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Two funeral Masses have been held for Sir David Amess MP, who was stabbed to death on October 15, 2021.
On Monday, November 22, mourners gathered in Essex at St Mary’s Church in Prittlewell, Southend, Essex. Mass began at 1 p.m.
As Sir David was born in the East End of London, he wished for a traditional funeral from that part of the capital. A horse-drawn hearse took his coffin, draped with a Union flag, to two destinations in Southend so that the public could briefly pay their respects. The first stop was the local civic centre and the second his constituency office. His coffin was then taken to a funeral chapel, where local people have been signing a book of condolence.
GB News has a report here from Ellie Costello. This was before the Mass:
Ellie Costello filed the following report at the civic centre after the Mass at St Mary’s. The Victorian horse-drawn hearse — a glass covered carriage — is visible at the 1:00 point. The video also includes her interview with Mark Francois MP, who gave a eulogy at Lady Julia Amess’s request. She spoke with the MP before the Mass. He pointed out that his late friend’s lasting legacy will be that Southend becomes an official city within the next few months:
Six local fire-fighters were Sir David’s pallbearers:
Guido Fawkes’s post said that the hearse also stopped at the Methodist church where Sir David was so heartlessly killed. Guido has more on the funeral, including Mark Francois’s eulogy and a statement from former Conservative MP, Anne Widdecombe:
Hundreds of mourners gathered to pay tribute to Sir David Amess this afternoon after he was killed in a terror attack last month. The hearse drove through his constituency, pausing to stop outside the church in which he was killed and his constituency office.
Mark Francois delivered another moving eulogy at the private service in Prittlewell, telling mourners that Sir David “put Basildon firmly on the map and he worked tirelessly for Southend”. Following the 1pm service, a horse-drawn hearse carried the Union flag draped casket on a procession through Southend. Former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, also a friend of Amess’s, read a statement on behalf of the Amess family, and asked people to “set aside their differences and show kindness and love to all”.
Metro has photos of the Southend funeral procession along with a report, excerpted below:
One of the mourners, Sue Abrahams, told the BBC she knew Sir David from their time campaigning together in Southend.
She said she wanted to come out to pay her ‘final respects to him’.
‘Everybody knew him and he knew everybody; it was amazing,’ she said.
‘Seeing the coffin was a very emotional moment. I couldn’t fight back the tears, I’m afraid.’
In an earlier tribute read aloud in church, Sir David’s family said their hearts are ‘shattered’ but that they are ‘enormously proud of him’.
They added: ‘As a family, we are still trying to understand why this awful thing has occurred. Nobody should die in that way. Nobody. Please let some good come from this tragedy.’
The MP’s friend and colleague Mark Francois delivered a eulogy, saying: ‘Whatever the weaknesses of Parliament, David Amess was the living embodiment of all its strengths.’
The former minister said in his tribute that, despite the ‘awful tragedy’ of Sir David’s death, the country should ‘keep calm and carry on’ as that is ‘what he would have wanted us to do’.
On Tuesday, November 23, a Requiem Mass was held at Westminster Cathedral in central London.
Parliament’s session was delayed to accommodate politicians from both sides of the aisle who wished to attend.
The celebrant, the Revd Canon Pat Browne, had married Julia and David Amess 38 years earlier. Therefore, it was only fitting that he should give the sermon his friend’s Requiem Mass. Canon Browne is also the Catholic duty priest for Parliament.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, was the celebrant.
Ellie Costello tells us that, on their wedding day, David Amess arranged for a horse-drawn carriage to transport his bride-to-be to the cathedral. She said that the Requiem Mass was also likely to be in that same vein: grand and emotional. Anne Widdecombe gave a eulogy, and a representative for the Pope delivered a statement:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a tribute to his late colleague:
This is the funeral procession:
Prominent politicians, past and present, sat in the front pew:
A clip of Canon Browne’s sermon follows. He describes the long-standing friendship he had with the Amess family, including baptising their five children and presiding over the funeral of his mother, who died at the age of 104:
He said that Sir David’s office in Parliament was a place he could always go to for a cup of tea and a friendly chat. On the day Sir David was stabbed in cold blood, he went to comfort the MP’s parliamentary staff:
The Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, His Excellency Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, delivered the Pope’s message. Sir David had met Pope Francis several times:
The Pope’s message included an entreaty for combatting evil with good:
Anne Widdecombe told us that Sir David married his wife only three months after having been first elected as an MP. That was in 1983, when he represented the constituency of Basildon in Essex. She also related other anecdotes, including one about the horse and carriage which delivered the future Mrs Amess to Westminster Cathedral on their wedding day. He said he borrowed it from the Royal Mews. Anne Widdecombe has no idea if that was true or just a joke, but she said that with him, it couldn’t be entirely discounted:
Two Labour MPs who attended were moved by the Mass. They were Barbara Keeley …
… and Dame Diana Johnson:
Afterwards, Mark Francois told Sky News that he hoped the Requiem Mass sent his late friend suitably on his way to God:
This video has views of the beginning of the Mass along with Ellie Costello’s interview with Anne Widdecombe, also a devout Catholic:
Sir David was a true example to us all of a life well lived in unswerving faith in God through His Son Jesus Christ. He could have been swept up solely by politics. Instead, he was always mindful of the Lord.
Yesterday’s post recapped the horrific murder of Sir David Amess MP on October 15, 2021.
Today’s will cover more about this much admired man’s personal character and political causes.
Posthumous victory: Southend-on-Sea now a city
I was delighted to learn at dinner time last night that the Queen granted Southend-on-Sea city status. Sir David must have mentioned Southend at least once a week in Parliament. He had long campaigned for it and made 115 references to it. Here he is with his two French bulldogs, one of which is Vivienne. He was due to participate with her in the Westminster Dog of the Year charity event on October 28:
The GB News article says that Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the announcement to MPs on Monday, October 18 (emphases mine):
The Prime Minister has notified the House of Commons that the Queen has agreed to confer city status upon Southend in tribute to Sir David Amess who was recently killed.
MPs cheered in the Commons as the Prime Minister announced Southend “will be accorded the city status it so clearly deserves”.
Mr Johnson said: “As it is only a short time since Sir David last put that very case to me in this chamber, I am happy to announce that Her Majesty has agreed that Southend will be accorded the city status it so clearly deserves …
That ‘short time’ was probably last Thursday, October 14:
In a three-hour debate on Monday, preceding a service of remembrance at St Margaret’s, the Parliamentary church next to Westminster Abbey, Boris noted that Amess was never an MP interested in climbing the greasy pole to a Cabinet or party leadership position:
“That Sir David spent almost 40 years in this House, but not one day in ministerial office, tells everything about where his priorities lay.”
Boris Johnson, opening tributes to Sir David Amess, told the House of Commons: “The passing of 72 hours has done little to numb the shock and sadness we all felt when we heard of the tragic and senseless death of Sir David Amess.
“This House has lost a steadfast servant, we’ve lost a dear friend and colleague, and Julia and her children have lost a loving husband and devoted father.
“Nothing I or anyone else can say can lessen the pain, the grief, the anger they must feel at this darkest of times.”
Returning to Southend-on-Sea, having city status will help to increase its profile and encourage outside investment, as the leader of the city’s council explains below. Incidentally, having a cathedral, the traditional marker of an English city, is no longer necessary. City status is now a symbolic designation:
On Friday night, this Southend business owner said that Amess was dedicated to making his town a city:
Everything I know about Southend I learned from David Amess’s contributions in the House of Commons:
‘Community man’
There are MPs and there are MPs.
