THERE can be a curious, even engaging, camaraderie between political rivals. It is perhaps because they see each other as players, rather than spectators. They acknowledge that they are collectively involved in a contest which non-participants only observe, distanced.
Athletes and sports people, I believe, experience the same feeling. They strain every sinew to outpace their competitors while, simultaneously, applauding the commonality of their endeavour.
Down the decades, I have witnessed this phenomenon, firstly in the Commons where I worked as a journalist in the 1980s and, more recently, in the Scottish Parliament.
Elected politicians know their career is precarious, dependent as it is upon the vagaries of popular support. They share that vulnerability with representatives of other parties. It is a bond, a point in common which is not fully grasped by outsiders.
David Amess was first elected to the Commons in 1983 when I was a relatively youthful lobby correspondent for a newspaper group.
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I remember him from that time and since as a thoroughly decent individual, with a healthy leavening of eccentricity.
More, he became one of those characters in the Commons, adopted by all sides for their drollery and dedication. When he set off pursuing one of his many pet projects, the House would smile and perhaps groan, but sympathetically.
But he was decidedly serious too, particularly in pursuit of constituency objectives. There is a glorious, symmetrical justice in the Royal decision to grant city status to Southend after a prolonged Amess campaign which brought a new dimension to the word “persistence”.
Now he is gone. And the Commons must rethink its ways of working for all MPs.
Meanwhile the Scottish Parliament returns from recess next week with the Presiding Officer, Alison Johnstone, promising that a review of safety will be the very first item of business.
She advised MSPs to take up an offer from the police to check and, if necessary, update individual protection measures.
As others have pointed out, this will not be easy. It is possible to strengthen security at Westminster and Holyrood, to make them democratic fortresses.
When I first arrived in the Commons, a few years before David Amess, I would stroll in beneath Big Ben via a dusty passageway from Westminster tube station. A friendly nod to the officer on duty, as I displayed my pass, sufficed.
Now, inevitably and quite rightly, security there and at Holyrood is exceptionally tight.
But that is not really the issue. We are talking about protection for our elected tribunes in their constituencies, while they are engaging with members of the public.
Those encounters are a key element of our political system. They permit the public to lobby those they elect, to advance causes and arguments. They allow MPs and MSPs to absorb information directly.
Further, they are a specific part of the modern job. A century ago, it would seldom have occurred to MPs to intervene in individual issues affecting individual constituents. Now, serving the public involves direct assistance.
But access carries with it potential hazard. Thankfully, it is rare for our elected members to experience personal harm, let alone death.
Yet, tragically, it is not unknown, as the families of David Amess and Jo Cox will attest.
No doubt the police and Parliamentary authorities will review constituency arrangements and tender advice. I wish them every success while reflecting that such endeavours are likely to be limited for as long as we permit relatively unfettered public access.
I suppose it will be possible to make closer checks of those seeking appointments with politicians. Perhaps there could be enhanced security in place if there are particular concerns.
However, it could be argued we also need to seek remedies through altering the tone and nature of public discourse.
In this regard, I would commend the view offered by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons whose calm sough in the chair has deflected many a political conflict.
He advised us all to make our discourse “kinder and based on respect.” That way, he suggested, the hate which drives attacks upon Parliamentarians might have less fertile soil.
To be clear, I am not so naïve, and nor is the Speaker, to believe that this is a universal solution. Venom, vitriol and zealotry are too firmly entrenched within some individual minds.
But there is a broader problem here. I have lost count in the past week of the number of Parliamentarians who have disclosed the death threats they have experienced or the abuse they have endured on social media.
As I have noted elsewhere, I am not a frequent dweller in the zone of online comment.
I believe I still have a Twitter account, set up by an eager colleague. As I recall, I Tweeted once, on the day I retired from the BBC.
On that occasion, I promised to Tweet again should Dundee United win the European Champions League. After last week’s glorious performance at Easter Road, that now seems eminently possible. So stand by.
Seriously, I am all too well aware, from public comments and private conversations, that Parliamentarians suffer vicious abuse, while innocently scanning online platforms in search of information or enlightenment.
I am scarcely an expert but it seems to me that the companies who profit from such endeavours should be pressed still further to expose and root out such bile.
A bogus narrative has steadily grown about the internet, that it represents in some way the unfettered and thus welcome freedom which structured society prevents.
To repeat from previous columns, freedom is not absolute. One does not truly enhance liberty by constraining the personal freedom of another, through threats and contumely.
Perhaps, though, we also need to set an example by pursuing the avenue of social kindness, as the Speaker has suggested and as the First Minister has repeatedly advocated, in a different context, during the pandemic.
I well remember May 1994, the death of John Smith. As I recall, there was a collective effort in subsequent weeks and months to soothe public discourse, to make politics less brutal and confrontational.
Perhaps we need to try that again. It might help, a little.
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