by Rachel Stewart

British politicians have a problem. Understatement.

It’s not just that their nation is financially, socially, morally, and spiritually re-entering a modern-day version of The Dark Ages and generally brought about by their own actions – or more aptly, their inactions.

Right now Britain is grappling with the fact that in the last decade three politicians from three different parties have been brutally murdered by three men with three separate motives. The one thing in common that the murderers do all share is a passionate hatred of different opinions and more than few missing neurons. Oh, but they like blood. And lots of it.

Jo Cox was a 41-year-old Labour Party Member of Parliament who was assassinated on 16 June 2016 in her constituency of Batley and Spen. She was the first sitting British MP to be murdered in the 21^st century.

She was killed outside a library in Birstall, West Yorkshire, right before she was scheduled to hold a constituency surgery – in other words, meeting her constituents about any concerns they may have. Lovely.

The killer was a quiet, clearly radicalised 52-year-old local named Thomas Mair. Neighbours were “shocked”. You know the drill. He had a deep interested in “far-right, neo-Nazi memorabilia”, according to the police.

As an aside, on what would have been her 42^nd birthday celebrities spoke in Trafalgar Square and included Bono, Bill Nighy, and Gillian Andersen. Stephen Fry, Ed Sheeran and Helen Mirren made a commemorative video for her posthumous Jo Cox Foundation, and Peter Gabriel wrote a song for her and performed it on tour with Sting.

The second murder in occurred on 15 October 2021. Sir David Amess was a 69-year-old Conservative Member of Parliament and a long-serving and highly respected politician, who’d been an MP for nearly 40 years.

And just like Jo Cox, he too was holding a routine Friday constituency surgery. His killer booked the appointment in advance by falsely pretending to be a constituent who was moving to the area and working for the NHS. He stabbed Amess over 20 times.

While Bono has yet to make a comment, did you notice dear old Ann Widdecombe in that clip? A fellow ex-Conservative politician and close friend of David Amess. Little did she know a few short years later she was to be beaten to death in her own home and in broad daylight with a ruddy great stick?

Ann Widdecombe was a highly prominent British politician, author, and television personality whose career spanned nearly four decades across major political shifts in the United Kingdom. One of the country's most instantly recognisable public figures she has been described frequently as a “national treasure”.

Having officially resigned her Conservative Party membership to join the Brexit movement, she was serving as Reform UK's official Immigration and Justice spokesperson up until last week when she was found dead in her home from severe blunt force trauma.

So there you have it. Some observations.

In all three cases the various police departments have at times been less than competent.

I note that they’ve also been at pains to quickly announce the suspect’s race when said suspect is ‘white’.

And I’m waiting for Bono’s comment? U2?

Other than that, it’s a bit of worry when politicians of any stripe are killed simply because of their personal views by raving lunatics.

Who’s seriously going to want the job when the country is increasingly crawling with mentally unstable shooty, stabby, bashy bastards?

Worrying times for British democracy, and for democracy in general. What’s left of it.

Listen to the full episode of Riding Shotgun.