Sir David was the type of MP who will be sorely missed by his constituents, who called him a ‘community man’. GB News interviewed several over the weekend, some of whom were in tears or close to it, including men, such as this Leigh-on-Sea councillor:
This councillor from Southend says that Sir David, whose mother lived to the age of 104, used to throw parties for constituents over 100 years old. He also used to ask about local issues in Southend and resolve them with the help of councillors:
Another councillor remembers that Sir David would check on certain constituents to see if they had transport for important meetings, probably related to issues of theirs he was dealing with as an MP. The man says that Sir David would personally drive those constituents to the places they needed to go. And, yes, there were right to life issues he campaigned for:
The Chairman of Leigh-on-Sea council recalls Sir David’s selflessness:
This lady from Leigh-on-Sea, the Essex town where Sir David was stabbed to death (17 times), discusses his dedication to his constituency. Like many other people, she had the pleasure of meeting him at work in nearby Southend:
As was the case with other people GB News interviewed, a man interviewed (at 2:35 in the next video) said that people used to see Amess in the local Lidl, where he took time to chat with fellow shoppers. The man said that he did not vote for him but said that the MP was always available and accessible to everyone:
Vigil Mass
On Friday evening, the Revd Jeffrey Woolnough conducted a vigil Mass at St Peter’s Catholic Church in Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea.
This is the church the Amess family attend.
The video below has a few photos from the Mass. Starting at the 40-second point, notice how traditional it is. The priest stands with his back to the people, as in days of yore. He also wears a short chasuble that is very pre-Vatican II, a fiddleback. How fortunate for the Amess family to have found such a church:
At 1:50 in the video above, two ladies expressed their grief on Friday night following the vigil Mass. One of them said that Amess ‘knew everybody’. As was the case with other people GB News interviewed, one of ladies said that people used to see him in the supermarket.
GB News was on hand to cover the Mass:
A service at Saint Peter’s Church in Eastwood Lane, close to where Sir David was killed, was held on Friday evening to remember him – where he was described by a priest as “Mr Southend”.
The church fell silent as Father Jeffrey Woolnaugh paid tribute to the Conservative MP and invited his constituents to remember him.
He placed a photograph of Sir David at the front of the church, and said: “This liturgy is one I was not expecting to lead today.
“The whole world grieves. In this Mass we pray for the repose of the soul of dear David.
“Have you ever known Sir David Amess without that happy smile on his face? Because the greeting he would always give you was that happy smile.
“He carried that great east London spirit of having no fear and being able to talk to people and the level they’re at. Not all politicians, I would say, are good at that.”
Around 80 people attended the service and listened as Father Woolnough recounted his own memories of Sir David.
He said: “When you can speak to your MP and you can talk and get on like a house on fire, that’s when you can talk to them later about things that are important to your area.
“What can we say? He died doing the thing he loved, meeting his constituents, his local people.”
Father Woolnough added that his constituents could “count on” Sir David, and said: “He was always available. We don’t have the words tonight.
“Dear Sir David, rest well.”
The priest also said that Amess’s smile is ingrained on everyone’s hearts:
On Saturday night, a secular candlelit vigil took place near where Sir David was murdered. The Daily Mail has many moving photographs of the gathering.
Biography
Most Britons think that all Conservatives were born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
Not so.
David Amess was born in humble circumstances in London’s East End.
The Telegraph recounted his life:
David Anthony Andrew Amess was born on March 26 1952 in working-class Plaistow, East London, to James Amess, an electrician, and Maud, née Martin, a dressmaker. As Amess recalled, “we were very poor and lived in a small terraced house with no bathroom, an outside toilet and a tin bath hanging on the wall”. In 2014 he would compile and publish a pamphlet, Party of Opportunity, containing short biographies of Tory MPs with working-class origins.
David’s mother was a Roman Catholic who brought him up in the faith and he remained a staunch Catholic throughout his life, his commitment reflected in his opposition to abortion and to the broadening of LGBT rights. “Confession,” he once said, “is very important to me.”
He attended St Antony’s Junior School, Forest Gate, where he was “often in classes of 50, and the teachers still gave us excellent tuition and kept order to a high standard”, and St Bonaventure’s Grammar School, Newham, where he remembered being “quite bossy and pushy” and was rumoured to have once hit a fellow pupil over the head with a bicycle pump.
Until the age of five, Amess said, he had the nickname of “Double Dutch” on account of a bad stutter: he could not make the sounds “st” or “the” and saw a speech therapist for three years, which also had the effect of virtually eliminating his Cockney accent.
He had a varied career prior to entering politics:
He took a degree in Economics and Government at Bournemouth College of Technology. Then, after 18 months’ teaching at a primary school (“I specialised in teaching children who were described as ESN”), and a short stint as an underwriter, he became a recruitment consultant.
One wonders if he met his wife Julia while he was an underwriter:
In 1983 he married Julia Arnold, a former underwriter, who survives him with their four daughters and a son.
Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister during Amess’s early years in politics:
A dedicated Thatcherite, Amess contested the safe Labour seat of Newham North West in 1979, and in 1982 became a councillor in the London borough of Redbridge.
During those years, Essex went from electing Labour MPs to Conservative ones. The county is still Conservative-dominated in Parliament.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the media coined expressions for Essex voters, many of whose families had been moved out of London after the Second World War had ended. The next generation of voters became known collectively as ‘Basildon man’ and ‘white van man’.
Amess rode the crest of that wave, as The Sun‘s Trevor Kavanagh explains:
Basildon was the first constituency he served, beginning in 1983:
When the incumbent Tory MP for Basildon, the Right-wing Harvey Proctor, moved to safer Billericay for the 1983 general election, Amess was chosen to fill his shoes and was duly elected. Three years later he stood down from the council to concentrate on his Westminster seat.
Basildon was regarded as a bellwether seat, and when Amess won it again in 1992, albeit with a tiny majority, it provided the first indication that despite the pundits, and the triumphalism of Labour’s leader Neil Kinnock, the Tories were on course for a fourth successive election victory. He would later describe his campaign in a short pamphlet entitled 1992: Against All Odds! (2012).
Boundary changes prior to the 1997 general election meant that Basildon was almost certain to go Labour, so Amess decided to look elsewhere, and in 1995 was selected to fight Southend West after the retirement of Paul Channon. Returned to Westminster again, he held the seat until his death.
Amess focused on his constituents, first and foremost:
Assiduous and likeable, Amess built a strong personal following by concentrating on constituency issues: the Guardian’s Andrew Rawnsley once suggested that the secret of his electoral success was that “he never completed a sentence without mentioning his constituency”.
This was also reflected away from Parliament:
Amess … was a lifelong supporter of West Ham United, and also followed Basildon United …
Even after he left Basildon, he still returned to visit, as this former Basildon councillor remembers:
He had many accomplishments with regard to charity, earning him a knighthood. He:
was knighted in 2015 and received several awards for his contributions in parliament, including the Animal Welfare and Environment Champion award of the 2011 Dods Charity Champion Awards, and the “Outstanding Achievement Award” at the same event the following year, in recognition of his lifetime commitment to charitable work.
This was how the newly knighted Sir David celebrated:
He did not always follow the Conservative line in Parliament:
… he incurred the wrath of many fellow Conservatives by consistently voting to ban foxhunting and hare coursing (though he was in favour of capital punishment), and supporting numerous other animal welfare campaigns.
Many MPs will remember his staunch support of Brexit, however.
They will also remember him for supporting animal causes and an end to fuel poverty:
The most significant of these were the Protection Against Cruel Tethering Act (1988), and the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act (2000) …
The animal-related Act, supported by the NFU, banned the tethering of “any horse, ass or mule under such conditions or in such manner as to cause that animal unnecessary suffering”.
The second piece of legislation, following on from the death of a constituent from cold, required the Secretary of State to “publish and implement a strategy for reducing fuel poverty”. The measure was credited with pushing fuel poverty to near the top of the political agenda, contributing to a dramatic fall in the problem in England from 5.1 million households in 1996 to 1.2 million in 2004.
