If you take an alternative view that Gordon’s ginning from ear to ear at the possibility that something is more important than the country seeing what 11 years has done to the economy, and the BBC are terrified of not helping him, then the news makes perfect sense.

I think there’s another reason (perhaps additional to the ones you’ve stated) – this story is something that people can get their heads round easily – it’s “bite-sized” and relatively easy to (a) have an opinion about and (b) feel like something is being done / can be done about it to resolve it, in a way that doesn’t feel possible regarding the credit crunch and DR Congo.

It’s actually a sort of relief for many people to focus on something “trivial” like this rather than the other big stuff.

Jon