I USED to be apathetic but now I just can’t be bothered. Not an unusual reaction to the current surfeit of elections. That may be down to elections becoming ineffably dull. The last time I was remotely excited by an election was Tony Blair’s “things can only get better” victory in 1997. We all know how that ended.

Control freakery and monochrome candidates have drained election campaigns and hustings of their vitality. I yearn for the old-style public meeting enlivened by the battle of wits between candidate and heckler. After all, political heckling has an ancient and honourable history. According to Homer, King Agamemnon was an early victim of the heckler.

The word itself possibly originates from the Dundee jute trade and the outspoken radical views of its female workers.

For old-style politicians, rowdy public meetings and dealing with hecklers were part and parcel of the election experience. On many occasions, David Lloyd George had to be smuggled in and out of hustings. His daughter Megan, also had a way with hecklers. When asked by an irate farmer “How many ribs has a pig?” she replied, “Come up here and I’ll count them”.

Harold Wilson had a famously sharp wit and tongue to match. When a member of an audience shouted “Rubbish”, he never faltered: “I’ll come to your special interest in a minute, sir”. When an egg was thrown, Wilson responded, “At least we can afford eggs under a Labour government”. Jim Murphy might have done better with a similar response during the referendum campaign.

In any situation, heckling is at its most effective against the pretentious. During a U2 concert Bono started clapping slowly: “Every time I clap, a child in Africa dies.” Out of the darkness came the perfectly timed put-down “Stop clapping, then.”

The involvement of spin doctors, PR and advertising agencies has created stage-managed political events. Dissent in any shape or form is not permitted. Who can forget the ejection of 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang for having the temerity to shout “nonsense” during a Jack Straw speech? He, Walter not Straw, was even threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act.

In the US, a heckler at a John Kerry rally was tasered by security guards. Donald Trump hinted at violence against hecklers during his election campaign.

Heckling is positive, not negative. Its demise is a loss to political discourse. Most political set-piece speeches are well-rehearsed claptrap, delivered to audiences of grinning, nodding dogs. There is nothing like a well-timed intervention from a rogue dissident to throw a spanner in the works.

More importantly, heckling is a sign of political engagement, often from those who feel otherwise powerless. The silencing of the heckler is another sign of establishment control. A healthy political society is one in which people feel sufficiently engaged to publicly challenge and where necessary, mock those who think they know better.

So, go on. Get your hackles up and heckle at a meeting near you.