I have bagged Laurie Oakes a few times as the Bibendum of news for sometimes inflating the value of a political leak, designed and used to undermine a government's work... He's the king of leaks.

In his reflective Andrew Olle address last night, I was told, he was somewhat contradictory despite a solid, though sometimes mumbling, performance. He was sweating under the spot light. He made good points about the relationship between the politicians and the public via the media... His bleak outlook for the future of news was contradicted by his own statement that people wanted better political news rather than the MacNugget soundbites in which politicians complain they do not have time to explain policies. To which he reiterated that awful but sharp statement by John Howard about "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come" which explained Howard's hard position in 5.9 seconds.

Apparently Oakes bagged Lindsay Tanner for his Sideshow with one small example about Kate Blanchett which of course was quite cute, but in general, to me, Tanner is right: The media has dumbed down the value and the respect of political debate. In fact the biggest culprit is the media's love of Tony Abbott, who knows how to exploit the crassness of the media despite a negative brain full of pigeon poop. But that's my view... More to be said once the transcripts are in...