Another cause that Amess supported, thanks to a Leigh-on-Sea constituent, Carla Cressy, was that of endometriosis.
The Telegraph has the story:
“I first approached Sir David Amess when I’d just found out I had endometriosis five years ago,” says Carla Cressy, 30, an accounts manager from Leigh-on-Sea. “I didn’t know much about it, and realised there was very little awareness, support and education around it. He’s my local MP so I visited him at his surgery. I had no expectations of what would happen. I just knew I wanted to share my story with him, about how I’d suffered with endometriosis for an entire decade before I was diagnosed.
“He was so lovely – genuinely concerned and upset about what I’d been through. He said we need to do something about it, and he then really did. He went above and beyond to champion this community like a beacon of light. It was incredible. I am devastated that he’s gone.”
This is what happened:
“Sir David recognised the significant impact endometriosis could have, and really wanted to make a difference to help those with the disease,” says Emma Cox, CEO of Endometriosis UK, a charity that was working closely with an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) that Sir David set up in 2018 to raise awareness in Parliament of the condition …
One of Sir David’s goals when he created the APPG was for the government to provide education on endometriosis in schools. It’s something the group achieved over a year later, meaning menstrual wellbeing is now included on the English curriculum. “We made so much progress together,” says Cressy, who worked closely with Sir David on the campaign. “He really has changed so many lives, including my own.”
One of Sir David’s upcoming tasks, had he lived, was to ask for further research funding, as a Labour MP explains:
“He really wanted that debate,” says Labour MP Emma Hardy, vice-chair of the APPG on endometriosis. “We’d published a report last year, collecting evidence from women around the country with their experience of endometriosis, and Sir David wanted to draw attention to our recommendations.”
Their key goals are to reduce the time it takes for people to be diagnosed, ensure GPs have enough information to make them aware of the condition, raise public awareness, and fund more research into non-invasive ways of diagnosis …
“The main thing that comes from women is not being listened to, not being believed, taking ages to be diagnosed and then when they are, there’s not much change. Sir David wanted to change that. Endometriosis isn’t party politics, but he was really passionate about trying to do something about this condition. I don’t want him to be remembered as the person this tragedy happened to, but the person who worked so hard to improve the lives of people with endometriosis. We can’t replace him, but I hope we can find another Conservative MP to champion his work and continue with the APPG.”
This GB News video covers Sir David’s public life from the time he entered politics:
MPs paid respects
On Friday afternoon, Union flags were lowered to half-mast over government buildings, including No. 10:
On Saturday morning, prominent Conservative and Labour MPs laid flowers near the Methodist church hall where Sir David was murdered:
Government whips have reminded MPs that there is an Employee Assistance Programme for anyone among them who wants counselling after Sir David’s senseless murder.
Everyone, regardless of party affiliation, was deeply sorry to lose this man:
This was because he befriended MPs from both sides of the aisle and found ways to work constructively with them:
One of the things I found moving in watching and reading these tributes was the recollection made by more than one MP, regardless of party affiliation, on his befriending of new Parliamentarians. He introduced himself, asked how they were getting on and enquired if they had any issues with which he could help.
Conservative MPs
These are some of the Conservative MPs’ tributes, beginning with Boris’s:
Long-time friend David Davis paid tribute to Amess’s career of service, rather than ambition:
Stuart Anderson remembers Amess helping him settle into the job:
Andrew Rosindell, another Essex MP, lamented the loss of his oldest friend in the Commons:
Another long-time friend, David Jones, called him ‘frankly irreplaceable’:
I agree with Mike Wood. Forthcoming Adjournment debates will never be the same. That said, Southend is now a city:
The folks running PARLY agree on the adjournment debates, during which Sir David addressed more issues than Southend:
Labour
Party leader Sir Keir Starmer emphasised Amess’s Christian faith and the fact that he was well liked across the House:
Hilary Benn remembered Amess’s dogged campaigning and dedication:
Siobhain McDonagh will forever connect Amess with Southend, and who can blame her?
Steve McCabe will remember Amess’s cheerful nature:
John Cryer was a former neighbour:
Liberal Democrat
The most moving tribute, however, came from Lembit Öpik, a former Liberal Democrat MP, who spoke to Mark Dolan on GB News Saturday night:
The former MP was so moved that he had to sit down and recover after that interview. Mark Dolan’s producer was with him during that time.
Conclusion
It was serendipitous that the Gospel reading for Sunday, October 17, was about service (Mark 10:35-45):
10:42 So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.
10:43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
10:44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
10:45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
What apposite verses for Sir David Amess, who gave his all in service to his constituents.
May his place in Heaven be an exalted one.
On Tuesday, October 12, 2021, Sir David Amess MP (Conservative), posted the following tweet promoting his upcoming constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex:
These surgeries are an opportunity for constituents to present their problems to their MP. They might be seeking help with schooling, crime or health, among other things. Meetings are face-to-face, one-on-one. One’s MP then cuts through bureaucracy to achieve a successful resolution to the problem.
It seems this type of in-person connection between a member of the public and an elected constituency politician is unique to the UK. Long may it continue.
Two days later, Sir David posted a photo of himself and the Emir of Qatar. Amess was the chairman of the All-party Parliamentary Group fostering good relations between Britain and Qatar:
That same day, the MP for Southend West tweeted his gratitude for the government aid to Southend-on-Sea, no longer a smallish, seaside resort, but a town with a population of 160,000. Sir David has been campaigning tirelessly in Parliament for it to have city status. Winter fuel poverty was another of his big causes:
Little did he realise those would be his final tweets.
Just before noon on Friday, October 15, I was watching a heart-warming segment on GB News about the Westminster Dog of the Year charity event, to be held on October 28 in Victoria Tower Gardens, London. Isabel Oakeshott was interviewing Matt Vickers MP (Conservative) and his dog Karen. Karen was paying attention to the conversation. As soon as it turned to dog-napping, she began barking.
The public can vote up for their favourite MP-dog pairing until October 27. Sir David had already registered with his French bulldog Vivienne. Recently, he said:
If I am feeling down, the dog lifts my spirits as she is always pleased to see me and she makes me smile.
Little did I know watching the GB News segment with Matt Vickers and Isabel Oakeshott that Sir David was minutes away from his last breath.
Amess’s last meeting was a Zoom call about the Children’s Parliament, which pairs up an MP with a young member of the public. The meeting ended at 12:02 p.m.
At 12:05, Sir David was gasping his final breaths, having been stabbed multiple times in the church hall.
It was just moments after midday on Friday when Sir David Amess had his last appointment.
Richard Hillgrove, a PR professional, shared a call with Amess to discuss the Children’s Parliament, an event where kids are matched with members of parliament to debate the important issues of the day.
As usual, the MP for Southend West was firing on all cylinders, full of buzz and ideas for the event: the running order, the voting system, what software they should use. Hillgrove’s daughter, Lola, 11, had been matched with Amess, who visited her at school so they could have their picture taken.
Hillgrove says he ended the Zoom call at 12.02pm, so that Amess could host a constituency surgery at the Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea. It was his final farewell. By 12.05pm, Amess had been stabbed to death.
A few minutes later, Hillgrove saw the first reports of the murder on television. “I didn’t even realise it was Sir David at first,” he recalled. “I was absolutely horrified, every minute that came passed seemed like an hour, the longer it went, the more concerning it got.”
Eventually the unimaginable news filtered through. Lola came home from school in tears. “I was honoured to have known him,” said Hillgrove. “He was such an inspiration, his engagement was incredible. He made sense of a crazy world.”
The events of Friday afternoon have pierced the quiet provincial calm of Leigh-on-Sea, leaving the tight-knit Essex community fearful and furious. A deep, heavy sadness hangs over this seaside town. Yesterday, the flower bins were empty at the Co-op on Eastwood Road, just 100 yards from where Amess was stabbed 17 times by a 25-year-old man. Every tulip, rose and pansy had been scooped up and deposited at the tribute for the man alternately known as “Sir David” or simply “Dave”.
