The BBC has a public duty to provide serious political coverage, argues Tessa Jowell.

In an interview with today's Telegraph, the culture secretary said: "Just because people say they are turning away from politics, they're apathetic and negative, that is not a reason for the BBC to stop covering politics."

But her argument had earlier been rejected by the BBC's political editor, Andrew Marr. "Because we are the nation's public broadcaster, financed by the license fee, we have an absolute moral and political duty to engage as many people in this country as we can in the national conversation; because if we don't do it, nobody else will," he said in an exclusive interview with ePolitix.com.