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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, people who post one-off offensive messages on Twitter could escape charges under new guidelines, that’s following comments this week from the Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer. Well his predecessor is the Lib Dem peer, Lord Macdonald, and he joins me now. What do you think of this idea from Kier Starmer? It seems an awful lot of police time, there’s an awful lot of reports in the papers about the police investigating offensive comments on social media in general.

LORD MACDONALD: I think it’s partly a capacity problem as you’ve suggested. Twitter is so pervasive now and so heavily used that it’s impossible to imagine an environment in which there won’t quite often be offensive remarks posted and are we really to have the police investigate every time someone takes exception to a particular Tweet? I think that could take up an awful lot of police time.

DM: But is that the only issue because a lot of it is offensive and technically probably crosses the line of the law but things that if they were said in public, in a pub or whatever, they disappear into the ether and there’s no one there to say whether it happened or not?

LM: That’s the point and I think we’ve got to be a bit less sensitive. I think we’re moving into a world now where communication is as broad as it can be and opinions are accessible to everybody, I think we’ve become little too sensitive. We’ve had some pretty foolish cases in recent year, a student in Oxford who was arrested for saying to a policeman ‘Do you know your horse is gay?’, a young girl of 14 who was standing outside a Scientology church holding a banner saying ‘Scientology is a cult’. Now Scientology may or may not be a cult but it certainly shouldn’t be a crime to say that it is. I think we have got to be careful we’re not slipping into a world where remarks which are merely insulting or offensive are prosecuted all the time.

DM: But what about stuff that really is vile on Twitter? It may be a one off but some of it is incredibly offensive, racial abuse, things like that, should that not still be investigated?

LM: Well I think it probably would be. I don't think that Kier Starmer, the DPP, is saying that material of the sort that you’re describing would never be investigated. We can all imagine a comment of particularly unpleasant characteristics going on Twitter and it being investigated by the police and someone being prosecuted for it but prosecutors and police have got to exercise some real common sense here and I think they need to understand that Twitter is a very immediate media and people put things on on the spur of the moment, sometimes perhaps when they have had a glass or two and so people who go on Twitter to read this sort of stuff have to bear in mind that they are going to see the sort of things that people do say in pubs when they’re drunk, that they do say late at night when they’re having an argument and just accept that as part of the rough and tumble of human discourse.

DM: But nevertheless, as I say, technically breaking the law.

LM: Sometimes and, you know, I may say something in the street that is technically breaking the law but a passing policeman might well say to himself, well for goodness sake, let’s let that go. I think that’s the sort of approach we should take with Twitter unless, as you’ve suggested, a line is crossed and something really vile, deeply racist, something which is inciting a crime or disorder is tweeted, then of course the police and prosecutors will have to take action.

DM: This kind of leads us to a story we’ve been discussing a lot today, things said in the street and one of the most famous streets in Britain and this is the Chief Whip, Conservative Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell. Apparently it seems there is some admission reported today of him using strong Anglo Saxon language against the police, grounds for an inquiry there?

LM: Well the police are there to protect Mr Mitchell and his colleagues in government, they are there to protect Number 10 and the Prime Minister’s family as Mr Cameron has acknowledged and it ill behoves politicians who are being protected by the police to be abusive towards them and it sets obviously a terrible example, particularly to young people who may be confronting the police in streets outside pubs and if the Conservative party Chief Whip is swearing in that way – I don't know whether he was or not – but if he was it is not really setting a very good example.

DM: Well beyond that though, if he was – and as you say, we’re moving towards an admission of use of, as I say, very strong language and there are cases where they’ve been on Twitter and other social media, of youngsters in particular being arrested and imprisoned for using foul and abusive language towards police officers, taken to court, prosecuted and given a criminal record.

LM: Yes, the offence is insulting abusive and threatening words and behaviour. Of course context is everything, if you do that in the context of a riot that may be rather different from doing it as an exasperated and ill-mannered politician leaving Downing Street but you are absolutely right, people have been arrested and prosecuted for swearing at police officers in the past and if the context warrants it, that’s an appropriate prosecution.

DM: But do you think an apology is enough or are there grounds for an investigation in that we seem to have contradictory statements coming from a police officer and presumably others who were there, guarding the Prime Minister and a government minister.

LM: Well he has apologised. He’s disputed saying some of the things he is alleged to have said, I’m not sure whether the police officers in question have accepted his apology or whether they’ve ignored it but I don’t see any signs on the part of the police that they are particularly minded to launch an investigation here and I would be very surprised if prosecutors were involved at this stage.

DM: Okay, just one last thought, Lord Macdonald, on the social media and some kind of sense, I suppose it’s almost – I don't know if you read Private Eye, Mr Justice Cockle-Carrot, judges slightly out of touch with the modern world and they get very offended about issues they don’t really understand and tend to come down harder on people who have used this sort of language be it on Facebook or Twitter or something like that?

LM: I think that judges are very far from Mr Justice Cockle-Carrot these days, I think most judges do understand Twitter, most judges allow people to tweet now from court rooms so I don't think that’s the issue, I think the issue is one of proportion, us getting the response to this sort of material as a proportionate response which is exactly I think what the DPP was calling for.

DM: Okay, Lord Macdonald, thank you very much for your time and your thoughts here this morning.