The Telegraph reported that Amess’s staff, women, witnessed his horrifying murder. Paramedics from an air ambulance worked in vain for two hours trying to stabilise him:
Sir David was attacked seconds later, stabbed repeatedly in front of his horrified staff.
… Sir David’s wounds were so many and severe that paramedics were unable to stabilise him sufficiently for a transfer to hospital. After two hours of vain struggle to stem his injuries, the air ambulance took off empty.
The Telegraph spoke with the aforementioned Richard Hillgrove:
Mr Hillgrove recalled how, during their conversation, Sir David had periodically glanced to his right.
He assumes this was towards trusted assistant, Rebecca Hayton, upon whom Sir David, not being the most technologically savvy parliamentarian, relied for help when making video calls.
It was she who witnessed at close quarters the full ferocity of the knife attack, running from the Belfairs Methodist Church hall screaming. Her screams alerted Sir David’s other assistant, Julie Cushion, who was positioned in the church hall lobby.
Shortly after the attack, Stephan Aleyn, a former Southend Conservative councillor, spoke to Ms Cushion.
“She is in absolute bits,” he said. “What she saw is going to stick with her for the rest of her life.
“It was a normal surgery and they were assisting Sir David in helping his constituents.
“Julie and Rebecca thought this man was just another constituent who needed help from their MP, when suddenly he launched his attack on Sir David.
“For anyone to witness that sort of shocking, unprovoked assault is awful. It was a lovely, normal, sunny day – then this.”
After stabbing Sir David several times, his assailant sat down next to his body, making no effort to evade police, it has emerged.
A Southend Conservative Party source said: “One of Sir David’s office staff was in the hall with him, and it now appears that after attacking Sir David, this man sat down and waited for police to arrive. It’s absolutely chilling.”
The article says that 999 calls were made at 12:05 p.m. Police, including an armed response unit, and the air ambulance responded immediately. The suspect went quietly with the police:
The 25-year-old suspect was detained inside the church hall and led out to a police van. A knife was recovered.
Amess’s staff must have also contacted a Catholic priest he knew. The Revd Jeffrey Woolnough showed up shortly afterwards and asked police to be admitted to administer Last Rites — or Extreme Unction, as it used to be known. However, he was refused entry:
He was denied entry, however, and so stood on the street with another man reciting the rosary. He described it as a “great disappointment” for a Roman Catholic not to be able to receive the last rites.
“It was remarkably calm by the time I arrived,” Fr Woolnough told The Telegraph.
“I prayed from outside and I just hope David received those. I know he would have done, because any prayer said that is sincere is received by the recipient.
“I was praying the rosary – it’s a half hour prayer going through all of those intentions, asking that whatever was going on in there, for God’s will to be done. That’s all I could pray at that point in time.”
I did not know until he died that Sir David was a devout Catholic, but, given his serene demeanour, sincere smile and gentle wit, it does not surprise me that he was a churchgoer.
The Spectator‘s Melanie McDonagh, also a devout Catholic, expressed her displeasure with the police response regarding Last Rites:
It’s not known whether Sir David was alive when the priest arrived at the scene, but he still should have been there. Nothing should come between a dying man and the mercy of the Church. Of course the police were dealing with a tremendously difficult situation and would have been shocked and confused – how could they not have been? – but it doesn’t excuse this failure of judgment, which we can assume stems from a failure of training.
Essex Police sent The Spectator a statement, which says, in part:
As with any police incident, it is of the utmost importance that we preserve the integrity of a crime scene and allow emergency services to tend to those in need. A cordon is put in place to secure and prevent contamination of the area. Access into a scene is at the discretion of the investigating officers. This is a fundamental part of any investigation to ensure the best possible chance of securing justice for any victim and their family.
McDonagh says that the priest was ‘an emergency service’. I cannot disagree:
The most troubling element of the statement is that the police wanted to ‘allow the emergency services to tend to those in need.’
A priest is an emergency service. In the case of Sir David, the priest was someone who could help see him into the next world, not just keep him in this one. You don’t have to share a belief in the efficacy of confession to go along with this; you just need a very elementary knowledge of and respect for the faith to refrain from standing between a confessor and a dying man. As for the reference to the ‘emergency services administering potentially life-saving treatment,’ Catholic priests are used to operating together with medics for precisely this reason.
You might like to know that Essex police recently engaged in that exercise in cultural conformity, Hate Crime Awareness Week. Perhaps in future, some awareness of Christianity might be part of the training.
Monsignor Kevin Hale, who knew Sir David, told GB News how Catholicism informed the MP’s life. Amess’s mother was a Catholic and she brought him up in the faith:
Monsignor Hale said that Sir David had grown up in the East End of London and attended St Bonaventure’s Roman Catholic School in Newham. It is a secondary school for boys.
The Right Revd Stephen Cottrell, the Anglican Archbishop of York, lived for a time in Amess’s constituency and paid a warm, faith-filled tribute to his former MP and friend in The Telegraph:
It was said of Sir David Amess that though he had opponents, he didn’t have enemies. As we come to terms with the horror of his murder on Friday, this is a distinction worth pondering.
I think of David Amess as a friend. Leigh-on-Sea is my home town and, for ten glorious years as Bishop of Chelmsford, part of the diocese I served. We often met: in parliament, but usually in his constituency, Southend West.
He was, as we have heard over the weekend, a dedicated, zestful, persevering constituency MP. He loved Southend, as I do. He rooted for it. He exemplified that vital, but overlooked, root of our democracy that Members of Parliament may get elected on a party ticket, but, once elected, serve everyone …
David Amess was a kind man. The word kind is related to the word kin. When we are kind to someone, it doesn’t mean we necessarily agree with them, or even like them, but that we recognise a kinship, a common humanity and treat them accordingly; or as we sometimes say, “treat them in kind”.
David’s robust kindness came from his Christian faith. He was a devout Christian, a Roman Catholic. But the idea that we human beings belong to one another and have a responsibility to each other is not self-evident. Observation of our behaviour and attitudes shows us the opposite. Our worst desires can be seen everywhere, leading us to separation, fuelled by selfishness, and bearing fruit in hatefulness and the possession of each other.
The picture of humanity that God gives us in Jesus Christ offers something else. In this regard, perhaps the most radical words Jesus ever spoke are the ones most of us know and many of us say every day: “Our Father.” In saying these words we don’t just acknowledge we belong to God, we acknowledge our belonging to each other as kith and kin …
David Amess, the friend with whom I sometimes disagreed, had the same values and the same vision. It shaped his life and it is what made him such a loved and effective constituency MP and an exemplar of what our democracy can be.
He was always very kind to me. He supported the Church. He cared. He liked to build coalitions of goodwill so that people could work together. Kindness and kinship, it turns out, gets things done.
My heart goes out to his wife and family and the constituents of Southend West. I am praying for them …
David Amess didn’t wear his faith on his sleeve. He wore it in his heart. That’s the best place for it. It means it runs through your very being.
Late on Friday, the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command took over the case from Essex Police:
Early on Saturday, October 16, it was established that the suspect is a Briton of Somali parentage.
The Mail on Sunday reported that the BBC’s home affairs correspondent, Dominic Casciani, downplayed the suspect’s parental origins:
The BBC‘s home affairs correspondent was accused yesterday of trying to downplay the suspect’s reported Somali origins …
Although every national newspaper with the exception of the Financial Times mentioned that the suspect had Somali ‘origins’, ‘heritage’ or ‘descent’ yesterday, Casciani appeared to wrestle with the issue on Radio 4’s Today programme.
Presenter Nick Robinson asked him: ‘The suspect is a British citizen, but he’s also of Somali origin. Is that regarded as significant?’
