It’s safe to say that I am never shy of healthy debate. Coming from a long line of opinionated/verging on cantankerous descendants, it’s a rare occasion that I’m with my family without a heated discussion breaking out over some divided opinion.

Put me, my siblings and my parents in the same room for anything more than an hour and you can be guaranteed that we’ll be discussing heavyweight issues like religion, politics or global world issues.

We grew up with a Father with an opinion on every issue known to man which he is never afraid to voice; who even stood for local council. Somewhere along the line, this must have rubbed off on us children and is a trait of mine that my husband finds rather challenging to say the least.

After many a social gathering there have been less than polite requests made by him for me to tame my vocal opinions.

Admittedly, there have been occasions when he has had a point. There are times and places and I can think of more than one occasion when I’ve perhaps forgotten this.

One of the keys to heated discussion has to be to not make it personal and remember to let things go.

Steve marvels at just how many times over the years he has stood by and watched my family tear strips off one another and within five minutes be completely back to normal as if nothing has ever been said.

It’s a trait I can see coming through our youngest child, Charlie aged seven.

Only last week we had an impassioned debate at 8.15am where he was trying to convince me that if I was only able to get through to David Cameron, I could put forward the case for him not going to school anymore and being educated purely by watching Youtube videos and therefore avoiding a prison term for us as his parents.

Already I am looking back at that incident pondering what lesson I taught him in the art of reasoning by finishing the discussion as the school bus arrived with ‘because I said so.’ It strikes me that we are becoming a society that is becoming unable to distinguish between freedom of speech and respect for others.

In the jostle for everyone to have to have the right to express whatever they want, we are sometimes forgetting that it helps to have this caveated with perhaps just a little bit of common decency.

If this was a religion, Katie Hopkins would surely be the God.

There is a distinct difference between holding an opinion on an issue and expressing that opinion in a way that it will cause offence.

There is no justification whatsoever for Islamic extremists breaking into the offices of political satirists and shooting defenceless people dead.

I would also question whether had respect been more closely considered, making a joke of an entire religion’s core being was a sensible or kind thing to do.

Of course with freedom of speech has to come tolerance.

We absolutely cannot go around killing people who hold a different view. By that rationale every member of my family would have met their demise years ago.

There is always room for discussion and debate, otherwise how would we learn and potentially change our minds on anything?

It’s no surprise that my favourite hour of the week is BBC Question Time.

Perhaps I should have gone into politics or maybe I’ll just leave that one to Charlie.

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