Think about the news 1

I intend to devote an occasional post to a headline story online. I usually go for the BBC to avoid some of the most obvious bias in reporting. But the BBC nonetheless reports what everyone else is talking about, and that in itself reflects some shocking assumptions or cunning PR.

Today the biggest story on the website is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32022484
'David Cameron has told the BBC he will not serve a third term as prime minister if the Conservatives remain in government after the general election.'

It seems a harmless story; a reasonable statement of political intent which he hopes will persuade voters that he's not a power-hungry tyrant, but a man with a specific ambition. He probably hopes that they'll believe the spin that the Conservatives' economic policies are working and that he merely needs one more term to complete his promises... which were that everything would be fixed in one term.

In its directness and openness, it's actually relatively praiseworthy. There doesn't seem to be any subtle motives, except for his curious mention of shredded wheat. Is he paid by Kelloggs, or is it just an odd attempt to be a man of the people? He might be starting the internal fighting himself, pointing out that he only wants one more term so that when Boris Johnson tries to depose him Boris seems even more greedy and ambitious.

But as it was a 'wide-ranging' interview, one of a series of 'behind-the-scenes' conversations with party leaders, it probably was said with some of those thoughts in the background, but mostly just an honest intention. Labour's response is just cheap point-scoring.

So my opening post hasn't much to say?
On the contrary, I think there is a hidden message in this, but it's even more subtle than normal. The hidden message is that the party leader is important; that his intention to stay or not has political weight, and will sway people. My summary of this news story is:
David Cameron says that he supports personality politics
The evidence is all there; not only does he talk about himself and his intentions, but in his place he tries to give notoriety to other individuals. No matter what other rhetoric the Conservatives might spout (and the other parties are no doubt as bad, but this story is about the Prime Minister), it's clear that Cameron's usual attitude is that personalities matter; that talk of leadership is genuinely meaningful, and that people should care about personalities.
A charitable person (i.e a partisan Conservative) might say that Cameron is merely acknowledging the fact that personality matters. To which I can only respond that meekly acquiescing to a bad thing doesn't show much leadership or personality. But I doubt he's thought about it, actually. It's just an unquestioned assumption that hasn't even had enough attention to be deliberately accepted. He could as easily have talked about Conservative policy and about the strength of the party and its ideals; about how the team is greater than the whole or the ideas matter, not the person debating them. But he didn't.

So this news story, harmless as it is, does demonstrate a problem with politics; that the framing of the debate and the news matters. Every harmless story that seems at the very least not to be directly promoting injustice is nonetheless taking valuable news space from important issues.

I do understand that people want to look at cute animals. But Cameron is not a cute animal. This is a story about politics, but it's a waste of people's time. It ignores, and therefore implicitly supports, an assumption that deserves attention far more than Cameron's musings about the future.

Every story tells a story. This one is about the presidential politics in parliamentary democracy; about personality in place of policy; and about people instead of principles.

Update 2/4/15: The general election campaign has now begun, and it turns out that the Conservatives are targetting Ed Miliband and his personality, making direct comparisons between him and David Cameron. They have been criticised for these personal attacks, but clearly I picked up on something that Cameron already had in mind at the time.