It has lasted, so far, for little longer than the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey but already it’s caused more consternation in certain quarters. Gordon Brown’s elevation to 10 Downing Street has brought a sudden end to a practice that the media frequently condemned but secretly relied on. The days of revealing in advance what ministers would say in the House of Commons appear to be over.

An edict has been issued that henceforth MPs will be treated with more deference than reporters. No longer will journalists be able to declare that “ministers will say” or “ministers will do” with the confidence of oracles in the ancient world. Welcome to the “post-spin” era. Alastair Campbell should not be publishing his diaries but a last will and testament.

It has been something of a culture shock, I can tell you. And a potentially awkward one. Philip Webster, our esteemed political editor, cannot devote his weekends to rounds of golf (sadist) and to Norwich City Football Club (masochist) convinced that his mobile phone will trill to the sound of new information. Peter Riddell’s rumoured plans to take up jogging around Parliament Square decked in a Day-Glo tracksuit have, sadly, been placed on hold indefinitely.

It is not only the Westminster end of the media “village” (that phrase is dead wrong, villages have just the one idiot) that is suffering. Hugo Rifkind, the noble diarist at The Times, had the shock of placing a call with the Prime Minister’s office last week and not only having them actually ringing back as promised but offering him a straight answer to a straight question. As the son of a politician himself, one can only imagine how bizarre, disturbing, perhaps humiliating, he found the entire experience. Furthermore, the universally adored chief leader writer of this newspaper (me) found himself having to bolt back early from a lunch on Tuesday to watch Mr Brown’s statement on constitutional reform on television because he had not been handed details beforehand and almost had to cancel another “working meal” two days later because he had absolutely no clue what the ministerial announcement on student financial support would contain.

Yes, it has been hell, the new order. But we at The Times seem to be bearing up better than others. According to one intriguing account, the editors on the BBC Today programme almost ignored Mr Brown’s announcement on the constitution the day after it occured and declined to interview the relevant ministers because it was “old news”, whereas they would have lapped it up if it had all been leaked to them before the Prime Minister addressed the Commons. Cynicism, it transpires, is not the principal vice of the media as Tony Blair proclaimed in his valedectory talk on the subject last month. Hypocrisy deserves that honour. Those who have happily provided a platform to anybody who wanted to denounce the culture of spin are now ostentatiously aggrieved that they are not being spun at like they used to be.

The only thing that appears to be preventing the fourth estate going on strike for spin is a smug confidence that this is an experiment with a short shelf-life. Allow it a few weeks, the old hands sagely predict, and a couple of crises, and it will be back to normal service. Parliament will return to being merely an echo chamber of the media.

I hope and believe, by contrast, that the post-spin age has more resilience. There are three reasons why the Prime Minister should do his utmost to stick with this initiative.

The first is that it is integral to his broader strategy, not a sideshow. It has already become obvious that Mr Brown’s notion of his new position is based on austerity, formality and service. Traditional institutions of authority – the Cabinet and Civil Service as well as Parliament – that have had their influence eroded not merely under Mr Blair but for the better part of two decades before that, are to be treated with greater respect. Some of this is a shade self-serving but it is in essence sincere. It suits Mr Brown’s style to make “serious” a fashionable concept. Yet if the Prime Minister lets old-style spin back in, his overall agenda will be discredited.

Secondly, there is plainly a constituency for what he is doing. Mr Brown has, in a short period, managed to look not only every inch the Prime Minister but one of a rather dignified calibre. Gravitas is good for this Government. It has evidently knocked the stuffing out of his opponents. Look at David Cameron. He was the future once. Today he risks misjudging the national mood by bellowing “he’s not new”, “there is no change”, “it’s all a fix, I tell you”, resembling less a statesman than a toff with Tourette’s syndrome. Poor old Ming Campbell smells as if he is two poor by-election results short of earlier retirement than he expected, Mr Brown should stick with his formula.

Not least because, finally, the media have acquired a collective arrogance that should be challenged. The idea that a morning radio news programme had somehow displaced Parliament in importance is absurd. The political class, irrespective of partisan strip, should decline to treat this monster with the reverence that it is constantly demanding. MPs should have more spine when dealing with the press and radio and television outlets. The media need news to survive, and the likes of Mr Brown and Mr Cameron (and if he is lucky Mr Campbell as well) are key suppliers of the commodity. Junkies should be at the call of pushers, not the other way round.

So let spin, in the sense discussed here, be sent like Lady Jane to the Tower of London. She did not really deserve to lose her head. The media has rather less to complain about.

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