MPs must avoid toxic words that incite losers to kill
THE words “Tory scum” will not be passing Angela Rayner’s lips again any time soon, I think.
I have not met Labour’s fiery deputy leader but I assume she is a decent person who will be appalled by suggestions her outburst contributed even remotely to Sir David Amess’s death.
In any case, killer suspect Ali Harbi Ali would have been too preoccupied with hideous online fantasies to have been aware of her words.
But every thinking grown-up, especially among our parliamentary representatives, needs to avoid the toxic social media stew which tips the feeble-minded into violence.
And it is the grievance-obsessed political Left which claims the moral high ground in the mostly invented war against “hate”.
Indeed, Labour is already back-pedalling at 100mph to avoid any taint of guilt by association.
Labour MP Lisa Nandy led the call yesterday for an end to the “dehumanising rhetoric” which is poisoning political debate.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary emphasised she was talking about MPs on both sides.
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But few doubt she had Rayner in mind.
“We all in Parliament need to tone down the rhetoric towards one another,” Nandy told Sky’s Trevor Phillips.
“Especially the dehumanising rhetoric which treats people not as fellow human beings, or questions their motives.”
She then repeated the message moments later on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, condemning the “Wednesday pantomime” at Prime Minister’s Questions.
This is clearly a coordinated bid to fill the vacuum left by Sir Keir Starmer and his conspicuous failure to rebuke Rayner or condemn her vile language.
It is astonishing, when women MPs are especially subject to abuse, that such prominent Labour figures as Dawn Butler and Diane Abbott fuel the flames with Commons rants.
And make no mistake, this is almost entirely one-way traffic.
Tories will bellow and roar but rarely engage in vicious personal jibes.
Starmer needs to stamp it out.
The crazed killing of Sir David has triggered alarm over personal conduct in public life.
SOCIAL MEDIA FAILINGS
There is increasing anger at the failure of social media giants to curb radicalisation and the right to anonymity online.
A constant theme of tributes to Sir David was his good- natured smile and friendly cross-party cooperation over 40 years of public service.
If an MP with no known enemies can be struck down so violently and suddenly, how can others protect themselves?
Indeed, how safe is Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who revels in close-contact selfies with voters in public places?
His security detail will certainly reassess the risk of his spontaneous but popular readiness to meet and greet those who might be carrying a knife.
Boris will probably carry on regardless.
But there are 650 MPs and countless members of the House of Lords, some of them recognisable.
It would be impossible for police to provide close protection for them all.
“You can’t have police standing there while you are talking to a constituent,” says one MP.
“In many cases, it is the police they want to talk to you about.”
FACE TO FACE
American polling expert Dr Frank Luntz recently contrasted Britain’s easygoing access to democratically elected MPs with America’s security-obsessed remoteness.
But the US was just as open once, with congressmen and senators being carried through crowds on the shoulders of ordinary citizens.
That ended overnight with the assassination in 1963 of President Jack Kennedy as he rode through the streets of Dallas, Texas, in an open-top limo.
Today, says Luntz, American voters see their politicians only at a distance, on a political stage, never within range of a knife or a gun.
Most of our MPs will carry on meeting, shaking hands and talking with voters face to face.
“One of the great pleasures as an MP is being out and about in your constituency,” says one senior minister.
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“It is how you find out what is going on. It is a chance for a constituent to raise an issue and see questions about it put to the Prime Minister in Parliament the following Wednesday.”
And that is exactly what the much-lamented David Amess would have voted for.
Brexit benefits
WE seem at long last to be gathering the fruits of Brexit.
Brussels is finally ready to keep its nose out of our domestic trade with Northern Ireland.
And Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is about to detach the UK from the meddling claws of the European Court of Human Rights.
For most Sun readers, the best proof we are finally out will be axing the rights of convicted foreign criminals to a “family life”, which can halt deportation orders in their tracks.
Mr Raab will also bar mischief makers from endless “judicial reviews” which put rulings by unaccountable and faceless judges above those of our own elected ministers.
His reshuffle from the Foreign Office is already beginning to pay off.
