It’s political conference season here in the UK. Which is usually a good reason for me to be out of the country. This year I got it wrong, so, sadly, much as I have tried to stay away from the media commentary, some of it has still leaked to my book-writing, patent-drafting cocoon.

This week it has been the turn of the Conservative Party, and today the turn of Theresa May to give her big speech.

Full disclosure. I’m not a fan of the party or the person. Then again, if you’ve read any of my previous posts, you’ll know that I’m not a fan of any of the other political parties either. The one I want to vote for doesn’t exist yet.

Not being a fan of Theresa May might in theory have meant that I’d be rubbing my hands with glee at the ‘biggest disaster ever’ diagnosis delivered by each and every single media commentator.

On the other hand, when I look at the three reasons for the ‘disaster’ conclusion, I see the prank of a fourth-rate comedian, some dodgy scenery and a tickly cough. Two of which had nothing to do with the Prime Minister, and none of which, as far as I can tell had any relevance whatsoever to the content of the speech.

This seemed a tad, how shall I put it, ‘harsh’ to me. But worse than that, when I watched the two most reliable television media organisations devote 95% of their reporting to the three reasons and 5% to the content, it felt like I was witnessing something far more sinister. It felt distinctly like I was witnessing the death of meaning.

My take-away thought is that the words that come out of politicians’ mouths have now become so utterly meaningless, it really doesn’t matter what they say any more. Much more important is the orange-ness of their skin, the madness of their hair, or how well they suck a throat sweet. Somehow the media appear to have interpreted that the audience isn’t listening, doesn’t understand, and moreover doesn’t want to understand what is being said, and they have as a consequence placed journalism into a tailspin-like race to see who can lower the lowest common denominator fastest.

Is today the death of meaning? Or, in the world of politics at least, did it already die some time ago? If I had to guess, I’d say it received a mortal wound during the Brexit referendum, and breathed its last breathe about halfway through the US presidential election last year. All I really saw from the British media today was a final sprinkling of the ashes.