The brutal murder of Sir David Amos has horrified millions of people and it demands a debate.

It demands a debate because this is the second member of Parliament that had been murdered

in a suspected terrorist attack in around half a decade.

And that discussion needs to focus on how we can keep our members of Parliament safe

as they conduct their public duties without separating them from the voters and communities

who they exist to represent and to serve.

Now we shouldn't understate the threat to our democracy from this.

What of the sense of fear that our public representatives will have which may deter them

from communicating and listening to their constituents and their voters?

What of the potentially excellent public representatives who won't put themselves forward for election

because of the fear they have for their own safety?

Now, if this is, as evidence suggests, Islamist fundamentalist terrorism,

then we need a debate and a discussion about that radicalisation.

But this whole discussion has been completely derailed and hijacked in a direction

which isn't about keeping members of Parliament safe.

These tangents are profoundly cynical and they distract from the measures that we should be focusing on to keep our MP safe.

Now, the government for a start has suggested that we ban anonymous social media accounts,

something which isn't even vaguely relevant to this murder by someone who clearly was not cloaked in anonymity.

Now, as someone who, myself, gets hundreds of abusive messages and often threats on a daily basis

from anonymous social media accounts, I'm not belittling the problem that exists in that particular case.

I'm just saying that form of abuse is not relevant to this discussion.

Now, as one journalist pointed out, every politician coming out in favour of banning anonymity on the internet

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