The relationship between British politicians and the news media is ambivalent. Politicians are quick to complain about media distortion and intrusion, and as quick to offer themselves to media exposure when it is in their interests to do so. And the media affect indignation at any suggestion of 'setting up' politicians while continually trying to lure political figures into the careless phrase or indiscretion which will trigger a news story.

Lubricating this relationship are press secretaries and the parliamentary lobby, the image consultants and the spin doctors, some of whom have become almost as familiar as the politicians themselves.

The staple elements of reporting have become the soundbite - the short, pithy statement encapsulating a political position or reaction - and the photo-opportunity, the photographic session contrived to make a statement: John Selwyn Gummer feeding a British-beef hamburger to his daughter, David Mellor posing with his family as a sex scandal reverberates around him.