Watching Tony Blair's interview with Andrew Marr the other night, and reading snippets of his memoirs, what struck me was the almost complete absence of political debate in either. For the record – although my purpose here is not to defend him – I'm by no means an unequivocal critic of Blair. Politics runs between outright idolatry and demonisation. The truth, as so often, lies somewhere in between.

The endless arguments about the Iraq war will continue forever. But Blair was right to introduce the minimum wage, right to tell the Left of his party that the days of Toytown Trotskyite drug-peddling were over, right to keep the thrust of Thatcherite neo-market economics. He's also right that the West cannot indulge in endless self-flagellation about the causes of Islamic extremism. The sub text for all the West's critics – as Blair correctly pointed out – is that we are to blame for standing up to them and for supporting Israel's right to exist. No, the people to blame for Islamic extremism are the extremists themselves. Blair is also correct when he says that the old debate between Right and Left has become rather sterile and that sometimes the crucial question is, instead, between right and wrong.

But Blair's interview, and the supposedly scinitillating revelations serialised in the British press, were remarkably trivial. Marr began by asking Blair about his rows with his successor Gordon Brown, as if this were the most important aspect of Blair's premiership. Blair described his relationship with Brown as "maddening" – mentioned en passant that he believed Brown had deviated from New Labour policies – but essential to Blair's account was the deterioration in their personal relations. By the way, Blair reveals in his memoirs that he was driven to using alcohol as a crutch. Apparently a gin and tonic before dinner, followed by up to half a bottle of wine, is excessive drinking by Blair's standards. Doubtless, many people wish they could restrict their drinking to this level of "excess"!

The rest of the interview was about Blair's relationship with prominent leaders: Bill Clinton, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness. Marr put it to Blair repeatedly that he was loathed by a large section of the British public on account of Iraq. But there was virtually nothing about policy. He even ended by probing Blair's financial affairs – "You're every rich, how many properties do you own?"  Marr, (over)-praised as a journalist, was essentially commenting on views of other journalists and the public, rather than directly tackling him on the great issues of his time in office.

Compare all this to interviews 20-30 years ago with the likes of John Major, Margaret Thatcher and James Callaghan. We are living in a trivialised era of news where tittle-tattle, personal rivalries, media spin and damage limitation are the order of the day. Consider some other revelations from Blair's book and let's compare them to the dignity with which previous prime ministers described their time in office. We learn that Cherie Blair cradled Tony in bed on the night of John Smith's death in 1994 (isn't that a bit private?) that Blair could understand why politicians risked the excitement – the frisson – of an irresponsible extra-marital fling when they were burdened with the relentless cares of office. We learn that Blair liked quality time in the toilet and that he was "terrified" before every prime minister's question time. We do learn that Blair came to regret certain key decisions over freedom of information and fox hunting but – as so often – the implication is that Blair regretted them because of the repercussions for his personal popularity rather than because he actually changed his mind.

We have downgraded the real business of politics – the issues – to secondary status. Politicians are of course only human;  they have the same foibles, insecurities and aspirations as the rest of us. But am I the only one who thinks politics should be above muckraking revelations and accounts of personal ablutions?