Ann Widdecombe's murder has reopened a question that surfaces from time to time: should politicians with 'unfashionable' views get extra protection? The investigation continues, so I won't comment on that, but the fact that the question is even being asked in response to a 78 year-old woman being killed in her own home tells you something regardless of how the investigation concludes. We have been here before. Jo Cox in 2016. David Amess in 2021. A pattern is forming, whatever the final facts of this particular case turn out to be.
The debate this triggers is usually framed narrowly: what security do MPs need? I want to push it wider: what if politicians are not actually the group most exposed? They have protection officers, party machinery and a public profile that makes an attack on them a national story. I have none of that. Neither does anyone else who simply has an opinion and a job to protect.
I recently listened to Professor David Betz of King's College London's Department of War Studies, who argued that Britain may be entering a period of increasing internal conflict in which political violence becomes more likely. Whether or not one accepts his analysis, it's difficult to ignore the growing sense that our public discourse has become more hostile and less forgiving. If expressing political disagreement increasingly carries the risk of intimidation or worse, the answer cannot simply be to provide more security for an ever-expanding list of public figures. That treats the symptom rather than the disease....<<<Read More>>>...