Casciani replied: ‘The Somali element – erm, no. The reason why some reporters have established this fact is that there has been some misreporting …’
Twelve hours earlier, he had tweeted: ‘We have learnt from official sources that detectives have established the individual is a UK national, seemingly of Somali heritage. We report this in the interests of accuracy’ …
The BBC says Casciani ‘focuses on stories relating to law, order, society and belonging – including immigration, ethnicity’.
The Telegraph reported on the Met’s discoveries made on Saturday. The suspect lived in London, far from Sir David’s constituency:
On Saturday, officers from the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism team, which is leading the investigation into his death, were searching three addresses in London – at least two of which were believed to be in the east of the capital. One search had ended but the others remained ongoing on Saturday night. The suspect, a British national of Somali origin, is thought to have acted alone and travelled by train from his north London home to Essex to carry out the attack.
The Daily Mail told us that the suspect lives among at least one celebrity in London, the rest of his neighbours clearly well-heeled, and might have spent a week planning the bloody attack:
Ali, who is thought to have been targeted by the Government’s anti-terror Prevent programme, may have lived in Sir David’s Southend West constituency in Essex in the past.
His most recent residence is believed to be in London. Officers have been carrying out searches at three addresses.
The security services are providing assistance to Scotland Yard, which is leading the investigation. Last night, detectives were granted a warrant of further detention, allowing them to keep Ali in custody until Friday.
Police officers were yesterday standing guard outside the North London council house where Ali lives. It is in a street of £2 million three-storey townhouses where the late actor Roger Lloyd Pack, who played Trigger in Only Fools And Horses, used to live.
That day, news emerged that Sir David had received a menacing threat just days before his murder. However, police believe that the two events are unconnected, according to The Telegraph:
The threat to the veteran MP was made in the past few days and reported to police …
It is understood that Essex Police received a report of the threat, but they are not connecting it with Friday’s attack.
John Lamb, the former Mayor of Leigh-on-Sea and a close colleague of the murdered MP, said Sir David had received the “upsetting” threat in the past few days …
Mr Lamb said it had been Sir David’s idea to hold his surgeries in places like the Methodist church, so he could be more accessible to his constituents, rather than in the local Conservative Party offices in Southend.
It is understood this came despite concerns being expressed by some of his staff over the potential security risk at more open venues.
Mr Lamb said: “Sir David used to hold them at the Conservative Association, but that made it hard for older people to see him so around a year ago he started going out into the community. He didn’t want to hide away, he wanted to be visible and accessible. He told me: ‘I want them to be able to see me in their local area’.
Before this, the last time an MP was murdered was in June 2016, just days before the Brexit referendum. A white male fatally stabbed Labour MP Jo Cox outside her own surgery. He was said to have had mental health problems, aggravated by the threat of eviction. His mother was also in poor health. That is not in any way to excuse his horrific crime of murdering a young wife, mother and MP. However, at the time, the media said the motive was because he was pro-Brexit and she was not.
Sir David, along with every other MP, was deeply affected by her death. He mentioned it and attendant security issues in his 2020 book, In Ayes and Ears: A Survivor’s Guide to Westminster, published last November.
He wrote:
The British tradition has always been that Members of Parliament regularly make themselves available for constituents to meet them face to face at their surgeries. Now advice has been given to be more careful when accepting appointments. We are advised to never see people alone, we must be extra careful when opening post and we must ensure that our offices are properly safe and secure. In short, these increasing attacks have rather spoilt the great British tradition of the people openly meeting their elected politicians.
He also said that he had to check the locks on his property and that certain ‘nuisance’ (his word) members of the public occasionally showed up outside his home. Other MPs have installed CCTV cameras on their properties.
Jo Cox’s sister, Kim Leadbeater, is now an MP in her former constituency, Batley & Spen. She tweeted her condolences:
The Emir of Qatar also sent a message of sympathy. Last week, he and Sir David were discussing Afghanistan refugees who are currently living in Qatar, awaiting settlement in other countries:
On Sunday, October 17, the father of the suspect in custody spoke. The Sunday Times reported:
The father of the suspected killer of Sir David Amess said he had been left “traumatised” by his son’s arrest after the stabbing of the veteran Tory MP.
Harbi Ali Kullane, a former adviser to the prime minister of Somalia, confirmed that his British-born son, Ali Harbi Ali, 25, was in custody. Kullane said that anti-terrorist police from Scotland Yard had visited him.
Speaking at his sister’s home in north London last night, Kullane said: “I’m feeling very traumatised. It’s not something that I expected or even dreamt of.”
The suspect was a “self-radicalised” lone operative known to counterterrorist police, according to Whitehall sources. He is believed to have been referred to Prevent, the government’s deradicalisation programme, before allegedly stabbing Amess on Friday …
Investigators are examining the theory that he was radicalised online during lockdown.
Officers were yesterday granted a further warrant to detain him until Friday under terrorism laws. Scotland Yard said that early inquiries had uncovered “a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism”.
Amess, 69, an MP for almost 40 years, was a devout Roman Catholic who was guided in his daily life by his strong faith …
Intelligence sources said the suspect had not been on the radar of MI5, which is monitoring more than 3,000 people who it is feared could be plotting a terrorist attack. However, he is believed to be one of thousands of extremists who have been referred to the voluntary Prevent programme after displaying potentially disturbing behaviour such as inflammatory postings on social media.
More than 6,000 people were referred by police and other agencies to the programme in the year ending March 31, 2020.
By the way, referral to the Prevent programme does not include monitoring by police and/or security services.
That day, the Amess family issued a statement thanking the public for their messages of support and urged the Government to grant Southend-on-Sea city status.
Sir David Amess’s family have said that achieving city status for Southend would be a way of paying tribute to a “patriot and man of peace”.
In their first public comments since the MP’s murder, his family thanked people for the “wonderful, wonderful tributes paid to David following his cruel and violent death. It truly has brought us so much comfort.”
Amess, 69, was married with five children and in a statement tonight they said: “The support shown by friends, constituents and the general public alike has been so overwhelming. As a family it has given us strength.”
They urged people “to set aside their differences and show kindness and love to all” so that some good might come from their father’s death. His family said there was “still so much David wanted to do” insisting: “This is not the end of Sir David Amess MP. It is the next chapter and as a family we ask everyone to support the many charities he worked with.”
They cited his efforts to raise money for a statue of Dame Vera Lynn and said: “Closer to home, David was working hard for Southend to gain city status. In his memory, please show your support for this campaign.”
As I write on Monday, no known motive for Sir David’s gruesome murder has emerged.
Some of his friends believe it was because he was a devout Catholic. I’m not sure about that. I did not know he was one until he died, and I’m a political junkie and frequent viewer of BBC Parliament.
A radical Islamist preacher says it was because Sir David was pro-Israel, as the MP had been an honorary secretary of the Conservative Friends of Israel since 1998.
However, let us not forget Qatar and the current tensions in Somalia.
In Monday’s Times, speculation arose over whether Amess was murdered because he headed the APPG fostering relations between the UK and Qatar. Qatar supports the current regime in Somalia:
Meanwhile, members of the public are calling for those voting for the Westminster Dog of the Year to choose Sir David and Vivienne as a fitting posthumous tribute to the tireless yet cheerful MP, who will be sorely missed.
I will have more on Sir David’s life in tomorrow’s post.
My deepest condolences go to the Amess family, Sir David’s staff and his many friends. May the good Lord grant them His infinite grace and comfort in the days and months ahead.
Eternal rest grant unto your servant David, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in your eternal mercy and peace. Amen.
Yesterday’s post discussed England’s new three-tier lockdown system and the 10 p.m. curfew on hospitality venues.
I ended with tweets from a publican in Essex, whose story I will go into below.
However, a few news items are worth looking at first.
