OUR MPs are back at work, fighting and insulting each other, flinging accusations around, taking cheap shots at their opponents. Astonishingly, they are even attacking people on their own side. It makes for interesting headlines.

Boris Johnson’s latest missive invoked the image of a terrorist suicide vest . Trying to deflect attention from his marital woes perhaps? He used it as a metaphor for Theresa May’s Chequers Brexit plan. I found it abhorrent and deeply offensive.

The use of such imagery is nothing short of irresponsible. But he’s not the only one causing problems and acting irresponsibly. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a living caricature of elitist entitlement, is demanding we crash out of the EU for the good of his business, sorry, “his” country. What’s not happening while all this nonsense is fed to the hungry press, is anyone taking control and ensuring that the people elected and appointed to run the country are working in the interests of the country.

On the Labour side, the infighting between the Corbynistas and the Centrists is just as bad. The focus is on personalities rather than the problems we face. This isn’t the first time I’ve complained about the pettiness and poor behaviour of some of our politicians, but this summer it seems to be more intense than ever. We have Labour embroiled in a huge argument over anti-Semitism, the Conservatives bogged down by rows over Islamophobia and bitter infighting over leaving the EU. Nobody seems to be steering HMS Great Britain to anything like a safe port.

We have major crises in our health service, education and transport, the size of which would put the iceberg that sank the Titanic to shame.

Extremism of the political left and right is the order of the day. Where the centre ground was once occupied by New Labour the vacuum left when that administration crashed and burned under the global financial crash was never adequately filled. As all good physicists will tell you, nature abhors a vacuum. The Liberal Democrats, instead of claiming the middle ground, filling the vacuum, wedded themselves to the Conservatives. They wanted power, any power and at any cost.

The thirst for power has all but destroyed the Liberal Democrat party and they struggle to be heard above the noise of the extremist left and right. There are many dedicated, hard-working MPs and in Brighton we are lucky to have some representing us. But their voices are being drowned out by the antics of other high profile self-serving politicians who care more for their political ambitions than the welfare of their constituents, or the country as a whole.

I see the current state of politics as similar to a computer that’s developed a glitch. In reporting the glitch, I fully expect to be asked “have you tried turning it off, then on again?” If only we could do that in politics.

In one way we can. A general election is like switching off a computer, then switching it on again. The working memory gets dumped and we start afresh reloading the software, MP by MP or app by app. The substantive content, Brexit, underfunding in schools and the NHS will still be there, it’s all “preserved”, but we can take a fresh look. Hopefully, with new, informed Ministers. If the governing party changes, that’s like a major update of the operating system. It should be better and have had a number of “fixes” (new leaders for example), but there is also the risk that new flaws and glitches will happen or that the operating system won’t be any better. At the moment I think it’s a risk worth taking.

The key to problem solving is knowledge. Time after time we see politicians being promoted to high office as Ministers, with little to no knowledge of the areas they must lead. The result is that they have defective ideas based on limited, if any knowledge, or they are too easily influenced by faceless bureaucrats, career civil servants who seek to control Ministers to do their bidding.

Before I could teach children, I had to study teaching and learning, and meet certain professional standards. Before I could drive, I had to pass a test. The reverse seems to be the case for politicians. Last week we had a Minister who openly confessed not to understand the partisan nature of voting in Northern Ireland. This appointment happened at a time when Northern Ireland has been without a functioning Government for over a year. Time is running out for effective solutions to the numerous problems we face. I say It’s time to switch off, then on again.