Whatever you think of politicians and the like no-one deserves this naturally for just doing his job. Hope he is ok.
Let's hope it's not as serious as it sounds. Sadly this is going to keep happening. MPs are unfortunately a magnet for society's nuttiest nutters and we seem to have crossed a rubicon in recent years with several being attacked while in their constituencies. The long term impact may well be a withdrawal from that sort of face to face contact with voters, which would be so counter-productive.
Sickening. People often get so caught up in the big interesting cabinet clashes, that they forget that local MPs are often just hard working people trying to make the area they live a better place. I wish it didn’t take a nutter for a knife to remind people. I hope it’s not as bad as it sounds. This probably isn’t the most sensitive point, given a man’s life is on the line, but this isn’t going to be great for Angela Rayner. Even though this nutter probably would have performed the attack anyway, adding petrol to the fire clearly wasn’t helpful and adds to the horrible polarisation, simplification and toxic discourse around politics in our society today.
Appalling news. A personal tragedy for his friends and family as well as deeply damaging to democracy. Whatever we think of politicians nobody deserves to die for being an MP.
I've just seem something online saying this is the second MP killed in 5 years. He's also the second MP killed in 31 years.
That is a telling stat. I think access to our elected representatives is going to get harder now and who can blame them.
Until we know who the suspect is it's pointless to speculate as to the motive. Completely senseless. Sincere condolences to the family and friends. The rule of democracy is imperative. Should it turn out to be an extremist as with the murder of Jo Cox then this is not how to resolve anything with violence. No matter how opposing views may be the best way forward is to debate and discuss. Society as in America and here is becoming polarized.
Yes, but as you say we don't know that this actually has anything to do with it at this stage. Clearly enhanced security measures are needed.
Extremely sad news. With the increasing polarization present in many western nations (which I believe is down to social media, especially misinformation spread there) I suspect this sort of thing is only going to become more common. No motive for this particular nutter known yet, then?
We'll find out in due course. Could be anything. Lots of wild speculation which does not help anyone and some rather tasteless jokes. I wonder if some of these people have a shred of humanity in them.
I’m not sure what the best solution is though. I think it probably needs to happen upstream. Too many of these crazies spend months or even years bombarding public figures and bodies of all sorts with their senseless drivel. A proportion of it is offensive, abusive and unhinged and that bit really needs to be dealt with more under existing laws, as a very small minority will go on to act out their fantasies. A lot of it just gets tolerated or ignored though, often under some mistaken idea that everyone has the right to correspond with public figures and bodies. This was a recent high profile case: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/cri...hornberry-harassment-david-knott-b958340.html
One obvious mitigating measure would surely be to abandon in-person constituency surgeries? I can see the problem is much wider but that at least would remove some risk. The last 18 months has demonstrated that not everything needs to be face to face.
I presume the replacement would be some sort of remote access? Trouble is, MPs often need to be accessible to people who can’t read or write, don’t own a smartphone, may be homeless etc. There would be a lot of practical obstacles to overcome. I think many already run an appointment system… but that doesn’t stop a violent assailant barging in, as has happened before.
Or booking an appointment. Most MPs surgeries do a bit of “triage” before you actually have the face to face with the MP. Mainly to save time on any details that need to be recorded or documents copied, but also as a bit of a check to weed out any obviously worrying behaviours. Didn’t an MPs assistant get killed at a surgery 20 years ago.
The suspect has been confirmed as a 25 year old Somalian male. People with nationalist flags on their Twitter bios appear ****-a-hoop.
But surely there are ways of dealing with this. Assistance could be given in community centres, libraries, CABs etc etc. I agree it's not perfect but I don't think we should dismiss it out of hand.
I think I’ve probably missed something but what did she say or do? Horrible horrible news. Seems like he was a very genuine chap, the vast majority of his local community have nothing but lovely words to say about him. RIP Sir David.
A worrying subtext is the potential for anti-democrats to perpetrate numerous such attacks as an attempt to undermine our Parliamentary system...which, at its root, is based upon the principle that the elected MP has a duty to represent all constituents, and, critically, be seen so to do.
Yes, this is almost certainly correct. It's like domestic violence: it doesn't start with the abusive spouse punching their significant other in the face half a dozen times. It starts much more innocuously and gets progressively and incrementally worse. No one just wakes up one day and magically becomes a person who can batter someone else. It's the same with political extremists, and starts much earlier than the violent act.
I think you know what I mean. There has long been the potential for terrorists to undermine parliamentary democracy. It’s not a new phenomenon.
I think it is admirable that the posters have not felt it necessary to use this tragic death to make oportunist comments in order to make cheap political points. The actions of loan nutters should not be blamed on a wider political campaign that has nothing to do with them and their very personal issues. It seems we have learned at least something from the tragic death of Jo Cox, when maximum political exploitation was attempted through aggressive accusations and nauseating virtue signalling, directly out of which came Rayners heart felt calls for a moderation of political language.
He’s not Somalian, he is British of Somali Heritage. People who use twitter are always quick to make racial assumptions based on a person’s skin colour. Sooner that hive of mentally ill spewers of hate, from both sides, gets itself sorted out, the better. Everyone says not to use it, whilst carrying on using it. Yeughhh. That aside, it will be interesting to see if the police back-track on the terrorist claim.
Not sure I completely understand why Southend has been made a city as a result of this. I know Amess had been campaigning for it forever but still...