Yesterday was Global Handwashing Day:
That day, Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced that more cities in the north of England would be moving to Tier 2. London and the adjacent county of Essex are also moving to Tier 2 as of Saturday morning, 00:01:
Essex has a low rate of positive tests, or ‘cases’:
London also has a low case rate. With a population of 9.3 million, it currently has 40 hospital admissions per day. On March 23, that figure was 505.
The death rate in the capital is also very low compared with the height of the pandemic earlier this year.
Conservative MPs representing London constituencies were not happy with all 32 boroughs being in Tier 2:
Here’s a more detailed graph of London:
These lockdowns no longer make sense:
Imagine the impact on the hospitality industry:
Guido Fawkes has the Tier 2 rules (emphasis in the original):
- People must not meet with anybody outside their household or support bubble in any indoor setting, whether at home or in a public place
- All businesses and venues can continue to operate, in a Covid-secure manner, other than those that remain closed in law, such as nightclubs and adult entertainment venues
- Certain businesses selling food or drink on their premises are required to close between 10pm and 5am. Businesses and venues selling food for consumption off the premises can continue to do so after 10pm as long as this is through delivery service, click-and-collect or drive-thru
- Schools, universities and places of worship remain open
- Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of attendees
- Organised indoor sport and exercise classes can continue to take place, provided the Rule of Six is followed
- The “Rule of Six” will continue to apply outdoors and in private gardens
- People should aim to reduce the number of journeys they make where possible. If they need to travel, they should walk or cycle where possible, or to plan ahead and avoid busy times and routes on public transport
As I pointed out yesterday, there is money to be had in Tier 2 and Tier 3 lockdowns:
As London will be in Tier 2 lockdown, Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle has banned alcohol in the House of Commons catering outlets on the Parliamentary estate:
The Government have stated that their new tiered rules make them easier for the public to understand, but they are still confusing.
Adam Brooks, who owns two pubs in Essex, has been tweeting about the regulations:
This week, Spiked interviewed Adam Brooks for his perspective on pubs during the coronavirus crisis:
The interview appeared on October 13: ‘”The pub industry is on the verge of collapse”‘. Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
Adam Brooks says that the pandemic has damaged two viable businesses which are seasonal, something many of us do not consider when thinking about pubs. The mask policy has not helped:
… I have never known anything like this – it’s quite worrying.
One of my pubs is very seasonal in its trade – it’s in the middle of the forest, and it’s food-focused. Lockdown meant I missed all the good weather of April, May and June. I normally make losses through the winter, and those months get me where I want to be. But I have not had that this year. We were lucky to have good weather when we reopened, and up until about two and a half weeks ago, I was optimistic that we would get through to March and have a fairly normal 2021, or if anything a good one, due to people’s desire to celebrate freedom. But the past two and a half weeks, with these added restrictions, have put a real dent in takings. The mask rule has put some people off – I have got friends that just don’t want to go out because they don’t want to wear masks.
My other pub is a backstreet pub. It survived on 60 to 70 people standing up around the bar on Friday and Saturday nights. New things like table service and having to have extra staff make it a real challenge. If the government brings in more rules, I think it would be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of us. At that point, it would probably be best if we closed and did some sort of deal with the breweries to reopen in more normal times. But, unfortunately, that would not protect the staff.
I am losing as much as or more than I would be if my pubs were closed. The worst thing is that being a leaseholder often means having personally to guarantee any future debts against your house. That means I have also got the risk of losing my house down the line if things go really badly.
He described the profile and habits of customers at his backstreet pub:
My backstreet pub is situated amid housing and other restaurants and shops. In the past I would have customers come in before they went for a meal at a restaurant. Then, around half past nine or 10, I would have customers come in who had finished their meals in restaurants, and just wanted an hour or so to chill out or to catch up in the pub. I have lost all of those people. I have lost the people who get home from work on a Friday night, put the kids to bed and pop to the pub. They are just not coming out because it’s not worth it. Overall, the curfew and the mask rules have reduced that pub’s trade by about 35 per cent.
Although Brooks appreciates having been able to take advantage of the coronavirus support from earlier in the year, he has little confidence in the Government’s handling of the crisis:
We were promised the initial lockdown would be brief, and I accepted it. But since June I have been unable to back this government on Covid. We have seen no evidence for the measures enforced on hospitality. It seems to me like the government is trying to put together retrospective evidence to back up these restrictions – and I don’t think it has got any …
If the government could explain why it is doing these things, that would be fair enough. But it can’t. Covid cases linked to hospitality are hovering at around three to five per cent of the total. To see an industry crash when there is no real proof that it is causing a problem is really hard to take.
Essex County’s move into Tier 2 could be very damaging for his pubs. Tier 2 was not yet on the cards when Brooks explained the effect of another lockdown or more restrictions:
This is a bit of a grey area. If we are suddenly hit with a law, not just a guideline, that says people from separate households can’t mix, we will be choked out over two or three months. If there are any more restrictions than we have in my area now – masks, the curfew, tables of six and the various other stipulations that we have – I think the industry will collapse. I really do. If it’s for any more than a couple of months, I can’t see the industry surviving.
A lot of publicans realise we are probably not going to earn any money until March. I have not really earned a penny since last March. Many of us can get by with the loans. But we cannot get by if our businesses are losing £2,000 a week or more until next year. In that scenario, we are goners.
The pub industry is meaningful to many people, a home away from home:
My old backstreet boozer-type pub really is the front room of many older people who want some peace and quiet or some social interaction outside of their family home. It’s a meeting point and it’s a community hub. A lot of the time, the pub is these people’s lives. During the initial lockdown, when my pub in the forest was closed, I saw two or three old guys with cans of lager sitting on the pub benches outside. That was very telling. We had stripped away a huge part of their lives that they could not do without. They could not get drinks from the pub, but they were just coming for the scenery and hoping that sufficed. Socially, it would be a disaster if pubs did not survive.
He also pointed out that an important supply chain revolves around pubs:
The pub industry employs something like a million people. If it collapsed, the supply chains would collapse, too. And that includes everything from breweries to greengrocers to meat suppliers to wholesalers to cleaners. People don’t realise what the pub industry supports in this country, and that’s a shame because sometimes people just think I’m sticking up for a place where people get drunk and disorderly. Your average pub isn’t like that.
Brooks rightly takes issue with the Government for not consulting people at all levels to understand the pub industry. At minimum, he says, Government ministers could have met with a CEO from a brewery to get a better picture.
He also has a low view of the covid crisis modellers from SAGE:
The scientific modellers, who have arguably got us into this mess, don’t seem to understand how people behave.
Brooks thinks that the 10 p.m. curfew should go in return for the following:
I have come up with a list of a few measures pubs could take in return for getting rid of the curfew. It includes things like having a designated staff member encouraging people not to congregate outside at the end of the night. We could allow the authorities access to our CCTV if they think there is a problem. We could commit to sending a weekly report to licensing authorities. We could have a rule whereby the last customer entry is an hour before closing. These are basic things we can do in return for dropping the 10pm curfew.
He concluded by expressing his disappointment that, up to now, the big breweries and pub chains have not said much about coronavirus regulations.
However, Tim Martin, who founded the JD Wetherspoon chain, has been speaking out. Today, Friday, October 16, the London Evening Standard reported that his chain is losing money. He also thinks that England should move towards the Swedish ‘herd immunity’ approach:
In the year to July sales plunged 30% to £1.26 billion and the divided to shareholders – which includes 10,000 of the staff – went from 12p a share to zero.
Last year, ‘Spoons made a profit of £102 million on sales of £1.8 billion.
Mr Martin called on the Government to follow Sweden’s coronavirus-tackling approach in a bid to save his pubs.
Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown, with pubs and restaurants allowed to stay open, as health officials opted for a “herd immunity” drive to combat the pandemic.
The outspoken chairman suggested the UK follow suit, as more than half of England prepares to enter the Government’s “high” or “very high” risk Covid alert tiers.
