THE relationship between politics and the media is much under discussion, so it seems a good time to enter this choppy debate. What follows is based on observation rather than sharp-end scuffles - unless you count a ticking-off or two from York's MP Hugh Bayley and a pained phone call from City Of York Council.

As is often the way, an unforeseen event brought into focus the long-stewed disagreement between politicians and journalists. In this instance, the catalyst was tragic: the death, and supposed suicide, of the Government weapons expert Dr David Kelly. All the caustic disagreement that followed had been present before Dr Kelly's death, but it found new and nasty life afterwards.

The long-simmering animosity between the Government and the BBC has been at the heart of everything - as, too, has the combative, and sometimes plain vicious, relationship between New Labour and certain newspapers. The ins and outs are colourful and complicated, with right and wrong on both sides.

The bashing of the BBC took a strange twist this week when Conrad Black, the media mogul who owns the Daily Telegraph, had a letter published in his own newspaper. In a surprising display of vanity publishing, Lord Black said the BBC had become "the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform".

What a flamboyant accusation. And if it seems a trifle unhinged - is the Corporation really a greater menace than war, terrorism or, I don't know, global warming? - perhaps the world looks different to a Canadian press baron with time on his hands and his own newspaper's letters page conveniently to hand.

Never mind the Beeb, we should pause to wonder at one of our more revered newspapers being owned by a press baron who displays such a pathological hatred of the BBC. I fear the poor fellow should calm down before he earns a glowing mention on the obituaries page, alongside all those dead colonels.

As for the BBC, it has been criticised by governments in the past, most notably Tory administrations. Yet this Government's dislike seems irrational and exaggerated to a worrying degree.

What a rock-bottom pass politics has reached. All the macho posturing and hot-house shouting is putting off ordinary people. It seems the politicians and the national media are locked in a small, over-heated world, where rumour bounces off rumour, cynicism flourishes and truth rolls out the door.

The reasons are many. Spin is part of the picture - but not just the spinning ways of this Government, which isn't much more culpable than other administrations. Learning how to spin was vital for Tony Blair early on as the only way to survive in a rough world. Maybe his spin meister, Alastair Campbell, has taken matters too far. But spin is the media's way too, especially on certain national newspapers, where comment comes dressed as news and inconvenient facts are left on the newsroom floor.

Voters are weary of the Westminster game show and increasingly all they can hear are the raised voices of politicians and journalists locked into a corrosive, self-serving battle.

Of course, newspapers and broadcasters have a sturdy and important role to play in this process, rightly holding governments to task. Yet unless a little more respect and quiet regard for each other enters the debate, the danger is that the politicians and the media will be left in a hot room bellowing at each other, while ordinary people go and find something else to do. And that would hardly be healthy.

Updated: 10:56 Thursday, July 31, 2003