Bullying of this kind cannot be tolerated in our modern society

It has manifested itself in two different ways in the past week or so.

The first was in the aftermath of the General Election, when people who were angry that the Conservatives had won embarked on a campaign of hate against Tories and their supporters.

It is clear that it has become normal among a certain section of society to refer to Conservatives and their supporters as Tory Scum – protesters sprayed the words on a memorial to the “Women of World War Two” in London immediately after the election results were known, while before the election it was sprayed on to the cars of a Conservative MP and her parents.

And there are lots of people on the internet using the term Tory Scum, who seem to be slightly deranged.

It has escaped the attention of these hate-mongers that it was this very behaviour, displayed in support of Labour, that contributed to Labour actually losing the election.

This unhinged, irrational and entirely hysterical hatred of people who are conservative with a small ‘c’ – and let’s face it, most of the country consists of people like this, as we now know – is a form of extremism, and the election result shows that the majority has comprehensively rejected it.

These extremists appear to advocate a form of government that would resemble a dictatorship, in which there is only one “correct” way to think and speak – their way.

And I certainly don’t want these moral bullies, who believe the Conservatives stand for nothing more than capitalism at its most extreme mixed with an evil mindset that aims to grind the most needy into the ground with no backward glance, to be given any kind of power.

For they will simply become even nastier bullies who would set out to eliminate all opposing idealogy – and all in the name of the moral high ground.

They fail to realise that this country, with its turbulent history, craves stability and security. The silent majority has spoken out against this vicious and vociferous minority by employing their democratic right – the original ‘X’ factor.

The pen really is mightier than the sword. Thank goodness.

Which brings me to a different kind of moral bullying, this time carried out by charities. They bombarded a 92-year-old woman, Olive Cooke, with so many demands for donations she couldn’t cope anymore and killed herself.

Olive had supported many charities during her lifetime and every year had sold poppies for the annual Poppy Appeal. She also had direct debits to 27 different charities. But that wasn’t enough for the bullying charities, which sent her countless begging letters and tormented her with endless phone calls until she snapped.

The charities have said they all adhered to the highest ethical standards.

But it’s obvious they haven't. In the past few years, many charities have outsourced their cold-calling to call centres and then distanced themselves from the tactics used.

A friend of our family works in one such call centre in Brighton, cold-calling donors for charities. He says the staff are trained to “really push” people to donate, regardless of their age or circumstances, to the point where some staff have left in disgust.

Cold-callers target people who have already signed up to donate to a charity on the basis that if they have given once, they’ll give again, which is precisely what happened to poor Olive, and is probably happening to thousands of others.

Charity is defined as the voluntary giving of help to those in need. Note the word ‘voluntary’. It means an altruistic action that has no financial gain for the giver but produces a feeling of self-worth and respect.

Charity donors give from the heart, so how shocking that in this day and age charities have become so heartless in their pursuit of money for good causes they feel justified in hounding a generous elderly woman to her death. Shame on them.

I hope new regulations are drawn up to prevent charities behaving in such a despicable way again – but how awful that they are needed in the first place.