THE shocking murder of Jo Cox was a poignant reminder of how our MPs sometimes place themselves in potentially dangerous situations as they represent us because they meet so many people with all sorts of views.
Thankfully, though, it is extremely rare that anything so tragic results as did the brutal assassination of Mrs Cox in Birstall in June.
She was clearly a caring and committed campaigner who worked tirelessly for her beliefs and was someone who made a huge impact on many lives in her relatively short time as an MP.
And it is testament to her selfless nature that even as she lay dying in the street, after being repeatedly stabbed and shot by her killer, Thomas Mair, a far-right fanatic who opposed her belief that Britain should remain in the EU, her thoughts were only for her staff whom she urged to seek safety.
Since her murder, her husband Brendan has always acted with extreme dignity and has spoken out in exactly the way she would have wanted him to by refusing, in his words, to “respond to hatred with hatred”.
Instead, Mr Cox pointed to how Mair’s senseless act of terrorism - aimed at pulling communities apart - had been utterly self-defeating as it resulted in communities standing together in expressing their horror.
The warped extremist ideology which consumed Mair and drove him to murder an MP who dedicated her life to helping others is impossible for the vast majority of us to comprehend. But one thing is crystal clear: he fully deserves to spend every one of his last days behind bars.
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