One aspect of politics that is perhaps under-appreciated is the question: who gets to decide, and how, which issues become prominent and which not?

I say this because on the Sunday Politics yesterday, Andrew Neil interviewed Gerard Coyne (23'20" in). This is odd. How often does the BBC give such prominence to former regional secretaries of trades unions? Even if Mr Coyne's allegations of Stalinism at Unite are wholly valid, do they really deserve such attention? Of course, I'd be the first to deplore intolerance of dissent. But this is common in many workplaces, among them Ms May's: it might well have been a significant contributor to the financial crisis. I'd love to see more debate about the scarring effects of groupthink, hierarchy and suppression of dissent. But why discuss these in a union, and ignore them in companies and in politics?

This is one way in which BBC bias works. Bias isn't just - or even mainly - slanted reporting of particular issues. It also consists in deciding what to report. Giving prominence to a story which might reflect discredit upon Unite whilst ignoring dictatorial management in other organizations is a form of bias.

I don't say this merely to complain about the BBC again. Instead, it's to make the point that power and political skill isn't merely a matter of being able to get what you want. It's about being able to put some matters on the agenda whilst keeping others off it. For example, the achievement Brexiters wasn't merely to win the referendum but to get the obscurantist obsession of a few cranks to a dominant position onto the political agenda in the first place.

Jeremy Corbyn, though, has achieved a similar feat. He's raised the salience of an issue on which Labour is strong - austerity- whilst reducing the salience of issues on which it is weak. The party's policies on immigration and Brexit leave something to be desired, but Corbyn has - for now - downgraded their visibility.

These, however, are exceptions. Generally speaking, the matter of what is salient and what not serves reactionary purposes. For example, the merits (or not) of land value tax, citizens income or coops are insufficiently debated in the MSM. And important questions are downplayed such as: to what extent is the long stagnation of labour productivity a symptom of capitalist dysfunction? Why are real interest rates negative and what does it imply for fiscal policy? Under what conditions is hierarchy efficient? Why has CEO pay exploded since the 1980s? Is it possible to increase job satisfaction and if so how? And so on. If questions such as these were more salient - the BBC rarely discusses them - politics would surely look very different.

Such questions would, of course, bring class struggle more into politics. But then, as Steven Lukes wrote. "the most effective and insidious use of power is to prevent...conflict from arising in the first place." (Power, a radical view, p27) One challenge for the left is to fight this power by asking the questions we want to, and not merely accepting the right's agenda.