As a journalist, I should be the last person to complain about how depressing the news is. But it affects me as much as anyone else, and I can’t just switch off, because I need to know what’s going on.

Each morning, Daughter and I munch our toast to BBC Breakfast. I regularly find myself pressing the mute button to silence politicians of all party persuasions, unable to handle that much defensiveness so early in the day.

World affairs have been parlous for some time: wars and wildfires, poverty and pain. A recently elected leader gets scant airtime in our house, being barely able to string an intelligible sentence together, let alone fact-check it before it leaves his careless lips.

And on the home front, hardly a day goes by without a tragic incident involving neglect and violence, resulting in the death of yet another young person.

Just lately, I’ve been struck by the number of high-profile cases leading to calls for decision-makers to be named and shamed. Failures have been identified in the cases of Valdo Calocane, who killed three people in Nottingham in 2022, and Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three young girls in Southport last year.

The argument goes that those who made the fateful calls should be exposed to ensure the kind of accountability that will ensure others take more care. But is this wise in the 21st century?

Doomscrolling on social media, I see lengthy feeds dominated by unqualified people commenting illiterately and vituperatively on any given subject. All consider themselves firmly on the moral high ground as they demand the heads of the shadowy figures whose incompetence led to such awful outcomes. Everyone is an expert in everything and free to say as much, volubly and with precious little thought for subtlety, self-restraint or the feelings of others.

Hope of improvement gives way to bloodlust and retribution, and on some occasions spills over from the virtual sphere into the real world — see the riots that followed the Southport attack.

Will blamed parties find their homes egged or graffitied, dog excrement on the doorstep, physical threats over the phone or in person? Is that the kind of summary justice we want to encourage, and if not, why name them at all?

Only recently, the media appealed successfully against maintaining the anonymity of the family judges whose rulings sent poor Sara Sharif home to the parental guardians who were found guilty of her murder. The initial decision to protect them from a "virtual lynch mob" was later described as “misguided”.

They are all highly intelligent professionals, and will have been guided by the law. I’m sure they are as sorry as anyone that their choices led to such an appalling end.

Of course I accept that the families of those who lost their lives are grieving, and that they deserve some explanation as to why their loved ones – too often young and on the cusp of a promising future – weren’t accorded the safety they deserved. I can’t begin to imagine the hurt that must cause, and one that will never go away.

I would once have sent my own daughter to the Taylor Swift-themed children’s activity club in Southport - there but for the grace of God go we all.

But I have long felt that perpetrators, especially those with mental health difficulties, are also let down, their families - who often sounded the alarm - grieving too.

The culprits are all too often systems overwhelmed by a toxic combination of factors: a shortage of qualified and experienced staff, an increasing workload of greater complexity, a balancing act between a wide range of mental health issues and the personal rights of those involved.

All too often, more responsibility is delegated to fewer people, who are only human. Mistakes happen; it would help if we asked not just who made them, but why? Who did those people consult? Was there a systemic pattern to their decision-making? Have things moved on since guidance was last drawn up?

Have budgetary restrictions led to internal pressures in departments? You only have to look at A&E departments to see the NHS is struggling to cope with the weight of expectation, so it should come as no surprise that the mental health sector is also overburdened.

Ultimately, we have to ask: who will want to fulfil those jobs at the risk of public humiliation?

Services like healthcare and policing are free at the point of access, but they have to be paid for at some point. We have been sold a lie for years that we can cut taxes and have more money in our pockets – but if we want these things to work, we must be prepared to invest in them, rather than just point the finger at others when they go horribly wrong.