Hello and welcome to the Spiked podcast. I'm Tom Slater, editor of Spite and joining me today, we have

Rakib Asan, Spike columnist. Hello. And welcoming back to the show, Francis Foster, co-host of

Trigonometry and Francis Foster sorts your life out. How are you doing, Francis? Yeah, I'm very good, Tom.

How are you, mate? Not too bad, not too bad. We're discussing some pretty awful news today, the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, the horrific murder of Arena Zerutska,

as well as checking in on what's going on in the Labour Party.

So Charlie Kirk has been murdered, aged just 31, the CEO of the campus conservative group, Turning Point USA.

He was giving a speech, as he often did, at a university campus in Utah, when he was shot in front of a crowd, died just a few hours afterwards, has left a wife and two young children.

Absolutely horrific moment and something which has had huge global impact.

You've had Donald Trump paying his respects to someone who was such a core part of his coalition, of his base.

You've had a lot of shock, I think, across America

at someone appearing to have been killed in cold blood just because of what they said, just because

of the ideas that they put out there. Francis, we're still kind of absorbing this news.

But what, you know, how did you hear about it? And what did you think when you found out what

had taken place? Well, I was, I was at home and I got a

message from a mutual friend of ours, a comedian Leo Curse, he said, have you heard the news

about Charlie Kirk? He's been shot. I really couldn't believe it. I couldn't process it because Charlie

was one of those, I mean, it sounds cliche to say, one of those larger than life figures. He was somebody who had risen to prominence over the past few years, had this incredible social media presence. He had a real presence on stage as well. He was very charismatic when engaging in debates. And he's one of those people that you could see being a fulcrum of the American

right for generations to come and I mean just to see him cut down in his prime only 31 years old

by you said leaving a young family behind and a wife it's just unbelievably tragic and if we

just put politics aside for a moment,

the fact that there's going to be two children waking up this morning who are now without a dad

and a wife without our husband is just too much to bear, to be honest with you. Absolutely. And

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