Alastair Campbell yesterday claimed that the media's relentless negativity was turning the British people's "natural and healthy scepticism" into a near phobia of politics.

In a speech to a Foreign Press Association awards ceremony last night, Downing Street's former director of strategy and communications argued it was a modern paradox of media coverage of politics that "we have more noise, but less understanding".

"Scepticism is healthy, cynicism is not," he said.

"The relentless, often 24-hour degrading of politics, politicians and anything that they may say or do does nobody any good, including the media."