There is a lazy, sneering bar-room view of British politics which 'everyone knows'. It goes like this. Today's party leaders are pygmies compared to the giants of the past.
Political life is slick, predictable and controlled by focus groups and spin-doctors.
And anyway, frankly, politics no longer matters. There are no big issues left and if there were, this lot would be too stupid and idle to spot them. It is perhaps not surprising that someone hired to be political editor of the BBC disagrees - after all, I have to spend all my working life with politicians. If I hated or despised them, I'd be a deeply unhappy man. But it is a lazy view and if this year's conference season showed anything, it was that every part of the caricature is wrong.