There's a danger in making sneering comments about people we disagree with. Stuff like "I'll pay to fumigate the forum when he's gone". It doesn't matter if we have what seems to us excellent reason for feeling that way. It's counterproductive. When Gordon Brown sneered at Gillian Duffy as "a bigotted woman" all he did was make her a national treasure, and encourage people to overlook reservationsthey might have about some of the views associated with her.

Often people seem to think that courtesy in the context of controversy is a kind of hypocrisy, insincerity. It isn't. It makes it possible to focus on the real points of difference rather than on posturing and slapstick.

And it's important to be quite rigorous about looking at what we post. Too easy to start a post sincerely going on about how important it is to stay calm and reasonable, and a paragraph or so later fall ito lashing out at someone with whose views we are at odds. That's why it's so important to look critically at what we have written before posting. Which is a lot easier to say than to do. Too often my own typing errors indicate that I haven't done it.