It’s never a good sign when you turn on your phone to find a dozen messages asking if you are OK. For reasons you will come to understand, I only get those messages when something awful has happened.

So yesterday, when I came out of an all-day meeting on antisemitism and picked up the messages from friends, I clicked across to check the news with real dread. The last time I’d received a similar barrage of messages was when former UK MP Ann Widdecombe was killed earlier this year.

As I read the news about the alleged attack on Australian MP Helen Haines, the dread I felt was followed by what I can best describe as a punch to the gut. A wave of shock. Deep sorrow. The despair that another elected representative had been so brutally injured.

Jo Cox MP, my late wife, was murdered in 2016 in her constituency in Yorkshire, England by a far-right extremist as she went about her constituency work.

Helen’s story reminded me of what happened to Jo. Both incidents took place in a small town far from the corridors of power. Helen, like Jo,........

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