Vicious bullies who stand behind Corbyn

They are the despicable actions of the hate mob. Swastikas and four-letter insults daubed on campaign posters… Vicious online posts saying ‘Burn the witch’… Internet trolls calling for her to be stabbed…

As we reported yesterday, Tory MP Sheryll Murray was so worried by the torrent of vitriol she endured during the election campaign, she was forced to close her constituency office and cancel a hustings.

Nor was she alone. Indeed, it is slowly becoming apparent that in many parts of the country Left-wing activists attempted to intimidate and silence Conservative candidates.

And it didn’t stop on polling day. Indeed, Cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom warned yesterday that Tory MPs are still ‘scared for their safety’ weeks after the election.

Inevitably, the abuse was at its worst on the lawless social media sites Facebook and Twitter – as was also shockingly evident in the run-up to the independence referendum in 2014.

Tory candidate Byron Davies, who lost his Gower seat, endured not only obscene messages but a stream of fake news stories claiming entirely falsely that he was under investigation for electoral fraud and had fiddled his expenses.

Another posting, which went viral within minutes, used a made-up quote to slur Theresa May – claiming she had criticised lesbians while a councillor in the 1980s – and Labour activists spread a mocked-up poster that suggested the Tories intended to privatise the NhS and charge every family thousands for health insurance.

It is no surprise that the worst abuse was targeted at women candidates. The same hard-Left activists who idolise Jeremy Corbyn were responsible – during his leadership re-election campaign last year – for death and rape threats against women Labour MPs.

They are the same Labour shock troops who stand outside the Conservative conference spitting, throwing eggs and screaming ‘Tory scum’. (Mild behaviour, incidentally, compared to the foul and hateful language apparently used by Channel 4’s Jon ‘F*** the Tories’ Snow.)

Truly, with the march of the fascist Left and their politics of bigotry and hatred we are living in chilling times.