Maniacs on Twitter distort view of Britain, says Marr

TWITTER is a platform for ‘complete maniacs’ that makes the UK look more divided than at any time since the Civil War, Andrew Marr has said.

The BBC broadcaster added that the vitriol on social media is in stark contrast to the ‘courteous and intelligent’ people he met out and about in public.

He blamed the negative and divisive campaigns surrounding Brexit on the ‘ ascent’ of online Britain.

The presenter is popular on Twitter with nearly 85,000 followers and has posted almost 1,700 tweets, although he follows only 100 or so political figures and commentators.

Speaking at the Chalke Valley History Festival, sponsored by the Daily Mail, Marr said Brexit had been the ‘ biggest democratic revolt’ against elites and those in charge that the country had ever seen.

However, it had left Britain ‘badly divided’. The broadcaster said: ‘The entire background is set against the ascent of the so-called – wrongly called – social media.’

In contrast, he added, ‘when I’m wandering around with my big ears being stopped in the street and in pubs and so forth, people come up and they’re almost always courteous, interested, sceptical, intelligent and interrogative – exactly the way you would hope they would be – and you can have a really good conversation with them’.

But he said: ‘On Twitter, they are all complete maniacs, screaming abuse at each other the whole time. If you pick up so-called social media, you would think this country is more divided that at any time since the Civil War. Luckily, we have Twitter instead of muskets and we have Boris instead of Prince Rupert of the Rhine.’

More positively, he said the social network had ‘galvanised’ younger voters. ‘I never thought for a second these idle sods would get up and vote,’ he added. ‘People were enthused by an aggressive insurgency, a verbal and pictorial insurgency, we hadn’t spotted before.’