NEWS AND COMMENT: I don’t have much detail but today, on the radio, and on television, it has been announced that Conservative MPs David Amess, 69, was stabbed multiple times at noon today resulting in his death at a temporary ‘surgery’ in Belfairs Methodist Church, Leigh-on-Sea. He was attended to at the scene by paramedics. An air ambulance arrived at the scene. I don’t have full details but I believe that he died at the scene. The perpetrator was caught soon after as the police were called just after noon. He is a 25-year-old man. We don’t have his personal details except a BBC presenter at the location of the murder said the man was of African origin. It looks like a terrorist attack to me.
The news came through on the radio at about 15:10 on LBC. That’s when I first heard the news that he had died. The news that he had been stabbed came through earlier and at that time there was some hope that he had survived. It’s a great shock to the nation and a terrible wound to the democracy of the nation. There is great sadness because democracy has been injured and this was a really great member of Parliament. He died serving the people he represented in Parliament,
All the praise is coming in about Sir David Amess and how caring and how dedicated he was as a member of Parliament for the past 38 years. He was a known animal lover, animal advocate and campaigner. This is incredibly sad for all the world’s animal advocates. But most of all this is a terrible tragedy for his family and the hearts of everyone must go out to his family.
Parliamentary colleagues and friends are in shock. Carrie Johnson. Prime Minister’s wife said: “Absolutely devastating”.
We don’t know the reason for the stabbing. We simply don’t have details about it. It is not the first time that a member of Parliament in the UK has been stabbed to death at a surgery. No doubt the UK Parliament will now have to take steps to protect members of Parliament at surgeries and when they meet the public and their constituents. It can’t go on like this. They may have to rely on remote, over the internet, Zoom meetings but this will be very upsetting to many members of Parliament because they need that personal one-to-one contact with their constituents.
Note 1: On 16 June 2016, Jo Cox, the British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, West Yorkshire. On 28 January 2000, Pennington was acting as an assistant to Nigel Jones, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham, during Jones’s constituency surgery. A constituent, whom Jones had been helping with legal disputes, attended the surgery and suddenly attacked him with a samurai sword (source: Wikipedia).
Note: the word ‘surgery’ in this context means a meeting place between Member of Parliament and his constituents who have problems to solve.
