couldn't possibly support the idea that politicians, pace the odd scandal which is entirely their own fault, are daily at the mercy of the baying newshounds. Sorry, Simon, but anyone who believes otherwise has succumbed to editorial vanity.
This time round, the mixture is to be made that much richer by the presence of Amanda Platell, about whom I have written here in the past. When I first knew her she was William Hague's director of communications, a former Fleet Street editor recruited to fight Ali Campbell's fire with some dragon-breath of her own. After the General Election she fell on her sword, along with her boss, and now writes a media column for the New Statesman. I'm not surprised that her instinct, like mine, is to oppose that motion. The Conservative Party is notoriously unforgiving, and exemplifies blame culture when things go wrong. I can't say whether Amanda did a good job or a rotten one, but I seriously doubt whether anybody in her position could have effected serious inroads into the Government's majority by propaganda alone. At my own rather less exalted level, as a constituency campaign press officer, I learnt the hard way just how difficult it is to influence voting patterns simply through presentation and publicity. We won our media battle hands down, and it didn't make a blind bit of difference. National trends and national politicians decided that election, as they always do.
Possibly though, the best measure of the efficacy of your supposed power is the amount of time you have to put into exercising it. Last week in the Times' Diary, Jack Malvern recounted having overheard Boris's Commons' secretary apologising down the phote for the absence of her boss, by explaining that he wts off doing his "proper job" at The Spectator. Mmm.