Gratuitous violence on our TV screens has real-world horrific consequences

I am increasingly concerned about the scale and nature of the violence on our TV screens – even the Christmas viewing didn’t provide respite. As I flicked through multiple channels, I was shocked at the levels of murders and deaths, whether real-life crime, crime series or films, and how much of the violence depicted was sadistic and gratuitous. And it’s not just TV: video games and social media are pumping this violence out too.

While there are no conclusive studies that violence on the screens leads to violence in society, there are none that firmly contradict it either. Some point to it leading to an increase in aggression levels and a hard-hitting study found a correlation between media violence and mental health with increased anxiety levels, as viewers of violence saw the world as a scarier place.

Yet there’s a real problem in the lack of meaningful longitudinal studies on the impact of violence, particularly on young minds. Yes, there are occasional outbursts, such as the James Bulger murder and the outcry at the time about the character Chucky from the horror movie Child’s Play, and a 2017 report in The Lancet did suggest a relationship between media violence and behaviour, but added that it may be influenced by other factors such as social context and family, the age and temperament of media consumers, their circumstances and prior behavioural patterns.

With virtually everyone watching TV, those who have a propensity towards violence must surely be getting pushed towards it. What we do know is that violent crime has increased significantly in the last 50 years as media channels and violence on them have proliferated. We also know copycat crimes exist – as we have seen with school shootings in the US – so it is not unreasonable to believe there is a link.

Interestingly, new research from the University of Maryland showed that violence is one element that most effectively hooks in an audience. It also suggested on-screen violence had increased threefold: that there are more violent TV shows, that content is becoming more violent, and that violence is a playing a bigger part in films than ever before

And yet there is little or no counterbalance to these increasing levels. No outcry to limit the amount. Video games can fail to receive a certification rating from the British Board of Film Classification ­– which is basically a ban – if they contain real sex scenes or gratuitous violence like Carmageddon, Manhunt 2 and The Punisher, but this ban doesn’t apply to downloadable media.

It is ironic that on one hand we have become so sensitive that police are investigating non-crime hate incidents and people are being disciplined for using the wrong pronouns, while on the other, an extraordinary amount of violence can be pumped out daily on every media outlet and very few steps are taken to curtail it.

I’m the last person to ban things and, of course, many people watch violence without it having any negative effect on them, but perhaps we shouldn’t be so relaxed about the gratuitous violence we observe every day on our screens.

I find it hard to believe it does no harm. Do you agree?

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Demi Moore gets better with age and she proved that this weekend becoming a first-time winner of a Golden Globe at 62 –astonishingly, the first award in her 45-year career. She’s had low points, such as her divorce from Bruce Willis, and a messy public break-up with Ashton Kutcher – from which many wouldn’t return. But she’s still standing and I salute her.

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A recent poll reveals that one-third of voters think will be ousted as Prime Minister within a year. I fear this is more wishful thinking than meaningful political analysis, but it is astonishing how hated Starmer has become as our PM so quickly.

I think those voters who were surveyed are right to conclude that Starmer, below, with Rachel Reeves, will not be able to recover from the utter shambles he has presided over in the last six months, but that doesn’t mean his departure is imminent. He isn’t going anywhere voluntarily and Labour doesn’t have mechanisms for removing their leaders.

Even when 172 Labour MPs (out of 212) supported a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn, they still weren’t able to get rid of him. So people need to prepare themselves for a long four years of Starmer rule.

But if you are looking for Labour bods to be losing their ministerial jobs prematurely then might I suggest that Tulip Siddiq, Jess Phillips and Rachel Reeves are likely to be gone sooner than later.

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I hate the misuse of the term “progressive”. What does it actually mean? Take the self-proclaimed progressive Institute for Public Policy Research

(IPPR), a left-wing think-tank closely aligned with Labour, which is calling for ID at polling stations to be “relaxed or removed”, for five million foreign nationals to get the vote, and for the voting age to be reduced to 16.

That isn’t progressive – it’s a political stitch-up. These changes to the voting system would be a backwards step.

As a good rule of thumb, whenever you see the word “progressive”, substitute it for “regressive”.

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Have you ever noticed how the established broadcast media – especially our friends at the – always seem obsessed with language rather than substance?

The latest example was the focus on the language used about , rather than looking into the substance and Starmer’s actual record on grooming gangs when he was the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Concentrating on language rather than substance is a tactic of the so-called “politically correct” to try to close down debates on those subjects that they would rather not discuss. However, we should expect much better from the journalists at the .

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Dear readers, I’m delighted to be writing this column, which will appear every Tuesday in your Daily Express. I’ll discuss the political matters of the day and add a few insights and observations of my own. I hope you enjoy it.

Meanwhile, Vanessa Feltz’s effervescent column will now grace Wednesday’s paper. I look forward to hearing from you all. Very best, Esther.