It’s quite amazing how own goals are scored in the world of politics. One of the fundamental parts of elections is the winning, you would think; and even if you’re egotistical enough to believe that democracy is a waste of time, it’s at least a good idea to persuade a decent number of people to support what you’re doing or saying. And yet there are still a significant number of political operators, both in the real world, and also at the ludicrously irrelevant level of Cambridge politics, who don’t seem to have grasped that.

Recently, it’s become trendy to hate people, apparently. I’m not talking about mild dislike, or, God forbid, a reasoned and well-articulated debate. I’m talking about deeply divisive, vicious vitriol against individuals. Rude, personal attacks are the order of the day; and it’s doing us all a huge disservice.

Politics in the UK seems now to be driven almost entirely by negative emotions. Here, it’s often the left who enjoy it the most: ‘Tory scum’ being one of their favourite rallying calls. It is quite extraordinary that some left wing activists (and most of the barking extremists), a group of people who claim to want equality, fairness and a better life for all – seem to think that prejudice is fine, provided they are the ones wielding it. Whether it be against Tories, people of faith, anyone who doesn’t agree with their stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, the rest of the left, the Lib Dems, pro-Europeans, anti-Europeans, the media – to name just a few – the language is always disgustingly hateful, and emotive beyond anything that resembles normalcy. And it doesn’t stop there; pathetic political point-scoring is rife, from both sides – this councillor has spent too much on expenses, this person has bought the wrong paint for her office – without any thought given to the facts of the case.

Part of the sheer violence of these verbal attacks, I am sure, comes from deeply felt self-righteous indignation – and in some cases, I agree with the righteousness of it. In the US, most of the vitriol comes from the right. “How could these people kill our babies; we should have the right to define what our children learn at school, and if that’s creationism, then that’s fine with us.”And there the insinuations are even more ridiculous than here; Barack Obama isn’t American, or he’s not a Christian, or he’s a communist. It is somewhat amusing that our left seems to be learning from their right.

And how does it help, exactly? The hate-filled bile simply adds to, rather than attempts to dissolve, the arrogance of individualism and divide. Am I appalled at bonuses going up in the City despite huge job losses and a stagnant economy, with small businesses suffering and, more importantly, millions of children dying each day all over the world without even the hope of clean water? Yes. But does this mean I should hate the bankers (or footballers – who, incidentally, earn as much)? Or does it mean that we should try to right the wrongs of a broken system by debating, arguing and discussing, rather than by hating our neighbour?

It’s our job, on the left, to persuade the middle, and indeed those who earn more than the GDP of a small country in a week, to move away from selfishness and to see their citizenship of a country (or rather the world) as something that demands responsibility.

We should be coming up with solutions, not simply flagging up problems, and convincing people to adopt them. And most importantly, our politics must be evidence based, not purely emotive. Some things cannot be measured, but an awful lot can, and we do ourselves and the public a disservice if we build our politics on the sand rather than the rock.

Stirring up hatred for others is fine for the bully in the primary school playground; I would rather leave prejudice at the door, and have a well thought through, winning solution to the problems of poverty and prosperity that threaten to destroy our communities, country and planet.