North West Cambridgeshire MP among top 10 backbenchers to be targeted by Twitter abuse

North West Cambridgeshire MP Shailesh Vara was among the top 10 backbench MPs nationally to receive the greatest proportion of offensive tweets, according to a new survey.

Mr Vara was sent 5,627 tweets over a six week period of which seven per cent - 393 - were found to cross the toxicity threshold of containing rude, disrespectful or unreasonable comments. Also in the top 10 were Matthew Hancock and Ben Bradley.

The survey was carried out by the BBC Shared Data Unit which used artificial intelligence to analyse the 2.9 million tweets sent to the nation's MPs between March 15 and April 23 this year.

It found that five per cent - 130,000 - of the total number of tweets were deemed to be ‘toxic’ while 20,000 were found to be ‘severely toxic’.

The survey period was carried out at an intense time politically that began with the Budget announcement on March 23 and included plans to fly migrants to Rwanda, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson getting a fixed penalty notice, Rishi Sunak’s wife claiming non-dom status and the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine.

While Mr Vara seems to have attracted a heavy share of toxic tweets, Peterborough MP Paul Bristow has also been a target for unsavoury comments on the social media site.

Across the same six weeks, Mr Bristow received 1,065 tweets, of which 2.6 per cent - 28 tweets - were deemed toxic by the survey.

Mr Vara said: “Social media abuse is a sad fact of public life and it affects all politicians, irrespective of their party.

“Online abuse continues to increase and despite all their rhetoric, social media companies are not doing anything near enough to police and stop it.

“There needs to be much tougher regulation and enforcement, as well as high levels of fines that genuinely impact on the companies’ behaviour as they are profit driven.

He added: “There is much to be said for the phrase that if you wouldn’t say something face to face then don’t type it.

“This sort of abusive behaviour only serves to discourage good people from putting themselves forward to serve in public office.”

Mr Bristow said: “At first some of the tweets I received did affect my mood.

“But I soon decided that I wasn’t going to let these people ruin my day.

“I don’t pay much attention to Twitter now except for the news and to let people know what I’m doing.

“But I do worry that this kind of abuse will put people off going into politics.

He added: “My main concern is the implementation of the Online Safety Bill that seeks to protect children online and to remove illegal content.”

The BBC investigation found that more than 3,000 offensive tweets are sent to UK MPs every day.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson received the largest number of tweets considered toxic at 19,000, around four per cent of the total he received.

Other MPs to receive the highest number of offensive tweets included former culture secretary Nadine Dorries (9,000), Rishi Sunak (9,000), who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (8,000).