The BBCNews 5.50pm Election ‘discussion’ slot is awful…but Jon Sopel’s later hour after 11 pm is worth watching.

In its never-ending search for spineless impartiality, the BBCNews Channel has signed up three Stepford policy wonks as resident ‘commentators’ on the election. The format is pure Mark Thompson, in that it consists of three very boring (and unknown) Party-steeped robots mouthing the message: in short, awful, safe and cheap. These are, after all, the three drivers of Thompson’s sad life now he has at last kicked the arm-biting habit.

We must thank God (or an oasis of sanity surviving somewhere in the Beeb) that the slot seems to have been designated as ‘no more than ten minutes’. Otherwise, the turnout would slip well below 45% by election day, if only because any voter watching this trio more than once would be turned to stone. And not even Lord Ashcroft could afford the transport to bus such unfortunates to a polling booth.

What is it, one wonders, that Thompson thinks his job is? The 1980s designer stubble alone suggests that he has somewhere down the line acquired a vague idea of market economics. But the fact that he’s still sporting it in 2010 should equally tell us quite a bit about the bloke’s stunted development. It’s almost as if he’s been secretly hypnotised by Lord Birt – and thus become a latter-day Manchurian Candidate, on an unconscious suicide mission to destroy every sign of maverick creativity in television. At the word ‘controversy’, Mark must rise from his executive swivelling-chair and fire half the news staff. Or assassinate Jeremy Paxman mid-interview. He must do this, for he has no choice.

Huw Edwards struggled manfully to pretend that he felt in any way inspired by the idea of devoting 17% of his daily slot to this Unholy Trinity of mouthpieces. Mr Edwards himself isn’t exactly standup material, but even he felt it necessary to crack a few gags before their appearance about them being ‘seasoned’. Seasoned or not, the three stooges were unutterably bland. The Tories may be Murdoch influenced, the best reason to vote Conservative I can think of is that they would, if elected, fire Mark Thompson at the first opportunity. At which point, bonfires would be lit from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

A better creation all round is the Jon Sopel election vehicle The Campaign Show. Like Paxo, Sopel has now reached that blissful career level where he can probably tell Thompson where to shove his affirmatively actioned wallpaper. He seems to me a good bloke, in that he doesn’t take either himself or the self-important pillocks he interviews too seriously. Another attractive dimension of his performance is the throwaway dig that passes eight miles over the average politico’s head. Watching Sopers interview Eric Pickles is as near as you’ll get to a master class: Jon smiles at this obese gnome whenever they meet face to face, a disarmingly harmless smile which nevertheless radiates the question ‘I wonder if you know what a ridiculous caricature of smug Toryism you are?’

At 11 pm (far too late in my opinion, especially as it’s midnight here in France) the Beeb has given Sopel an hour on The Campaign Show to range free, presumably on the assumption that most Brits are either pissed or asleep by that hour. Either way, better late than never: it’s the sort of electoral irreverence that might just make this entire farce bearable.