POLLING day in Holborn and St Pancras next week cannot come soon enough – a final result may offer some respite from the febrile atmosphere that has pervaded this by-election contest.

The national spotlight on a seat vacated by a former prime minister was always going to raise the stakes, even if, in truth, this constituency has rarely seen a close-run result. In some quarters Sir Keir Starmer sparks a visceral reaction of the kind Sir Tony Blair attracted from the moment the first bombs fell on Iraq — a hatred, it might be called, though without Mr Starmer enjoying the benefit of a decade in Number 10.

We live at a time when the angriest reactions get the most attention and, in some cases, reap the biggest cash rewards. A nuanced view struggles for traction in the world of eyeballs and algorithms. That works both ways. Articles that rubbished Mr Starmer were once valuable commissions; now the most vicious attacks on Green Party leader Zack Polanski are a metric rush for the media.

In Camden, people are accused of endorsing the deaths of children in Palestine, or of not caring about the victims of October 7, as if it is not possible to be horrified by both.

You can speak out against what the UK’s Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband has described as Israel’s war crimes and still be fearful of the rise of antisemitism on our streets. At the same time, it is possible to believe that Islamophobia and Afriphobia need to be seriously addressed. But our politics are often framed as mindless either/ors. John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama and then, of course, Jo Cox repeated the line that we have more in common than that which divides us.

That has become a hackneyed phrase, losing its potency over time. Yet as the split wards at Camden Council’s elections showed in May, there are shared interests between residents who like a bit of both from the Labour and Green programmes. In the terse exchanges of recent weeks that has often been forgotten.

More unity might be needed against a common adversary. This week brought the ugly spectacle of Restore activists meeting the deep-seated, complex issue of homeless-ness and refuge by putting cameras in the faces of people living in tents in the middle of the Euston Road – and telling them they should be deported.

There are plainly conversations to be had about how long that encampment should exist, but a sleeping bag on the side of one of London’s busiest roads is not the dream life we so often hear migrants are claiming for themselves at the expense of others.

Certainly when this race to the finish by-election is over, a coalition will be needed among those likely to finish first and second against a greater opponent.