By today we should know whether Jeremy Corbyn will be replaced as the Labour leader. If the polls are right, he will return with a landslide. But regardless of who wins it is unlikely to bring to an end the civil war that is engulfing the main opposition party.

To anyone who was watching the 15 September edition of BBC1’s Question Time, that civil war was very much in evidence. The discussion seemed more like an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show than a political debate. We’re told that relations between the guests, who included Labour’s deputy leader John McDonnell and Tony Blair’s former communications chief Alastair Campbell, reached an even lower point off-camera, to the extent that the customary after-show dinner had to be cancelled.

But Question Time was not the only programme to descend to new lows. On Sky News on 11 September, Emily Thornberry, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, accused Dermot Murnaghan of sexism because he asked her to name the French Foreign Minister and the South Korean President. She couldn’t, so turned the attack on the interviewer. All this is no doubt very good for the ratings, but is it good for democracy and our society?