Political television in this country is on the decline. The BBC appears to think it can get ratings for political programmes only if it invites comedians and celebrities to pontificate on great affairs of state. Do we really care what Shane McGowan or Jo Brand have to add to political discourse?

Political programmers reckon that most members of the British public have the attention span of a flea. Listen to most current affairs programmes on Radio 4 and Radio 5 and count the number of times the presenter utters the dreaded phrase: “I’m sorry, that’s all we’ve got time for.” What has happened to the hour-long forensic interview such as those Robin Day or Brian Walden used to conduct? You won’t find them in any current channel’s schedule.

This is the background to Britain’s first political internet television channel, 18DoughtyStreet.com Talk TV, which launches this week. 18DoughtyStreet is going to be opinionated, edgy, anti-establishment and different from anything you might see on terrestrial television.

All its presenters are people who hold strong views and will be encouraged to express them. On the internet there are no rules about “impartiality” or “balance”. We’re going to be open about where we’re coming from and let the viewer judge what we’re saying. We’re not striving for impartiality, an assertion that had Krishnan Guru-Murthy, of Channel 4 News, spluttering through an interview with my colleague, Tim Montgomerie. He just could not conceive that you could produce current affairs television without being completely impartial. You can and we will.

Yes, 18DoughtyStreet is run by some well known Conservatives, but that does not mean it is Tory TV. If we are ever thought of as the broadcasting arm of the Conservative party, we will have failed in our mission. I suspect that some of our programmes will cause just as much angst among the Conservative hierarchy as among our opponents.

Two of our main presenters are on the right, the other two are on the left. We want to provoke controversial debates. Talk radio led the way with this format and Talk TV will now follow. Our aim is to reflect the priorities of the great mass of the British public, who remain fed up with conventional politics and the Westminster village. We will try to reflect the priorities of the guy in the street rather than the metropolitan elite.

Our reporters will be “citizen journalists” — 100 of them, many from the blogging world. We’ve given them each an MP4 mini-camcorder and they will file short reports as MP4 files, which will then be used as the basis for studio discussions. Our website will have a live blog for each programme so our viewers can influence the debate and the subjects we discuss on air.

We like to think that we are at the forefront of a new internet revolution. At the moment few people realise that they can hook up their computers to an adaptor at the back of their television screens and watch internet television on their normal sets. But just as blogs become a big media story in 2006, internet television will be the big story of 2007. Our aim is to be a market leader in anticipating where new technology is taking us.

What’s the next step? I heard an amusing anecdote the other day. Apparently some people at Conservative Central Office are nervous about 18DoughtyStreet and think it is the precursor to a political party. That’s ludicrous, but it would not surprise me at all if at some point the internet did give birth to a political movement. There are more “Amazing Mrs Pritchards” out there than people think.

18DoughtyStreet.com launches at 8pm on Tuesday and will broadcast for four hours per night on weekdays