As we look around our communities, watching 24-hour newsfeeds and browsing our phones it is easy to believe that, somehow, we are being led down ever bleaker avenues and are facing greater challenges in our own lives and across the country.

The power of amplified messages seems to drown out hope and optimism for the future. This is not to say that there isn’t much more to be done to improve people’s lot, or to rebuild and improve our infrastructure, and perhaps most importantly to make sure that everyone can live safely and with dignity.

If we take another look around the community, we might find that our streets are much safer than in the past, crime is lower, and we do in fact get on with and respect the vast majority of people we work and interact with.

The siren voices promoting, hate, fear and division ignore all this, looking to provoke mistrust and enmity amongst friends and neighbours. We thought they had gone. They are back. And it now falls on all of us to show who we are as we restate our values of tolerance, inclusion and shared opportunity.

Civilisation and democracy are the foundations that bring us freedom and respect for each other’s views and ways of life. They have been hard fought for. We cannot let them slip away so easily without calling out the toxic rhetoric pouring down our social media apps and on our newsfeeds.

This rhetoric does not reflect the views of the vast majority of people. It does nothing but rupture our communities, our politics and our hopes and our dreams.

How do we defeat this menace? We can do so most powerfully with acts of kindness. When we lead by example. When we stand up to protect our friends’ and neighbours. When we reject the false narratives of mistrust and despair.

In the longer term we need to make sure our children have the education and skills they need to make informed decisions and are given greater opportunities to build a better life for themselves.

This is why this Labour government is bringing back Sure Start and has made 500,000 children eligible for free school meals. The government has also delivered five million extra NHS appointments and is cutting waiting times.

Yet more must be done, and Labour are working hard to reverse the neglect and lack of investment that has held the economy back.

You do not hear much of this on social media, or in the press. Just as you do not hear about the everyday good deeds ordinary straightforward people do all the time.

It is time to ignore the siren voices. Time to push back against those who seek to divide us. Time to to do the things we have always done best, which is to be true to ourselves. Time to stand up and proudly proclaim our shared values of human compassion and common decency.