This week’s minority opinion. There’s far too much politics on the radio if you ask me. And on TV and on social media and probably in video games for all I know.

A certain kind of politics anyway as typified by Matt Chorley’s new Monday-to-Friday afternoon show on 5 Live.

Opening with the chimes of Big Ben the first show on Monday saw Chorley set out his mission statement right from the start. “I am your man on the inside. I have been reporting from here for almost 20 years,” he told listeners as he strode around the House of Commons.

What followed was a couple of hours riffling on Westminster gossip and watercooler debate. What is the messaging of the new (but not presumably New) Labour government? What’s going on in the Tory leadership race? And what was the catering on offer in the latter? 

The answer, croissants and Bloody Marys at Robert Jenrick’s speech on Sunday, the Sun’s Harry Cole told Chorley.

Kemi Badenoch’s catering was, by contrast, “very woke” according to the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar. “Oat milk, herbal teas, various juices, all very metropolitan liberal.”

James Cleverly, meanwhile, offered branded cupcakes, we are told.

All of this fitted in with Chorley’s recipe for his new show: “gossip, games and maybe a few gags.”

Does this work? Well, I guess if you like largely chummy takes on what’s happening in Westminster. But will this transfer to a show that appeals to a broad audience day after day? 

Are we really interested that much in what is happening in the House of Commons every single day?

The BBC clearly believes we are. That said, it’s not every day, after all, that Chorley will be able to offer an interview with the Prime Minister, as he did on Monday. Even if the PM didn’t say all that much.

The widely reported big reveal was that Starmer’s family had decided not to get a dog but a Siberian kitten for Number 10 (as previously revealed by The Herald’s political editor last week). 

That is not without problems, though. “The only door out of our new flat is bombproof, the PM pointed out “and therefore getting a cat flap in it is proving a little bit difficult.”

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It is, I’m afraid, a very BBC trait to think that Westminster and British politics are one and the same thing. Still, Chorley promised that he would get around the country in the weeks and months ahead and at least there was five minutes spent discussing the election of the far right in the German state elections. 

But the majority of this first show was about personalities and political messaging rather than anything substantial. Obviously, events and circumstances dictate, but this is the problem with the endless daily need to fill the time. It is why we end up with non-stories like Starmer moving Margaret Thatcher’s portrait dominating headlines. It’s essentially frivolous nonsense puffed up to seem important because news media, aping social media, need to make everything seem important to justify the hours and hours of coverage devoted to political news.

None of which is the fault of Chorley, who is a perfectly good broadcaster. If his first show was a bit breathless, a bit trying too hard that’s not really a surprise. And Chorley’s access to MPs will be useful if that Westminster bubble - to steal a Tory line - is what you are interested in. 

But there are other ways to cover politics. On the basis of this first show a bit more devolution wouldn’t hurt.

The bigger question is do we need it all? I doubt that there will be as much range and variety in this new show as there was in Nihal Arathanayake’s show which previously filled this slot on 5 Live. And I think that’s a pity.

For those seeking something different rather than more of the same, Radio 4’s Illuminated series of one-off documentaries on Sunday evening fitted the bill. Ross Sutherland’s audio essay started with him sleepless and doomscrolling in the darkness before going on to examine the concept of infinity through the art of Yayoi Kusama and Tales from One Thousand and One Nights, the Arabic fable of the Persian King Shahryar and his wife Scheherazade who kept her murderous royal husband entertained with endless stories to stop him from signing her death warrant.

This was an intellectually curious, sonically adventurous broadcast garnished with Jeremy Warmsley’s wonderful original music. Bravo.

 

Listen Out For: Uncharted with Hannah Fry, Radio 4, Monday, 1.45pm

The mathematician Hannah Fry returns with a new numerical series which begins with the story of Chris McKinlay and his search for love on dating apps.