With a conviction for threats against Gina Miller, how has the political environment got so nasty?

Our use of language and tone has become brutal and coarse, to the extent that many don’t regard their behaviour as anything more than fair comment

Viscount St David Rhodri Philipps received a 12 week jail sentence for an abusive Facebook post (PA)

What has happened to good manners? Are they a redundant concept in modern society? These days, any disagreements seem to be the trigger for death threats, obscenities, and vile online comments using racially and sexually offensive language. Remember the expression ‘agree to disagree’? That seems redolent of a distant Downton era, when people drank afternoon tea out of fine china cups and the staff lived downstairs.

Universal access to social media provides an easy outlet for all the frustrations we experience in everyday life. Instead of going to the pub and having a moan with our mates about the state of politics and the world in general, now a great many people don’t think twice before launching into a tirade of filth and downright nastiness on Twitter. They spray out instant knee-jerk reactions to anything annoying, without any concern for the targets of their rage, as if the recipients are sub-human and devoid of feelings.

In a very short space of time, we have become unable to contemplate that someone might hold different political views to our own, that they might want to stay in the EU, that they might not see immigrants as shirkers, that some brave souls might not think all cyclists are fantastic considerate human beings or that Nicola Sturgeon is the best thing since sliced bread.

Matters have got so bad that we are being divided into a nation of loud shouty people and the silent souls who dare not put their heads above the parapet to voice their innermost thoughts. This slide into oafishness isn’t confined to the lower orders – last week, Rhodri Philipps, the 4th Viscount St Davids, received a 12 week jail sentence for Facebook posts which offered £5,000 to anyone who would kill leading anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller. He also posted racially offensive remarks, calling her a “boat jumper” and offered £2,000 to anyone who would “carve up” Arnold Sube, an immigrant he’d seen mentioned in a news story.

Since Miller mounted a successful High Court challenge to force the government to debate leaving the EU in parliament, she has received numerous death threats, been trashed on social media, and is forced to employ security guards for personal protection.

During the Scottish Independence referendum, passions ran high – with the ‘cyber Nats’ routinely trolling anyone who dared to disagree with their beloved leader.

As we prepare for Brexit, there’s an undercurrent of anxiety and disenchantment with the government, a feeling on both sides that people didn’t get the result they wanted. The recent general election produced an equally unsatisfactory result for many, with Labour claiming victory even though they couldn’t form a government.

Some Conservatives complain that since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour party, nastiness has increased, and they are routinely described as ‘scum’ and far worse. One was called a ‘nonce’ (slang for a paedophile), while another London-born Tory candidate found a message entreating people to vote Labour and “keep Pakis out of politics” inside a voting booth.

Recently, Yvette Cooper was photographed in a first class carriage on a train (without her permission) and trashed on social media by a left-wing pressure group. Many female MPs have lived in fear since 2015, when Maria Caulfield, Tory MP for Lewes, received death threats, had her car tyres slashed and her offices daubed with offensive graffiti. Dianne Abbott has received years of nastiness for being black and left wing.

Last week, a parliamentary inquiry into conduct during the election concluded that parties on all sides of the spectrum are not doing enough to help their candidates deal with this tidal wave of personal abuse. It wants candidate to be given details of help lines and counselling services, and to be offered personal safety training sessions. Theresa May has ordered a parliamentary inquiry into the appalling level of online abuse directed at politicians via email, Twitter and Facebook – but will it make any difference? When did ‘free speech’ degenerate into the right to express hatred at will?

According to the Spectator, the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, received so much personal vitriol during the last election, the BBC hired security guards as she toured the country. During one press briefing with Jeremy Corbyn, Kuenssberg was loudly jeered to her face by his supporters as she tried to ask a question. It made chilling television on the news that evening. After another BBC journalist, Emma Barnett, accused Jeremy Corbyn of looking up the cost of his election pledges on an iPad during their Woman's Hour interview, she received anti-semitic abuse.

Bad manners started to take root when swearing became part of everyday conversation (I’m regularly guilty) – four letter words became normalised, and form part of the soundtrack (heard by little children) on the bus, in the supermarket and at work.

At the same time, by reflecting everyday life, highly abusive confrontational exchanges became the norm on soaps like Emmerdale and Eastenders in our living rooms in the early evenings. Reality television, with the unedited stuff running for hours on niche channels, normalises offensive language and sexual innuendo – Love Island even spawning its own slang.

Our use of language and tone has become brutal and coarse, to the extent that many of those sending horrible texts, tweets and emails, don’t regard their behaviour as anything more than fair comment. It is possible to turn the clock back and reintroduce politeness and civility? Sadly, I think not.