Jim Hopkins: Bali's one reason why we need the blessed Bailey

Imagine if a bunch of wild-eyed pollsters in white coats were to suddenly leap upon you whilst you were calmly consuming a croissant in some leafy boulevard, or solicitously nibbling the alabaster lobe of your neighbour's wife.

And these frenzied samplers of public opinion were then to start poking you savagely with sharp sticks and yelling, "You've got to choose! Now! Who is it? Bailey or Barker?"

You could confidently wager that anyone with the merest skerrick of common sense would indicate that they'd much prefer to have their news fronted by Ronnie Barker, thank you very much.

At least if Ronnie was fronting it, the bulletin would be fun. And Lord knows there's been precious little of that in a week when Bali, Bailey and Barker have loomed like some repulsive law firm competing for our emotional response.

Of Bali there is nothing to say except that those who detonated the bombs have forfeited their right to share the planet with the rest of humanity. Because they have none, and the sooner they are consigned to the paradise of oblivion the better.

One day we will realise that no real or imagined historical indignity justifies a war deliberately waged on civilians.

We will realise that this war, no matter how different its conduct, is as fundamental as that fought against Hitler.

When we realise that we will wage it willingly, as we will understand that victory for these barbarous zealots will mean what A.A. Milne said a victory for the Third Reich would mean: "Not only the torturing to death of bodies but the poisoning to death of souls."

The words come from a pamphlet he wrote in 1940 (belatedly supporting a war he'd previously opposed), and his assessment is as pertinent now as it was then.

The promiscuous bombers of New York, Iraq, Madrid, London and Bali may have poisoned their own souls but, eventually, we will assert the right to protect our own.

First things first, though. We'll need to get over the shock of losing "Mum" before embarking on such a venture.

And it is a shock, no question. The blessed Jude has eased our harrowing passage through the unsettling labyrinth of "news" these many years past.

She's been an immaculately elocuted autocuester, the quintessence of composure, a perfect exemplar of probity and presence.

So the gnomes give her the flick.

Ah well, 'twas ever thus. Television's always been an industry where the people who make the mistakes get to sack the people who front them.

In that sense, nothing's changed, although the decision to banish Ms Bailey might suggest that Helenvision New Zealand's splendidly remunerated executives are, if nothing else, acutely aware who's "won" the general election.

If that is the case, then it won't matter a tinker's cuss what they do. They'll still slide gently into an electronic abyss.

So long as they continue to apply the yardstick of scandal differently to different governments, and so long as they continue to offer a suffocatingly narrow range of opinions for the edification of their viewers, then their corporation will remain the Ministry of Propaganda, and whomsoever they choose as their "new" face - and however much they spend on billboards promoting that personality - their audience will keep slipping away.

Unless they picked Ronnie Barker. Which, alas, they can't, Not now he's gone into that "good night" that seems to be his epitaph.

Fortunately, from the selfish perspective of a distant viewer, we'll still be able to enjoy those cheerfully subversive, twin-host news bulletins he did with Mr Corbett in a Best of The Two Ronnies DVD set. You can bet your bottom dollar the Beeb is working on such as we speak, though it's hard to imagine Messrs Ralston and Fraser commissioning a similar Christmas package entitled Bailey's Best Bulletins.

Not that there aren't any. There are. It's just that serious is different. And ubiquitous. It's impossible now to imagine how in the days of horses and sailing ships all the news was six weeks old.

Ours is a world created first by the telegraph, then the wireless and now television and the net. It's a world where instant information is an unavoidable reality. It's something we get more than enough of, without being asked to savour a gift-wrapped set of last year's catastrophes.

Whoever presents them.

See, in this new age where everything awful is upon us in an instant, it's precisely because of the Balis that we need the Baileys. And precisely because of the Baileys that we need the Barkers.

Which explains why we would, if pressed beyond tolerance by those wretched pollsters, ultimately admit a preference for the news according to Ronnie.

No offence to Jude, who's certainly paid a very high price for earning her employers many millions of dollars.

But if ever I were forced to make such a brutal choice then I would, in the end - with a tear in my eye but a smile in my heart - opt for that good knight, Mr Barker.