Andy Burnham is being pelted with online invective after announcing his crackdown on train passengers playing audio aloud on their phones.

“Twat,” declares one of Instagram’s teeming amateur anthropologists.

“Prick,” agrees someone aptly named andy.craven12.

“Traitourous (sic) c**t,” chimes dukewinston11.

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Others suggest the British prime minister should get off the effing train and stop the effing migrant boats, rising prices, the riots in France, wars, pestilence, famine and Man City scoring goals. (OK, that last one might be poetic licence.)

The vitriol shows Burnham has hit a nerve with his “enough is enough” campaign. Let’s hope the Taoiseach takes note and copies it, pronto.

Slapping £100 (€119) fines on selfish passengers who force their horrible, tinny music and video babble on everyone else in the carriage is a simple measure. But it just might stop civilisation from collapsing.

If engagement with social media is making the world more turbulent, involuntary engagement with it is leaving many of us seething. TikTok is noxious enough without it being forced upon innocent bystanders. Incessant eruptions of canned laughter has a way of fomenting murderous thoughts in a normally peaceable mind.

[ Sally Rooney could have made things a great deal easier for herself. She chose not toOpens in new window ]

When all you want to do is sit quietly or read or gaze out........

© The Irish Times