POLITICAL debate has been a poisonous and divisive cesspit for many years now. I don't know if the lack of tolerance of opposing views was caused by the very binary argument over Brexit, which reduced every argument to a crude determination that had little to do with reason and everything to do with emotion. But it seems likely.
Trumpism and the belief in 'alternative facts' and 'fake news' to defend your own worldview against uncomfortable truth was also a major influence and Covid conspirators made everything worse.
The motive for the appalling murder of popular MP Sir David Amess is still not clear.
But it has put the focus back on the coarsening of public discourse that has led to attacks on MPs - including the murder of Jo Cox, and sickening threats via social media to people in the public eye.
The anonymity of Twitter makes it too easy for cowardly people to vent their spleen from the safety of their bedrooms. Half-baked conspiracy theories from crazies on the internet has emboldened the nut-jobs who are turning up at constituency offices to protest their anti-vax lunacy.
It is disturbing that these people seem oblivious to the continuing toll of infections and deaths from coronavirus and instead prefer to peddle nonsense about journalists making up 'facts' to persuade the public to accept medical interventions - back to 'fake news' and its corrosive impact on trust.
The social media giants have a duty to come up with a way to halt this flood of disinformation and abuse. If they don't they should face financial penalties.
****
FOR years I've been fighting a losing battle by avoiding non-staffed shop tills. In Boots a while ago, a young woman directed me towards the selfie tills.
"I can show you how it works, it's very simple," she said when I demurred.
"No thanks, that's where your job will be disappearing to," I said, positioning myself firmly behind the rope designed to deter shoppers from using the few tills with cashiers.
Now they're unavoidable. There's only one local supermarket in my area which doesn't use them. Yet.
Now we learn that Amazon, which has single-handedly destroyed the High Street, is planning new grocery stores which will scrap human cashiers for a Big Brother-style surveillance camera which will allow customers to swipe an app, then walk in and out with their shopping.
A bill will be computed and debited from their account. Tesco and Aldi are looking at similar systems.
Good old Amazon, which doesn't recognise trade unions for its 55,000 UK workforce and doesn't pay much tax on its huge profits.
The next time you get a 'bargain' online, just remember that there's a bigger cost to society with empty shopping malls and shuttered shops.
In Belfast city centre there is no longer a proper newsagents and stationers with the closure of Easons and earlier, WH Smith. Way back, there was also a Gardiners to peruse magazines and stock up on stationery.
Last time I was in town, I had to go to the M&S foodhall to buy a newspaper. It felt wrong.
****
I hope the hospitality industry can share in the benefits of the 'Spend Local' (shouldn't that be 'locally'?) scheme. It's been hit hard by the impact of Covid lockdowns over the past 18 months.
But I fear they won't have much of a recovery unless something is done to address the problem of getting taxis.
On two recent occasions that we've gone out on a Saturday evening for dinner, we've been unable to get a cab. The big two companies don't take pre-bookings... "Just try ringing again when you need a car," we were told.
Then you can't get through because everyone else is trying at the same time. We resorted to the bus on a wet evening and the city centre looked pretty empty except for a few streets in the Cathedral Quarter where the hardy young were congregating.
At the restaurant a strange mix of Covid rules applied. There was no actual menu - you had to access it via a QR code on your phone. We tried. A woman at a neighbouring table said it was easier to just Google the restaurant and check the menu that way.
And strangely, the Covid rule on no physical menus didn't apply to the laminated list of cocktails sitting on the table.
The whole dining out experience will need to get easier if us oldies are to be lured off our sofas and an evening of takeaways and Netflix as winter beckons.
