Jo Cox MP: a price too high

In the sound-of-mind, anger with political outcomes can be a helpful emotion, helping us to push back against injustice. But if we’re unwilling to manage our emotions and to act with self-awareness and control, fury can lead to a careless lashing out at the softest or most convenient targets.

In a nation where, thankfully, political and other leaders can still move freely among us, public figures are among the softest of soft targets. What could be easier than venting a sometimes ill-defined rage against members of a class many see as cynical manipulators, self-promoters and moral vacuums?

What’s more, in a globalised village of social media, where the mob assumes guilt before innocence, public figures can be vilified without cause, without end and without an opportunity for recourse.

The online bile thrown at parliamentarians – particularly women – is indicative perhaps of a sizeable micro-culture that’s now emerging. It is a milieu within popular culture in which anyone in public life is assumed to have willingly foregone his or her rights to respect or common decency.

Attacks on social media are obviously not of the same order as physical attacks. Words do, however, wound and the abundance of simmering verbal acid in the cybersphere increases the likelihood of a boil-over into violent expression.

Knee-jerk attacks, verbal or otherwise, on the political classes or individual MPs also create in us a victim mentality.

Yes, there are very real victims in our society – I’ve met more than a few in my time and have often come away both grieved by their experiences and moved by their courage in speaking out.

These are the people who deserve our greatest attention and care. However, that attention is sometimes lavished on relatively undamaged individuals who want to see anything short of a total public affirmation of their beliefs or ideals as downright persecution.

Bias and persecution are not always the same thing. To mistake one for the other is to rob genuine victims of the care they deserve and to make all the world one’s enemy. We should not allow a victim mindset to become some kind of default in our culture; it might prevent us from seeing when we ourselves are victimising others.

The same media sources that announced Ms Cox’s death yesterday also carried the news that a police investigation into sex abuse by Sir Cliff Richard had been closed down.

To Sir Cliff’s understandable chagrin, the police did not declare him innocent. They merely stated that there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing for them to proceed. This after they had gone out of their way to make a case against him in the court of public opinion. It began with a raid on his home, which he learned about only by watching it live on BBC TV.

During happier times for Mr Richard, he was the focus of aspiration for millions of Brits. Among those who might not like his music were many who appreciated his charity work – for which he was awarded his knighthood.