Yesterday, the Evening Standard reported on the damage that the tiered system is likely to cause the pub industry:
As Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association puts it: “Tier two measures mean pubs can remain open, but households cannot mix inside them. This completely kills our pubs’ business model making many of them totally unviable.”
… UKHospitality’s chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “Being moved into tier 2 is a curse for businesses. They will be trapped in a no man’s land of being open, but with severe restrictions that will significantly hit custom, all while unable to access the job support available in tier 3. It is the worst of both worlds for businesses.”
Unfortunately, we have Government and SAGE members driving pubs into the ground.
Here’s Sir Patrick Vallance saying there is no such thing as herd immunity. Wow:
Here’s Matt Hancock condemning herd immunity in Parliament earlier this week:
Iain Duncan Smith MP (Con) has written an article for The Telegraph saying that our economy cannot go on like this:
I agree.
While everyone is empathetic to those who have lost friends or family to COVID-19, this is also true:
I hope that Adam Brooks’s pubs survive. May they prosper next year.
I wish all publicans the very best for the future. This is a parlous state of affairs.
Breweries and heads of pub chains really should try to arrange a meeting with Matt Hancock or a Cabinet minister representing business interests.
Happy New Year!
Happy new decade!
I enjoy, albeit with trepidation at times, looking back at the decades I’ve lived through and charting the change from beginning to end.
O tempora, o mores!
1960s
In 1960, growing up in the United States, I remember that things were still quite formal. Most people took care in the way they spoke and in their appearance. They were careful to conduct their households in a respectable manner. By the middle of the decade, that began to change but not too noticeably.
By 1968, a social revolution was underway, including sexually. What was once private became public. Attire reflected that. Women began wearing skirts above the knee. Men’s clothes became more form-fitting.
Sloppiness and drugs became fashionable with the advent of hippies. Even though they were a small minority, they received a lot of media coverage. A slogan connected with them — ‘If it feels good, do it’ — began to pervade society at large.
Cinema and television reflected this change.
At home, Americans moved from watching westerns to tuning into a zany comedy hour. In 1960, Gunsmoke was the most viewed programme. In 1969, it was Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Gunsmoke had moved to sixth place in the Nielsen ratings.
Film genres and themes also shifted. In 1960, the great epics were popular, with Spartacus the highest grossing film and Exodus coming third. Psycho was second. In 1969, while Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was in the top slot, Midnight Cowboy was at No. 3, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was No. 6 and an X-rated movie, I Am Curious (Yellow) was No. 12. It would have been unthinkable in 1960 that an urban drama about homosexuality, a movie about swingers and one that was pornographic would have been so popular nine years later.
1970s
The cultural shift continued in the 1970s. American magazines and newspapers devoted many column inches to social drop-outs experimenting with communal living. Swingers were becoming popular in suburbia. Again, those were two small sub-groups of society, but everyone — even the most respectable — knew about these two phenomena.
Pop music got bolder, more sexualised. I remember in high school that we talked a lot about sex and could hardly wait to start dating so that we could experiment. Our parents wondered what was wrong with us. The idea of sin and the forbidden went out the window. ‘If it feels good, do it’ had spread to the middle classes. Previously forbidden carnal acts were encouraged as being completely ‘natural’. This furthered the evolution of a shame-free society. Today, I read that some teenagers don’t kiss on a first date; instead they engage in oral sex.
Interestingly, one of the most suggestive singers of the decade, Eric Carmen of the Raspberries, laments where this has led today:
I remember neighbours of ours getting divorced. The wife said that she could earn her own living now, thank you very much. The husband was heartbroken. We felt sorry for their two children. Until then, my family and I personally did not know any couples who got divorced. It just didn’t happen to everyday individuals. However, divorce rates continued to rise and, these days, no one bats an eyelid.
More women started working. What began as a liberating elective would turn out to be a mandatory means of survival in marriage in the years that followed. Few of us knew that then, though.
Returning to music, it was a great decade for youngsters. FM radio produced rather excellent stations devoted to little known genres that never reached Top 40 AM stations. Through them, we discovered prog rock from Britain: Yes, Rick Wakeman, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, to name but three musical greats. There were many more, too numerous to mention here.
Near the end of the decade we had disco. Saturday Night Fever was a huge box office hit and propelled John Travolta from television (Welcome Back Kotter) to cinema fame.
The most popular television sitcoms, such as Welcome Back Kotter, were all set in metropolitan areas. In terms of television in general, The Waltons was probably the only show with a rural setting.
Halfway through the decade, I spent a year in France, which was much quieter than the US socially and still quite formal, even though the more leftist state university students were generally unkempt and unwashed. In many respects, the country was a bridge between the 1960s and the 1970s in the nicest possible way.
1980s
Leaving university, I recall that many of my friends latched onto the Reagan zeitgeist and became conservatives.
They turned into their parents and lost the fun-loving verve they once had. I stayed single the longest, so was more acutely aware of a shift into respectability and suburban living.
I lived in a major US city then, earning my own way in life. For relaxation, I used to go to matinees at the weekend. The price of admission was cheaper and the cinemas were nearly empty, giving me the impression I had the big screen all to myself.
I saw a lot of world films in the first part of that decade, some from Brazil and Australia but mostly Britain and France. French film became a passion. Even one of the UHF television channels showed French films from the 1950s. Bliss.
As far as music was concerned, my favourite FM station played British and European singles apart from reggae on Sunday afternoons. More bliss.
Then, around 1986, something began to change. Although my favourite radio station stayed the same, the movie theatres weren’t showing as many foreign films. Within a couple of years, they stopped showing them altogether. One of my lifelines had vanished, sadly. The American films that replaced them were not very good, either, so I stopped going to the cinema.
Everything became very one-dimensional. America, somehow, had lost the link with the zeitgeist of European culture, which it never recovered. It used to be that people in the 1960s and early 1970s made a two- or three-week trip to western Europe to see the historic sites they learned about in school. It was what we today would call a bucket list item.
Fortunately, by the end of the decade, employment events intervened — and further improved — for me.
1990s
Living in England, I realised that I had an insatiable appetite for history and politics. I learned a lot about both thanks to a gift subscription to The Spectator, which I had read about in English lit class in high school. It’s been around since 1828.
In 1990s, my in-laws told me that Margaret Thatcher’s time was up. She had become too full of herself. We had high hopes for John Major.
I remember the 1992 election, which Major won handily. I could not understand the rage of my female colleagues who expected Neil Kinnock to win. They stayed up all night drinking, waiting for a Labour government that never came. The next day, at work, they were hungover, tearful — and, above all, angry. Why did they think he stood a chance? Perhaps I had been reading too much of The Spectator, but I had no doubt that Major would continue as Prime Minister.
By 1997, most of us felt change was needed. The Conservative MPs on the front bench seemed like tired, bloated bureaucrats. None of them had an original idea. Most seemed to be lining their own pockets. I was most consterned by Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley, who started closing A&E (Accident and Emergency) services at local hospitals. What was she thinking?
When Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997, nearly everyone I knew rejoiced. Change was coming.
And how …
2000s
The first few years of Labour were fine. I was enjoying my work too much to pay any attention.
By 2005, I longed for a Conservative government, especially when Gordon Brown became PM with no general election.
After that, Labour became unbearable, banging on about people’s personal lives and habits. The smoking ban came into force in the summer of 2007. Ministers assured us in television interviews that private members clubs and hotels would be exempt. No, not at all. It was a blanket ban everywhere.
It was during this decade that London elected its first mayor, Ken Livingstone. He served two terms and introduced the city-wide congestion charge for motor vehicles, which we called the Kengestion Charge. My colleagues at the time reminded me that, as head of the old GLA (Greater London Authority), he was known as Red Ken.
