Threats against MPs are a ‘poison’ and a ‘contagion of hate’ - it must be stopped, writes Andrew Marr |
Is it old-fashioned, is it pompous, to say that politicians need to think far more carefully about the language they use?
Listen to this article
A Reform councillor, the deputy leader of Lancashire County Council, who later apologised, shared a post about the Labour MP Natalie Fleet, the victim of a fake quote, saying she should be shot.
In the Commons, Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, referred to Labour now being known as the paedo defenders party.
This isn't just people on the right picking up the abusive language of bot farms and online pile-ons; the left goes far too easily to terms like fascist, Nazi, racist; the greens are very quick to accuse others of being bloodthirsty genocide enablers.
But let's just take the paedophile charge. The Mandelson-Epstein scandal is one of the worst of modern times.
I think some Labour MPs have been defensive and tribalist in their response to the rape or so-called grooming gangs scandal.
But if you're going to smear an entire political movement like this - my advice? Just watch out.
Remember all the sex scandals of the Tory years. How would Kemi Badenoch feel if her party were regularly described as the porn addict's party, or something similar?
Nigel Farage declined to address the murder threat from one of his councillors. He has faced numerous death threats himself: how would he feel if Keir Starmer shrugged them off in public?
Today's Labour is at the sharp end of most of the abuse because they are in power, but make no mistake: the way things are going, a future Tory or Reform government will face language and menaces just as extreme.
This is not really a party matter; it is a poison, a contagion of hate, spreading through our public culture, which kills politicians, quite literally, and in a more abstract way, smothers decent democratic debate.
The most effective politicians of my lifetime, from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair, never needed to use extreme or abusive language - far from it.
So no, I don't think it's pompous or old-fashioned to plead - and I really am pleading - for people in public life to calm down and think much more carefully about what they say and post.
Donald Trump is many things. But he's not the Messiah.
Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.
LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.
To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk