Is British politics, like parts of our overheating world, on the way to becoming unliveable? You have to wonder, given the scores of MPs seizing the opportunity to step down at the next election.

Two weeks ago the SNP’s young star Mhairi Black announced she would be among them. She was excoriating about the mother of parliaments, describing Westminster as “outdated, sexist and toxic” and explaining: “Between media attention, social media abuse, threats, constant travel, and the murders of two MPs, my loved ones have been in a constant state of anxiety for my health and safety.”

She added that after nearly a decade in parliament, “I sincerely hope folk will understand my wish to spend more time with my loved ones in a safer environment as I pass the baton to the next candidate”.

“The murder of two MPs,” 41-year-old Jo Cox and 69-year-old David Amess. The need for “a safer environment”. An atmosphere that is “sexist and toxic”. These remarks speak of frustration; they speak of constant worry.

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On Tuesday, Philippa Whitford, MP for Central Ayrshire, became the eighth SNP figure to signal an intention to leave, and something like the 70th MP overall so far. There are many reasons why MPs exit parliament, and Ms Whitford is of retirement age and wants to spend more time with her husband, but she too cited the “negative atmosphere”.

While stressing how rewarding she had found her constituency work, she said that since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019, “aggression and contempt towards SNP MPs, and indeed Scotland, has become the norm”, adding that his “toxic legacy” remains.

Now it must be acknowledged that the forthcoming election is not likely to be much fun for SNP MPs. Some seats that were rock solid are now less secure. With no prospect of the party ever being invited to help form a government, and the main action taking place at Holyrood, becoming an SNP MP has its challenges. That Westminster is decaying and corrupt, meanwhile, is part of the nationalist catechism, so they would blame the system, wouldn’t they?

But these two MPs’ insights into the harsh experience of being parliamentarians ring true, not least because they are supported by survey evidence and the comments of other MPs going back years – particularly women, who despair of parliament’s boys’ culture and get the worst of online abuse.

How are we supposed to recruit fresh talent to our parliaments if it’s seen to be like this?

Here’s Nicky Morgan, the former Conservative culture secretary, who stood down in 2019. She cited “the clear impact on my family and the other sacrifices involved in, and the abuse for, doing the job of a modern MP”.

Liberal Democrat MP Heidi Allen, who also left in 2019, said she was exhausted by “the nastiness and intimidation that has become commonplace”.

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It’s not just SNP MPs who experienced a worsening political culture after 2019. A 2021 study of tweets sent to women MPs found that “digital microaggressions” directed at them, positioning “women and minority MPs as unqualified and unwelcome in politics”, created online a “hostile environment for women”.

Minority ethnic women MPs are particularly badly treated.

And to be clear, it’s not just Westminster. A survey for Holyrood magazine two years ago found a third of MSPs (and nearly half of female ones) had received death threats and 70 per cent had felt concerned for their safety since arriving at Holyrood. Twenty nine per cent of female MSPs reported threats of sexual violence (no male MSPs did).

On top of all this, MPs live disjointed lives that put immense pressure on their relationships and families.

Back in the early days of the Scottish Parliament, one minister’s wife had an unofficial club which consisted of political spouses. They were the POWs – p***ed off wives – and whoa, were they fed up, as anyone who came across them in the party conference bar quickly discovered.

Their partners had to spend several nights a week at Westminster or Edinburgh, missing their spouses’ work crises, the frazzled nights with sick children and the boiler breaking down. Weekends meant constituency surgeries and community council meetings. It’s no-one’s idea of a healthy work-life balance.

Yes, it takes ambition and perhaps a degree of egotism to seek such a path, but isn’t that true of upwardly mobile people in other professions too, like medicine or law? Being personally ambitious is hardly inimical to believing in public service.

Yet 71 per cent of us think members of parliament are only in it for themselves.

The wrong ‘uns have a lot to answer for. Cash for questions, Jonathan Aitken, cash for honours, parliamentary expenses: sleaze has always existed.

The Boris Johnson era, however, has abased parliament. Johnson’s elevation to the highest office was like putting Arthur Daley in charge of the Bank of England. The unlawful proroguing of parliament, the lying to voters, Owen Paterson’s “egregious breaches” of lobbying rules and the cabinet’s attempts to help him out; Johnson’s own inveterate lying and partial truths: standards have been under attack from the inside since 2019. On top of this, we’ve seen MPs convicted of serious sexual offences. The litany of awful behaviour has inevitably chipped away further at politicians’ public standing.

They’re all the same, a bunch of unrepeatables, is what you hear ad nauseam.

But this is unfair. Patently politicians are not all the same. Most are unconnected to any scandal; they’re just trying to do their job. It’s a job that’s vital to democracy but which most of us have zero interest in doing ourselves. If we want to encourage talented people into parliament in future, it would help if MPs were held in higher esteem.

“Nobody in any job should have to put up with threats, aggressive emails, being shouted at in the street, sworn at on social media, nor have to install panic alarms at home,” said Heidi Allen when she stepped down.

No, they shouldn’t. A bit more respect for the poor bloody parliamentary infantry could help restore some health to this sickly system.