The BBC's political programmes unit is about to take yet another giant stride towards "accessibility" by introducing "Little Andrew" and "Little Jenny". Jamie Donald, editor of BBC's live political programmes, explains that they have selected two 12-year-olds to become a mini-Andrew Neil and a mini-Jenny Scott, the hosts of The Daily Politics show. The little ones will attend the coming party conferences to report and interview leading politicians. They begin with Sir Menzies Campbell at the Liberal Democrats conference a week on Monday.
More than 600 kids entered the competition - run with Newsround - to find the little imitators, and they eventually chose Christopher Duffy from Inverclyde, and Becky Philips from Devon. Now, writes Donald, "I have to defend it as a brilliant idea." In fact, he's very defensive. "You may say it's a straight rip off of Little Ant and Little Dec on ITV, and so neither original nor appropriate to serious political coverage. Fair enough. But for me there are at least two good reasons for doing this, apart from the fact that it's different and fun."
Now comes the interesting justification. Donald continues: "Politics is no longer the draw it used to be. Viewing figures are falling. Fewer people are voting. And most alarmingly, the average age of those who say they're interested in politics is rising sharply. Very few people under the age of 45 take our political processes and institutions seriously. So 600 young hopefuls is a fantastic return before we've even started.
"And if it draws just a few more younger viewers to the conference coverage this autumn, and introduces the million and a half who watch Newsround every day to this annual political event, we'll have done a public service."
Then, seeing it from the perspective of politicians who also exploit populist media, he concludes: "The other reason: Little Ant and Little Dec got to interview the prime minister, and put to him some very challenging questions. For four years, Mr Blair and Mr Brown have consistently refused to be interviewed for the BBC's conference coverage, believing it doesn't reach the people they want to speak to. Maybe now they'll change their minds."
So, is this a bright idea to make politics more accessible? Or does it indicate, as I suspect, that our political and media culture has taken yet another turn for the worst?
