THE death of Sir David Amess and continued home working were topics discussed by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.
The Guardian
Brendan Cox, widower of murdered MP Jo Cox, said that after the ‘horrific and senseless killing of David Amess’ huge amounts of pain came to the surface in our family.’
“If the attack were a one-off, the question could be easily dismissed. But, coming just five years after Jo was killed, and after attacks on Stephen Timms and Nigel Jones – people are less sure,” he said. “But what really makes many wonder is not just the horrific killings but the day-to-day brutality with which our political debate is conducted, from increasingly regular death threats to online abuse.”
He said David and Jo would have disagreed on much but would have come together over a ‘deep and abiding commitment to our democratic system.’
“It is that power of democracy to unite us that drives terrorists to want to attack it, and foreign states to want to undermine it.”
The Daily Mail
Dominic Lawson said Sir David was a ‘thoroughly good human being’.
“The point is that we should not be in the least surprised when a so-called ‘Right-winger’ turns out to be much more decent than many who would consider that very person’s politics to define him as wicked,” he said.
“The whole notion of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ is entirely divorced from the cares of voters, which are, as David Amess always understood, not about abstract notions of political affiliation but about how we actually behave.
“Or, as one of his Essex constituents told a reporter over a pint of beer in a pub: ‘He was a diamond geezer. And I ain’t even a blue.’ He added, which might be taken as a special token of respect: ‘They should hang whoever did this.’”
The Daily Express
Nick Ferrari said many people are increasingly spending month after month staying away from their offices or other places of work.
“Industry and government quietly hoped the effective full stop provided by the end of the school holidays and the children getting back behind their desks would also serve to be a way of winding down the WFH (working from home) culture and getting back in harness,” he said. “Those hopes have been dashed, and it seems across many sectors. Too many government departments have little more than a third of staff in the office and in many key areas this has a devastating effect.”
He said the DVLA is a prime example of where the practice is holding the country back.
“We learnt last week that around four out of 10 staff at its giant Swansea base are physically at their desks and this in part has played into the shortage of fuel and HGV drivers.
“The nation is emerging from Covid and the economy is starting to pick up. It’s time for us all to put in a shift.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here