Making great ignoramuses of us all, David Cameron tempts us to the dark side

“I want to tell you what I am fighting this election for — it is the people I call the Great Ignored: they may be black or white. They may be rich or poor. They may live in the town or the country.”

What a load of insipid, nonsensical guff. It sounds profound but is ultimately meaningless; politics ignores everyone on some level - minority or majority. However, because we live in a society we accept it, even if we crave a different balance of who it is getting ignored. Cameron's vow overrides this altruistic fatalism, giving us a glimmer of hope that a Tory government will capitulate to our wildest demands.

It unleashes the 'me first' instinct that Tories know so well - and that we're increasingly attuned to in our 'have your say' culture - giving credibility to our darkest, grabbiest instincts.

Non-voters are technically ignored, but so was I when I didn't specify a Barbie for my 9th birthday and ended up with Sindy's more wholesome mouldings. However futile your request is, by voting you're showing you care about something - whether it's a belief in a party or just democracy itself. Not voting is ambiguous, it doesn't say anything - and it doesn't give you a right to say you've been ignored.

The ignorant get ignored too, with good reason. There's a lot of ghastly opinions harboured by the majority of the population - take the enduring appeal of eating Cornish Pasties on trains, for instance, or Lady Gaga. Tasteless views on immigration are equally prevalent, though most people would be ashamed to admit to them - that is, until someone from the Today Programme waves a microphone in their face asking if they are the 'great ignored' (2mins 52 in). People with backward ideas on foreigners swarming their schools and jobs should feel ignored and unrepresented, especially now Bernard Manning is no longer with us.

I could go on. Basically, everyone can reason their way into the 'great ignored', though it doesn't mean they should now be heard.

We are the angry mob, still baying for a credit crunch blame figure...

So Sergeant hangs up his ballet shoes on the same day the BNP's Christmas card list is made public; it's a wearying sign of the times. I don't just mean the irony that a political editor should be wrestling for top news billing with something he'd once have reported on. No, it's that the revolving doors of the angry mob seem to be lubricating themselves and gathering alarming speed.

As one door of common protest closes, another opens its bulletin boards for the daubing of discontent. John Sergeant's 'undeserved' place in the finals of Strictly Come D-listing has been fueling the messageboards for weeks (in perfect synchronicity with some similar kerfuffle on X-Factor). Now he's decided his day job was less fraught with civic obligation he's waltzed off home. Never fear though, there's a whole cauldron of finger pointing and placard waving to be had with the BNP. Here, mainstays like civil liberties and free speech are spiced up with a bit of social gollygoshing- "OMG one of them was a vicar?!" On the other channel, if human interest is more your blame-game can of worms then there's still Baby P / Shannon Matthews to play pin-the-tail-on-the-devil with.

The issues behind each of these are obviously starkly differentiated rings of hell, though they are linked by our love of scalp-hunting. We've always loved a good old fashioned witch hunt, but ever since our money disappeared it seems that current affairs has become more a pantomime than ever. Blame is the damp firework left behind by the financial crisis and now it's going off in our face. There was no one to hold responsible for credit collapse - the blacked out windows sped away from the City and mammon's architects disappeared in a cloud of 'shhhh'. I guess there's always those who took out their 128th credit card squealing 'free money!' - though the angry mob never points its finger at itself. Basically, unless one of the head gloaters at Goldman Sachs turns out to be on that BNP list, a period of sustained shadow-chasing awaits...