Boris Johnson succeeded him, also serving two terms. His administration made the streets tidy again and also lowered crime.
By 2006, I started looking more closely at the EU and the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels who seemed to rule our lives. I agreed with those disgruntled Britons who wanted a referendum on our membership.
Most of all, however, I was sick and tired of Labour, to the point of despair.
I also asked my far better half to cancel my gift subscription to the The Spectator, as it had changed its editorial line considerably after Boris Johnson left as editor. Although more people now read it, it is a former shadow of itself. I would not call it neither conservative nor traditional at all any more.
2010s
Hope came in the May 2010 general election.
The Conservatives had to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. It was the David Cameron and Nick Clegg Show, but at least Labour were out of the picture after 13 years.
David Cameron referred to himself as the ‘heir to Blair’. It took me some time to see it, but he was not wrong.
He set out to reform the Conservative Party and alienated older, faithful members in their local associations. CCHQ suddenly did not need their help.
On a broader level, Cameron will probably be best remembered for opening up marriage to same-sex couples and for offering us the EU referendum, billed by all parties as a ‘once in a lifetime’ choice which they all pledged to implement.
A number of televised debates took place in 2016. I watched them all. Some of my friends were less than convinced by the Leave proposition. The one clincher was Brexit The Movie, which is an hour-long eye-opener about the Brussels gravy train and better than any of the debates, no matter how good:
I stayed up until the early hours of the morning of Friday, June 24, 2016 to watch the result. When it was clear that Leave had won, I went to bed. The next day, my far better half and I woke up to Cameron resigning because he did not like the result. We had a celebratory lunch in London and went to a party that evening that had been planned months earlier. I remember the apprehension we both felt about sounding out the other party guests as to their views on the EU. We later discovered that were not alone. Finally, someone there broke the ice upon his arrival by exclaiming:
Is everybody HAPPY? I certainly am!
At that point, we were free to talk about Brexit.
Theresa May became Prime Minister later that summer.
Across the pond, another sea change was happening: Donald Trump’s candidacy. It was even more of a shock when he won. A startled nation awoke to find that Hillary Clinton was not their president.
The conflicts about Brexit and Trump continue today. Opponents to both have grown ever more vehement.
On September 20, 2019, the British website Spiked issued a thought-provoking documentary on Trump and Brexit. It’s 26-minutes long and well worth watching. To cover Brexit, their reporters interviewed residents of Southend-on-Sea in Essex. To cover the Trump phenomenon, they interviewed Pennsylvania journalist Salena Zito and residents of Erie, which was once a major industrial powerhouse in that state. It has fallen on very hard times, indeed:
The major theme running through both is, as they put it, ‘change’, which I believe they should have called ‘self determination’ and ‘recovering the aspirational dream’.
One thing that struck me was the interview with the owner of a gym in Erie. He said that his father raised seven children on a janitor’s salary:
You couldn’t do that now.
Too right. Both parents now have to work — unlike in the 1960s — and few households can support more than two or three children.
People in Britain and the United States want to work and save more of their hard-earned cash. They also want good job opportunities for their children.
A fisherman in Southend said that, because of EU rules, he is restricted to an ever-smaller part of waters in which to fish. The number of fishing boats has continued to decline, he added, and the number of fisherman has also dropped dramatically. That is why he, and many others in Southend, voted Leave in 2016.
The decade closed with Boris Johnson’s landslide victory on December 12. Historian David Starkey explores what this means for the nation in this 57-minute documentary from The Sun, ably conducted by a young reporter:
Starkey explores the evolution of Parliament since Victorian times, when it became the institution we know today. As many Northern constituencies flipped from Labour to Conservative, Starkey says that Boris’s pledge to revitalise the North will mean little unless he espouses their values of patriotism, which, he says, has been a dirty word for many years.
He says that Boris could well become a figure like Charles II, who restored the monarchy beginning in 1660. Many of their personality traits are similar, he notes, particularly their penchant for bringing a nation together and reforming it at the same time. It is well worth watching when you have the opportunity.
There is much more to Starkey’s interview than summarised here. He talks about the people of the North, Labour, Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron, Tony Blair and, significantly, Benjamin Disraeli. Starkey hopes that the PM will study his Victorian predecessor’s successes closely.
With that, I must close for now. There are many developments over the past 60 years that I have not mentioned. This is merely to give an idea about the direction that Western society took as the decades rolled on.
Welcome to 2020. Let’s hope it brings many good tidings. I wish all of us the very best.
After two days in Yorkshire ‘up hill, down dale’, Stage 3 of the Tour de France’s 2014 concluded in London, along the Mall near Buckingham Palace.
The Guardian carried glowing reviews — along with a selection of photos — of Stage 3 which began in the heart of Cambridge and continued through picturesque villages in Essex prior to hitting the nation’s capital.
The paper’s Sean Ingle reported:
On the final day of the English Grand Départ, crowds were similar in volume to those in Yorkshire, against a contrasting backdrop, with Cambridge’s King’s Parade first up, then cornfields, village greens and half-timbered houses giving way eventually to ranks of suburban houses, the Olympic velodrome and the ArcelorMittal Orbit before the Docklands light railway and the Thames appeared, after which the stage became a high-speed tour of London’s most iconic monuments: Tower Bridge, the Embankment, Big Ben.
Someone having their lunch in Piccadilly Circus a few hundred metres from the Mall, the finish of Monday’s third stage, wouldn’t have necessarily known that the world’s biggest bike race was about to steamroller through the nation’s capital. It was just one attraction among many. But as it neared its conclusion, and office doors opened and crash barriers swelled with the curious and the hard core, there was a strong sense of deja vu. London, like Yorkshire, had been smitten. Some even suggested the crowds were bigger than for the road races at the 2012 Olympics.
And it wasn’t just London. Saffron Walden swelled. Chelmsford clogged up. There were thousands in Epping Forest. And even along the long stretches of road between conurbations, where there was little but wheat or field or fauna, there were often lone cheerleaders urging the riders on. Union jacks were everywhere. It was like the Proms had started two weeks early – except the orchestra was thousands of times larger, and they were using klaxons and hands as their instruments.
Essex had far fewer of what I call field ornamentation — huge, decorative displays in farmers’ fields. Yet, as Ingle says, the spectators’ enthusiasm was excellent, particularly considering that it was a Monday.
However, after a sunny weekend in Yorkshire, the riders experienced a shower in central London which came right before the finish line. This made the final kilometre or two dangerous for them, especially as they had to negotiate quite a bit of ‘road furniture’ (e.g. bus lane dividers).
Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) won the stage with Peter Sagan (Cannondale) finishing second. Astana’s Vincenzo Nibali wore the yellow jersey for the second day running.
London’s Evening Standard has a collection of photos of the day’s cycling and all the crowds.
The final verdict from the head of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme, was:
amazing, unforgettable, and the grandest Grand Départ ever.
He is quite certain the Tour will return to Britain in future — it’s more a matter of when:
“I am very happy people want us to be back but I don’t know exactly when,” he said. “We have many requests to host the Tour: from Holland, Belgium, Italy and Spain.
“What I do know is that the welcome was exceptional. London in 2007 was very special but these three days were unforgettable. I’ve had so many messages saying how beautiful it looked, how many people there were on the roadsides. It might seem abnormal to some French people to bring the Tour to England. I can say to them: just watch!”
ITV4’s commentators said that the Dutch are closely studying these three grand days out in England in preparation for 2015’s Grand Départ in Utrecht. We wish them much success and hope it goes as well as ours did.
Credit must also go to France2 and France3 for making even the most modest village or unassuming highway look beautiful and inviting. These two channels supply the race footage we see on television. Their cameramen, especially those filming from a helicopter for the aerial shots, have a real eye for composition and detail. Coverage wouldn’t be the same without them. Chapeau — or ‘hats off’ to them!
Churchmouse Campanologist 