Littlejohn, Toynbee and the Politics of Opinion

I've caught up with this clip of Richard Littlejohn and Polly Toynbee on Question Time rather late but it's too interesting - and entertaining - to ignore. The first point to make is they are both right. Toynbee sees the strategic issue, reducing our dependence on oil, correctly and Littlejohn is right about the tactical issues, the near impossibility of achieving this politically. The second point to make is they are both wrong because they both think that strategy and tactics are opposite sides of the argument. They think, in other words, they are expressing opinions and advocating viable policies when, in fact, what they are doing is merely defining the terms of the argument, terms with which any thinking person will be entirely familiar. They delude themselves and their audience into thinking that the future will involve a choice between their positions, but, of course, this is impossible. There is one point of substance on which they genuinely seem to disagree - global warming  - but here their opinions are of no value because neither is qualified to assess the evidence. Meanwhile, in the Guardian - late again I'm afraid - Peter Wilby questions the need for the non-expert commentariat, the columnists hired to express their opinions in areas in which they can only ever have minimal expertise. To summarise Wilby: qualified voices are rarely heard on the comment pages these days; instead, we have a large number of people paid to be superficial generalists with pungent but probably worthless opinions. Opinions have, in a word, become entertainment. He's right but wrong if he thinks sacking inexpert columnists is the answer. They are necessary, but the trick is to get them to write differently, just as the trick with Toynbee and Littlejohn is to get them to think differently.  For example, a decent columnist would write about the fuel price/global warming issue in the round - balancing political reality with strategic goals and, perhaps, coming up with a tentative way forward. It is called journalism and the need for it is called democracy. They should do this not least because it would circumvent and, in the long term, discourage the empty demagoguery to which politicians so readily descend. Of course, there are columnists that do this - Nick Cohen for one - but  not enough. They are an endangered species because opinion as entertainment has become just too seductive for editors and readers alike. Perhaps blogging is the answer