Anyone switching on ITV on Sunday night could have been forgiven for thinking ‘this party political broadcast is dragging on a bit’. What they were actually watching was Trevor McDonald’s supposed interview of David Cameron, which was perhaps the most cringe-inducing piece of television since, er, Piers Morgan interviewed Gordon Brown. The journalism was so lacking that Trevor McDonald’s interview technique made Panorama look like a serious documentary strand once again. Though, under extreme pressure, Cameron’s wife Samantha did confess that he loved all three of the Godfather films and watched them again and again. This means that either the info was planted to make him look like cool man’s man or that he has no critical faculties whatsoever, as everyone knows that Godfather III is unwatchable, particularly if you have just watched Godfather I and Godfather II.

What was most interesting about the show, which tried to make ‘Dave’ look normal and in which he spoke about Samantha Cameron once living in a rough area of Bristol, was following those who were watching the show on the TV and on Twitter at the same time, with the hashtag #TrevCam being the place to catch the action. The verdict from the left and from journalists seemed to be that the whole show was an extended PR puff piece, though, oddly, Conservative party followers thought it went well and some saw it as actual journalism (though some of them called it about right). Just goes to show how party loyalties can make you blind to the truth*.

This real time critique of TV shows is a growing trend and one that will continue throughout the election, as Britain decides upon its government for the next five years or so (possibly six months if no one gains a convincing majority). I am not convinced that Twitter is the kind of tool that will change minds during this election, as most of those who are using it to follow political developments will largely already be partisan or at least opinionated. But during the next election similar tools may become a pivotal part of campaigning.

*For the record, I am not a fan of Brown or Cameron, though I will decide on Clegg when he is grilled by his mum, wife or Christopher Biggins in the next in the series of these leader interviews.

Kettering MP Philip Hollobone brought up St George’s Day in the House Of Commons yesterday (doesn’t he look a lot like Harry Enfield’s Tory Boy successor, Tim Nice-But-Dim?), mooting the idea of a public holiday to celebrate the event. All well and good, but he again trotted out the tired line that ‘we spend far too much time in this country celebrating cultures other than our own’. This is an obvious reference to that old Tory bugbear, St Patricks’ Day (and maybe to the huge array of festivals such as Eid or Diwali). But all the while we wallow in the politics of jealousy around this, nothing will get done about it.

A big part of the success of St Patrick’s Day is the sheer scale and spread of the Irish diaspora, but it also has a great deal to the amount that a particular brewer has invested in the brand of St Patrick’s Day. So we all find that little bit of Irish in us on 17 March and have a pint or nine of the black stuff. Obviously drinking vast amounts of beer does not really fit in with the Government-sanctioned idea of Englishness, though Liam Byrne did seem happy to see it as a part of a potential Britishness Day.

For too long we have just looked back for things to celebrate on 23 April. We don’t know what Englishness is, apart from the Blitz Spirit, Shakespeare and fish and chips. Sometimes we throw in folk music or folk dance, as Boris Johnson intends to, but the majority of English people no longer like or identify with it. If St George’s Day is going to be a retrospective mealy-mouthed whinge then only mealy-mouthed whingers will take part. If we want to be inclusive of the whole of England and really celebrate the day we need to include our ancient history, but that cannot be the only thing it is about.