The buck, it seems, did not stop with Grant Shapps. Though he resigned at the weekend over the Conservative bullying scandal, his party co-chair Andrew Feldman still has questions to answer about how much he knew about the behaviour of “Tatler Tory” Mark Clarke. Yet the inquiry that has been set up ultimately reports to Feldman - surely he must step aside. Both Paul Goodman, editor of the ConservativeHome website and even more significantly Ray Johnson – father of Elliot Johnson who formally complained about Clarke before he killed himself – are calling for him to take more responsibility for failing to protect young activists. The idea that this can all be sorted out by those who presided and benefited from what was seen as successful campaigning is clearly misguided.

Tory chairmen should quit over bullying scandal - activist's father Read more

Bullying remains a catch-all and misunderstood term. It means more than kids calling each other nasty names. It involves a whole raft of abusive and undermining behaviour. In this case, there are a series of appalling allegations, involving sexual intimidation, the filming of sex acts and drug-taking for blackmail, bribery, spiked drinks, predatory older MPs being “provided” with young members and women. Allegedly Clarke threatened to ruin the careers of anyone who crossed him. In response to all of these allegations, Clarke has said he “strongly” denies them.

What was tolerated in the name of RoadTrip 2015, the bussing of young Tory activists around the country? So they partied afterwards? And let a little steam off? All paid for by Tory funds? High jinks – perhaps not as lavish as the “legendary” Bullingdon pursuits, but young people do these things.

As the complaints piled up they were seemingly ignored. It was if these people did not matter. But when Sayeeda Warsi wrote to Shapps in January to demand action against Clarke after he had abused her on Twitter, she didn’t receive a satisfactory response. We still refuse to see cyber-bullying as somehow having real consequences.

As the complaints piled up they were seemingly ignored. It was as if these people did not matter

Liam Fox has rightly said that this scandal raises questions about “the culture of our politics”. This applies not only to the Tories. The Lib Dems were spectacularly useless at dealing with Chris Rennard after he was accused by several women of sexual harassment, which he sought to rebut. He was elected back on to the party’s federal executive after apologising for hurting or upsetting anyone before eventually making the decision himself to stand down. As Bridget Harris, who made one of the complaints, said, the Lib Dems treated it all as a media problem rather than an issue within their own party culture.

Indeed the pious “new kind of politics” of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has also involved new levels of viciousness. It is apparently OK to denounce people who have worked all their lives for the Labour party as despicable and dispensable. Social media has facilitated a constant backdrop of insults that has bullied many into silence.

Elliott Johnson: the young Tory destroyed by the party he loved Read more

The very language of politics, though, promotes intimidation. The “whipping” of MPs, the acceptance of the “rough and tumble” of political discourse, the idea that one must be “thick-skinned” or not enter this arena at all. As is every week noted, the behaviour at PMQs, with its farmyard noises, jeering and infantile “jokes”, would not be tolerated in any primary school. Negative campaigning is now encouraged, the scrutiny of private lives by the media is seen as permissible. In fact anything that gets results is just fine. So politics continues to be a place many, and especially women, avoid. Why put yourself through it?

Those in power do not just tolerate but promote behaviour that would not be allowed in most other workplaces. When bullying becomes the modus operandi, the gladiatorial arena may suit some very well indeed but it locks out most ordinary people who find it brutal and abhorrent.

I can’t wait for a new, kinder politics. Let me know when it starts.