The tragedy of my generation is that we were raised in a period when news and analysis moved slowly enough for even those who didn’t stay across current affairs to have a fairly good understanding of important events.

I recall, as a teenager, watching reports of the Westland Affair, Google it, kids, lead the news for an entire year.

Between 1985 and 1986, every spit and cough of this scandal within Margaret Thatcher’s government was subjected to minute examination in print and on television.

Aged 15, I knew enough about the story to form a fairly lucid opinion on an issue which was essentially about the rescue of an ailing helicopter factory.

This is great: I am so enjoying Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘couldn’t GAF’ attitude right now

Trapped between cowards and cranks, the SNP has left the indy movement to unravel

Andy Burnham has just made a huge mistake over independence

If Burnham lives up to his promise, he kills the SNP and indy stone dead

Today, the Westland Affair would last less than an afternoon. Today, the US President can claim nearly 40 times that his lunatic war with Iran is over, while war rages, and there’s barely any comment.

Today, what should be the smartest, most informative programme on the BBC, Newsnight, is reduced to a clickbait talking shop for wannabe influencers.

Events now happen at breakneck pace. Yet it takes time to digest and understand complex affairs.

That clash, that tension between speed and understanding, is at the heart of the many crises facing not just Western nations but the entire world.

Speed has broken the media. In the past, the press and broadcasters helped the public make sense of the news. Now the media, in all its guises, whether........

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