JO COX

The slaughter of a young, beautiful woman on the streets of another town goes beyond tragic. In reading of her young family and devoted husband the empathy begins to overwhelm. But we live in a political age and blame must be apportioned, delineated. That a mentally ill, deranged individual, under treatment at his local unit, an individual who would scrub his skin with Brillo pads, is allowed to wreak such carnage on our streets says many things. It calls into question our treatment of the mentally ill. With finances at a perilous state and a budget deficit of £80 Billion cuts have to be made and prioritised, but are these cuts endangering not only the very people the welfare state was formed to protect but also individuals going about their daily business? With money at a premium is the protecting of our Foreign Aid budget at the expense of our own vulnerable, mentally ill a price worth paying? But what it does not bring up or conflate with is the current decision the British people have to make regarding their continued membership of the EU. Politicians are a seedy lot of people on the whole and their ability to try to turn everything to their own advantage is one of the prime reasons for the loss of public faith in them. Their hypocrisy, opportunism, cant, hyperbole and downright lying singles them out for the opprobrium so widely heaped upon them. My sympathy for Jo Cox and her family is deep. But virtually everything she stood for on the EU question was wrong. Hers was a world of unfettered immigration into our land. A world where we should embrace every single Syrian 'refugee' that sought our tiny island. She was a beautiful woman, undeservedly cut down in her prime, who talked rubbish. I would have said it before her tragic loss and the vote we face in a week is too important not to say it now. The left, as is their wont, are ready with their spurious comparisons and it leaves them, as a movement, even more diminished. They say the rhetoric in this referendum battle is 'dangerous' but then stoke up that danger with more reckless amplification. Time to stand back and breathe. This tragedy throws up many questions for after the referendum but should in no way alter or affect any vote going into it. My sympathy to her family who now need the time to grieve.