You're listening to a programme from BBC Radio 4.

Good evening. If you woke up this morning and thought the world had gone mad, then you were right.

Not, or not necessarily, because the wave of anti-establishment feeling that severed Britain from Europe

had just swept the buffon bombastic Donald Trump past hapless Hillary and into the White House.

But because of the mad angry, toxic terms

of engagement with which politics is conducted these days, there and here. Mr. Trump repeatedly

called Mrs. Clinton nasty, crooked and corrupt, as his supporters chanted, lock her up. She,

in turn, said he was unhinged and dangerous. Accurate description, not insult,

her supporters might say, if they could spare the time from trying to work out why 59 million

Americans voted for him. Politics here seemed just as vituperative. The three judges who ruled

MPs should have a say on Brexit have been vilified. Newspaper headlines called them

enemies of the people. Remainers, meantime brand levers as not just wrong, but bigoted, stupid,

or worse. Political discourse everywhere seems to have turned poisonous. Is this the

theatre of current affairs in a digital age where people use the internet as an echo chamber

for their own views and a vehicle to abuse

others? Politics that is challenging, healthy and robust? Or is the increasing refusal to

acknowledge that those we disagree with might nonetheless be acting in good faith, not just sad,

but dangerous? And has moderation itself been abandoned as a moral virtue. That's our moral maze tonight.

Our panel, Menonle-Fillips, social commentator on the Times,

Claire Fox from the Institute of Ideas,

Anne McElvoy, senior editor at The Economist and Matthew Taylor,

chief executive of the RSA.

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