Over the years, I have been critical of our MPs. Yet even with those with whom I most vehemently disagree (yes you, Esther McVey), there have been times when I’ve found myself agreeing.

The classic example is over HS2. There is very little common ground where my views and those of Tatton MP Ms McVey coincide, but I am happy to say I am behind her all the way in her opposition to the hugely costly vanity project that is HS2.

I don’t always agree with Weaver Vale MP Mike Amesbury either and have said so, publicly.

But my arguments have always been about politics and policies. They haven’t been ad hominem attacks just because I don’t like the person.

We all have the right to agree or disagree with our leaders and to make our voices heard. And ultimately, we can register our displeasure (or pleasure) in a meaningful way at the ballot box.

(Yes, I know our outdated and not fit for purpose voting system should be replaced by some form of proportional representation but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Certainty over the past few years, that political displeasure has tipped over into intractable anger, to hatred and to violence.

The murder of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox in June 2016 in the run up to the Brexit referendum sent shockwaves through the country and should have been a stark warning that things needed to change.

That warning wasn’t heeded, of course, lessons weren’t learned and if anything, things have got worse.

Last week, Southend West MP and father-of-five Sir David Amess was stabbed to death while holding his weekly constituency surgery in Essex.

So will lessons now be learned?

Well, according to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the quality of political discourse in the UK ‘has to change’.

He wrote in a newspaper article that the “hate which drives these attacks has to end”, adding: “Disagreements with politicians should be solved at the ballot box, not via threats, intimidation or murder.”

“If anything positive is to come out of this latest awful tragedy it is that the quality of political discourse has to change. The conversation has to be kinder and based on respect,” Sir Lindsay wrote in The Observer.

I agree wholeheartedly and Sir Lindsay is perfectly, some might say uniquely, placed to actually do something about it.

I’m not going to get all party political about this but the behaviour of MPs in the House of Commons is simply childish, boorish and disgraceful and is an embarrassment in what should be a mature democracy.

We must be able to do better.

I refer you to a report published on the BBC website in September 2019. It said:

Boris Johnson has refused to moderate his language during a heated debate in the Commons, despite a barrage of criticism from opposition benches.

Labour’s Paula Sherriff referred to Jo Cox, the MP murdered in 2016, as she pleaded with him to refrain from using “dangerous” words like “surrender”.

He described her intervention as “humbug” and repeated the word again.

The SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon said there was “a gaping moral vacuum where the office of prime minister used to be”.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg described scenes in Parliament as an “absolute bear pit”.

A fish rots from the head, so the old saying goes, so if Sir Lindsay really wants the conversation to be ‘kinder and based on respect’ – and I would add it also needs to be honest and truthful – he need look no further than the Prime Minister for starters.

n On a different topic, I was scrolling through the Guardian’s website when I came across an article by Kieran Doody who glories in the quite remarkable job title of UK Trending Editor.

Anyway, Mr Doody told us about seven new laws and rule changes introduced in the UK in October ‘which will impact many different aspects of British life’.

Most of the seven new laws and rules were pretty straightforward dealing with things such as food labelling, the end of the Universal Credit £20 uplift and the energy bills price cap.

But the one that caught my attention was that from now on, anyone under the age of 18 will no longer be allowed to get boot and dermal lip fillers for cosmetic reasons, thanks to the Botulinum and Toxin Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said failure to comply with the new legislation “could result in criminal prosecution and an unlimited fine”.

Botox and dermal fillers for kids? Really? Now I know the world really has gone mad if we have to legislate against this.