The call by the Prime Minister on Sunday for everyone to adopt “a more mature political language” can only be praised. In fact, it is a call which is long overdue.

For too long, partisan politics has been reduced to slanging matches, personal insults and scathing comparisons which have only served to widen the chasm which still exists between supporters of the two political parties.

In the 2008 election campaign Labour MP Charles Mangion came out with the rash statement that Nationalists had “something wrong with their DNA”. Despite later trying to apologise for what he said, he never lived that statement down and is still reminded of this quote by his political adversaries at every opportunity.

More recently, the Prime Minister himself likewise realised he had spoken unwisely when he compared the Labour party to a “disease”. He too, apologised for his gaffe.

The problem with this kind of statements is that, while they may be spoken in the heat of the moment, they tend to leave an unpleasant aftertaste, no matter how genuinely the speaker attempts to retract them. Once they have been uttered, they tend to be picked up as a kind of catchphrase by the public and repeated, whether in jest or in all seriousness, especially when people of a different political hue get together. Not everyone is able to take statements such as these lightly, however, and they can lead to heated, explosive arguments by those who are overly passionate about their politics.

This country has already lived through a period of time when extreme political tension caused friends and families to be torn apart. We do not need to re-visit that scenario. Indeed, most rational people are completely against such an eventuality.

Unfortunately, when politicians speak in this way to and about each other, it does not help to ease political disagreements, but only serves to heighten them. It is not surprising therefore that, when members of the public do not agree among themselves on national issues, the discussion quickly escalates into shouting and insults, in an unfortunate mimicry of what they see politicians do.

The Prime Minister’s words of caution are therefore, very timely and worth paying attention to. In a country where we never seem to quite shake off being in election campaign mode, our elected representatives need to lead by example, not only when they are debating the finer points of legislature, but more importantly, when they are voicing disagreements with their opponents.

We need to move towards a culture where we can discuss calmly, without rancour and insults, agreeing to disagree without letting our emotions run away with us. Political discourse does not need to be reduced to schoolyard taunts and childish adjectives. We as a nation are better than that. We need to be better than that.