RIP, Sir David.
This is an assault on democracy and, in my opinion, will alter forever the way our politicians interact with their constituents. I never thought I'd see the day when our parliamentary representatives had to hide behind glass screens or armed officers, but what alternative is there? The bastard who did this should be shot, and that's not just me using a well worn phrase, that's my honest opinion.
Turning into a fûckin banana republic.
Although a terrible event, not the first time that one of our political representatives has been murdered over the decades Steve, but I must agree it is always an assault on our demoracy:
Spencer Perceval, Tory (1762-1812)The only British prime minister to have been assassinated, Spencer Perceval was gunned down in the lobby of Parliament on 11 May 1812 by John Bellingham, a failed merchant from Liverpool
Lord Frederick Cavendish, Liberal (1836-1882)Lord Frederick Cavendish of the Liberal Party was the first sitting MP to be killed by Irish Republican extremists. Just hours after travelling to Dublin to take up the role of chief secretary for Ireland on 6 May 1882, Cavendish and the permanent under secretary at the Irish Office,
Thomas Henry Burke, were stabbed to death by members of the Irish National Invincibles, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Sir Henry Wilson, Ulster Unionist (1864-1922)Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, a decorated soldier and MP for North Down in Northern Ireland, was assassinated on the steps of his home in London on 22 June 1922.
Two London-based members of the Irish Republican Army, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, were apprehended at the scene and later hanged, but no chain of command has ever been established, and the orchestrator of the assassination has never been determined.
Wilson had been staunchly anti-Republican, and his assassination “led directly to the civil war in Ireland”, according to The Irish Times.
Airey Neave, Conservative (1916-1979)Just weeks before an election that would see his party leader Margaret Thatcher take power, then shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland Airey Neave was fatally wounded by an Irish National Liberation Army bomb as he left a House of Commons car park on 30 March 1979.
Reverend Robert Bradford, Ulster Unionist (1941-1981)Just two years after the death of Neave, Irish republican militants orchestrated the shooting of Belfast South MP Robert Bradford.
In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, the IRA alleged that Bradford had been “one of the key people responsible for winding up the loyalist paramilitary sectarian machine”. As The New York Times reported at the time, Bradford “was an outspoken critic of the Irish nationalist guerrillas” and had “repeatedly called for the reimposition of capital punishment in the province and for other strong deterrent measures”.
Sir Anthony Berry, Conservative (1925-1984)Enfield Southgate MP Anthony Berry, who served as deputy chief whip under Thatcher, was killed on 12 October 1984 in the IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where the PM and her cabinet were staying during the Conservative Party conference.
Ian Gow, Conservative (1937-1990)At the tail end of the Thatcher era, tensions between the UK and Ireland escalated once again following the assassination by the IRA of Ian Gow, the Conservative MP for Eastbourne since 1974. He was killed by a car bomb as he reversed out of his driveway at his home in East Sussex on 30 July 1990.
Helen Joanne Cox (22 June 1974 – 16 June 2016) A British politician who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen from her election in May 2015 until her murder in June 2016.
TODAY:
Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after being stabbed at his constituency surgery in Essex = RIP
Although a common theme in many of these murders is the Irish Question, it still shows how vulnerable our politicians are.
Thank God there has been no repeat of a Brighton type atrocity.