Mark Lyn­der­say

"I al­ways cheer up im­mense­ly if an at­tack is par­tic­u­lar­ly wound­ing be­cause I think, well, if they at­tack one per­son­al­ly, it means they have not a sin­gle po­lit­i­cal ar­gu­ment left." –Mar­garet Thatch­er

A week ago, I thought it pru­dent to in­vite the na­tion's politi­cians to con­sid­er the tun­ing fork res­o­nance that their more out­ra­geous state­ments might have on­line in so­cial me­dia cir­cles and more specif­i­cal­ly, in the spe­cial in­ter­est echo cham­ber that Face­book has be­come.

That warn­ing sug­gest­ed that the mid­dle-class vot­er, like­ly to be less un­de­cid­ed than un­com­mit­ted un­til the last pos­si­ble mo­ment, and gen­er­al­ly ac­tive in large­ly un­der­plot­ted and im­pos­si­ble to mon­i­tor so­cial group­ings and dis­cus­sions on the ser­vice, would con­tem­plate, for some time, the state­ments and in­tent of po­ten­tial can­di­dates on the cam­paign trail.

That was be­fore Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, used Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege dur­ing the un­usu­al mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, to launch a char­ac­ter at­tack on a scale quite un­prece­dent­ed in this coun­try's sit­tings of both Hous­es.

Mrs Al­leyne-Top­pin called on Dr Row­ley to an­swer ques­tions that were not just ir­rel­e­vant to the na­tion's busi­ness, but al­so called in­to ques­tion her judge­ment in the ex­e­cu­tion of her own re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in a min­istry cre­at­ed to ad­dress so­cial in­jus­tices.

It was an at­tack so vile and up­set­ting that any of her col­leagues who un­equiv­o­cal­ly sided with it risk be­ing tarred with a po­lit­i­cal smear so in­deli­ble that it will prove dif­fi­cult to re­move even in the heat of the up­com­ing elec­tion cam­paign.

Mrs Al­leyne-Top­pin has since apol­o­gised, af­ter a fash­ion, sat­is­fy­ing al­most no­body that the more vul­gar and un­for­tu­nate as­pects of her state­ment, read from a pre­pared script, have been sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly with­drawn.

I hold no brief for Dr Row­ley, the sub­ject of this mis­cham­bered at­tack, and have not­ed in this space my own con­cerns about his own Par­lia­men­tary at­tack, now known as email­gate, a mat­ter that I've held since the first state­ment, was his ac­cu­sa­tion to prove.

Such bac­cha­nal­ist fare, how­ev­er, is pro­tect­ed by the free­doms af­ford­ed to politi­cians with­in the cham­bers of Par­lia­ment, but nowhere else.

To re­peat the state­ments made by Mrs Al­leyne-Top­pin on a soap­box in Wood­ford Square or, in­deed, in sta­tus­es or re­spons­es on Face­book is to risk le­gal cen­sure at the very least.

That's a truth that seems to elude Face­book com­menters and it's worth re­peat­ing for clar­i­ty.

It doesn't mat­ter if some­one else says it. If you are record­ed writ­ing some­thing li­bel­lous or cir­cu­lat­ing a video in which li­bel is be­ing ut­tered, it be­comes your state­ment and you are re­spon­si­ble for it.

As with a stolen man­go, it doesn't mat­ter who picked it, who threw it over the fence or who put it in the bag. If a po­lice of­fi­cer ap­pears and you have the bag of man­goes, you're the thief.

Par­lia­ment will be pro­rogued soon and that priv­i­lege will dis­ap­pear, along with the lux­u­ry of plain speak­ing with­out le­gal con­se­quence.

The na­tion will, af­ter that, be plunged in­to long dark months of in­nu­en­do, ac­cu­sa­tion and pi­cong that look set to hall­mark an elec­tion cam­paign that will be waged on the ef­fec­tive­ness of mu­tu­al broad­sides aimed at char­ac­ter; warn­ings of im­pend­ing eco­nom­ic doom should the wrong choic­es be made in the vot­ing booth and bac­cha­nal of the low­est or­der.

This will be no sil­ly sea­son, but a nasty one and vile­ness slung aloft rarely choos­es its land­ing points with care.

Much of this will make its way on­to the In­ter­net gen­er­al­ly and Face­book in par­tic­u­lar. There will be sock pup­pets en­gag­ing you us­ing fake pro­files, pages and groups de­signed to en­snare spe­cif­ic in­ter­ests and cat­nip aplen­ty pre­pared for any­one with ei­ther a ready tem­per or an axe to grind.

Ex­pect screen­shots, both re­al and faked to be cir­cu­lat­ed reg­u­lar­ly, sus­pi­cious look­ing posts to show up with greater reg­u­lar­i­ty and ad­ver­tis­ing aplen­ty.

The ag­gres­sive abun­dance of the cam­paign trail is about to ap­pear on your com­put­er screen, and it won't just be pret­ty flags wav­ing with vig­or. Be ready for it.