Must we all be in thrall to the noisy minority?

The positions this group took might not have been particularly fashionable, but they represented a moderate form of self-interest, and represented a general mood that wasn’t always picked up by election campaigners or pollsters.

In 1992, when opinion polls predicted a Labour victory, they didn’t reckon on the silent majority’s aversion to the party’s tax-raising plans, nor its preference for sticking with the status quo under John Major’s Tories.

More recently, its voice prevailed in the 2016 Brexit referendum, contradicting the popularly-held view that UK withdrawal from the EU was a dangerous obsession of a few bigots and cranks.

READ MORE BY CARLOS ALBA

• Apology isn't enough for wronged service personnel
• Independence is far from dead – and don't write off the SNP
• All hail Andy Murray: we will not see his like again

Now it seems that the silent majority is no more. Technology and the rise of populism have handed a megaphone to people whose views were previously expressed, guardedly, in shires and suburbs, across the land. Welcome to the new age of the “noisy minority”.

Its words may seem shrill and its numbers small, but in today’s world, the voice that is loudest is that which prevails, and the views of the noisy minority now permeate every area of public life, from politics to popular culture, commerce, media, and sport.

The trend is evident nowhere more than in American politics where thousands of people regularly turn out at rallies, to mindlessly cheer an orange manchild, bloviating ever more deranged, stream-of consciousness bile.

The level of political rhetoric in the US appears to have reached a new nadir, with Donald Trump accusing his likely rival, Kamala Harris, of being “crazy”, “nuts”, “dumb as a rock” and a “baby-killing bum”, while his vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, likened her and other female Democrats to “childless cat ladies”.

In the UK, no-one exemplifies the power of the noisy minority more than Nigel Farage, a master of self-promotion who has forged a hugely successful career out of making himself, and his various fringe causes, appear to be more popular than they are.

The new Reform UK party MP for Clacton may have failed to win a seat at Westminster on eight previous occasions, while representing minority interests, but he is now being spoken of, credibly, as a potential future leader of the Conservative party.

Social media has given everyone a platform to be heard, no matter how limited their following or extreme their message.

When England lose at football, and a tiny minority of its “fans” lob vile racist insults at the country’s black players, those voices now become amplified to the point where they penetrate the mainstream media.

When nimby locals choose to oppose plans for a renewable energy project on their doorstep, they utilise the power of social media, and often their considerable resources, to present a powerful lobbying force.

Most recently, a noisy minority of environmental campaigners was blamed for forcing Edinburgh International Book Festival, and others, to withdraw from funding agreements with Baillie Gifford because of the investment firm’s small financial stake in the fossil fuel industry.

In Scotland, it is often argued by unionist politicians and their supporters that clamour for another independence referendum is driven solely by a noisy minority of nationalists.

The noisy minority spend their days contributing to review sites for everything from cars and holidays to books, films, restaurants, and consumer goods.

In the past, comments on such things were restricted to a handful of critics employed by newspapers and magazines, but now anyone with a keyboard or a smartphone can have their say.

While no-one would argue against the democratisation of opinion, it is often manipulated by ill-motivated and well-funded actors, including governments, who have used bots to influence elections in other countries.

At a more prosaic level, anyone who reads a book, goes out for a meal, or hires a plumber is no longer just a reader, a diner, or a consumer, but a reviewer/critic with the power to influence.

And while everyone is entitled to their say, the lack of any effective moderation on many sites means that there is no requirement for contributors to be objective or fair.

I recently saw a negative review of - in my opinion - one of Glasgow’s finest restaurants. What offended the diner was not the quality of food or the standard of service but that, across the road, someone had left out a mattress to be collected by the council.

It's said that the silent majority prevailed in the 2016 Brexit referendum (Image: Getty)

I have a holiday home which I have let in the summer months for the past 10 years, during which I have witnessed the full spectrum of petty grievances in the review section of the letting website.

One guest complained that, while the inventory included mention of two bottle openers, they could only find one.

This year, I spent the winter months redecorating the house, painting all the walls and doors, installing two new bathrooms, providing a new set of patio furniture, a new garden swing seat and outdoor shower, and the property was replumbed and rewired. In reviewing their stay, my most recent guests chose to ignore all of that and to mention that one of six sun loungers had a crack in it.

Of course there is no going back, nor should we want to go back, to a time when the only people with the ability to speak to a wider public were those who could afford to do so.

But it is worth bearing in mind that those who speak the loudest often have a tendency to want to silence others.

Speaking at a “believers' summit” in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the weekend - an event hosted by Turning Point Action, a conservative Christian organisation -  Donald Trump told the audience: "Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it any more...you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote."

If that doesn’t prompt Americans to want to return the Republican nominee to the ranks of the silent majority for good, then it should.