This episode is sponsored by More Than a Number, the brand new podcast from ICAUW.

Search for More Than a Number in your podcast app to hear Louise Cooper and thought leaders

unpacking the numbers behind some of the most pertinent questions of our time.

Hello and welcome to this week's Spectator podcast. I'm Lara Prendergast.

As the debate about violent language in Westminster rumbles on, we take a look at what's happened

to civilised debate and whether it's become too dangerous to discuss ideas with people you disagree

with. Plus, could Boris Johnson request an extension and still win a general election?

And finally, we take a look at whether recycling is really going to save the planet.

First up, have we forgotten how to engage politically with our ideological opponents?

Online witch hunts are now irregular occurrence, while some important issues

are almost banned from discussion for fear of causing offence. What's more with the proliferation

of social media, it's now easier than ever to take something out of context and for it to pick up

viral momentum. Douglas Murray and Sam Leith both write about it in this week's issue and they join me now.

Douglas, why exactly do you think debate seems to be dying right now?

Well, it's a number of things, but they are in part rooted in the information technology revolution,

which we're now in the sort of right in the midst of, and quite often when you're in the midst of

something, it's hard to identify that you are. You know, it's always said that technological innovations

are overstated in the short term and understated in the long term. And if we're in the long

term, then we're really bad at thinking about what this has done to our ability to discuss and talk.

And I submit that there are several

very major factors. One is what I describe as the collapse of public and private language,

which has elsewhere been described as context collapse, where any in-group discussion can

...