THIS UNRELENTING SEARCH FOR EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION AS AN END IN ITSELF IS DISTRACTING US FROM MANY A TRUTH

realised your dog was not coming back? ”

What a stupid question. If the loser of the beloved canine proves to be in anyway philosophical, the interviewer will keep probing. “Was it hard for you? ” “Were you emotional? ” “Did you cry? ” And, (with one eye on the ratings) “do you feel like crying now? ”

If that doesn’t work, the children will be drawn in to inject the required sobbing into the soap opera, “Your children loved that dog, how did they feel about it? ”

If even the children fail to elicit a blubber the interview will quickly conclude, “And there we leave a stoic Josephine Bloggs trying to come to terms with the loss of 25-year-old Millie, her adorable cocker spaniel. After the break we talk to Joe Soap, who describes the emotional devastation the closure of the local pub has wreaked on his community.”

The ultimate stoic has to be Theresa May (pictured), the Duracell bunny of politicians. The commentariat is at its wits’ end with her because she just won’t cry. If anyone has reason to sob inconsolably it’s Theresa, but she won’t oblige. She and Leo have that much in common: they don’t do emotional out-bursting.

I am not against showing one’s feelings; I am all in favour of people being in touch with their emotions. But this unrelenting search for emotional expression as an end in itself is distracting us from many a truth.

We often fail as producers and consumers of news to look beyond the tears and probe the deeper truths that cause these tears to f low.

As Bono sang, “we get stuck in a moment”. Be it the homelessness crisis, farm safety, rural isolation, the drug situation or the plight of residents in direct provision we simply get stuck in the emotion of the moment, dab our eyes and move on.