People gathered in Trafalgar Square to commemorate Jo Cox MP the week after her murder in 2016 (Stephen Chun/Alamy)

7 min read41 min

Jo was genuinely one of the nicest people you could hope to meet. She brought a unique combination of hard-headed pragmatism and deep compassion to the job of an MP. She was a politician, but she was first and foremost a passionate humanitarian – and a realist at the same time, always looking for solutions that were practical and achievable – and ways to bring people together, not drive them apart. Qualities we need now more than ever.

Jo fought for justice, equality and for the rights of those less fortunate than herself. She was full of kindness and a deeply held determination to make a difference. After working in the voluntary sector for over 15 years, Jo moved into politics here in the UK, but her main objective remained the same – to make a difference to the lives of those around her – and from Bosnia to Batley and Syria to the Spen Valley, this is what she did. 

She knew how lucky we had been in life to have two wonderful parents who loved us unconditionally, and to have each other, along with a wide network of family and friends, enough food to eat and a safe environment in which to live. Through her humanitarian work, she had sadly seen many people who were not so fortunate.

Jo also knew, as I do, the power of diversity, and the beauty of difference in human beings. We were both always incredibly interested in other people and always had lots of questions whenever we met someone new. From a young age we took great pleasure in hearing stories of people from a wide range of backgrounds. The differences were not a focus, but nor were they invisible – they were something to be cherished and celebrated.

It was a big decision to put herself forward as MP for Batley and Spen in 2015 as her children were so young. But it was a job she loved and she had already started to make a huge impact in the role, both nationally and locally. But everything was torn apart – and changed forever – when Jo was murdered while going about her duties in the constituency.

Jo was murdered on 16 June 2016, just one week before the Brexit referendum, and a week before her 42nd birthday. She had worked in some of the world’s most dangerous countries, but she was killed not in some distant place, not a warzone, but on the streets of her constituency while carrying out her democratic duty as an elected representative. Ten minutes from where we live. 

It shocked the nation. It horrified the world. It left our family utterly bereft. And it left two small children without their mum.

We must be honest about the atmosphere in which Jo’s murder took place. The Brexit referendum was one of the most divisive periods in modern British history. People were encouraged to see each other not as neighbours with differing opinions but as enemies. 

Public discourse became increasingly toxic. Fear was weaponised. Anger became political currency. Complex issues were reduced to slogans, and compromise was portrayed as weakness. 

Of course, disagreement is part of democracy. Debate is healthy. Passion in politics is natural. But what developed around Brexit went beyond disagreement. It became something darker. 

Social media amplified outrage. Politicians and commentators often chose confrontation over understanding because division attracted attention. Entire communities became fractured. Families argued. Friendships broke down. Trust in institutions collapsed. In that climate, hatred found oxygen. 

To say that Brexit was responsible for Jo’s murder would be simplistic and untrue. One individual committed that heinous crime – a far-right neo-Nazi whose evil act was his and his alone. But things don’t happen in a vacuum, and we cannot ignore the broader social and political atmosphere that surrounded it.

Toxic rhetoric, nationalism pushed to extremes, conspiracy, scapegoating and the dehumanisation of opponents all contributed to a society under immense strain. The language we use in politics matters – because language shapes culture, and culture shapes behaviour. 

When people are constantly told that others are traitors, enemies, invaders, or threats to the nation, eventually some individuals begin to believe that hostility and violence are justified. That is why remembering how and why Jo was killed matters so deeply. If we reduce her death to an isolated act, we learn nothing. 

If we refuse to examine the environment of anger and polarisation that surrounded it, then we fail both her memory and our democracy. And sadly, a decade later, many of the same forces are still with us – perhaps even stronger. 

Today, polarisation dominates public life. Across politics, media and online platforms, people are increasingly pushed into opposing camps. Nuance disappears and every issue becomes a battle. Every disagreement becomes moral warfare. 

When people are constantly told that others are traitors, enemies, invaders, or threats to the nation, eventually some individuals begin to believe that hostility and violence are justified

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We see a growing blame culture in Britain. When the economy struggles, when public services fail, when communities feel left behind, someone must be blamed. 

Migrants are blamed. Politicians are blamed. The poor are blamed. The wealthy are blamed.

The young blame the old. The old blame the young. Cities blame rural communities. Rural communities blame cities. And through all of this, we risk losing sight of our shared humanity.

So much has been done over the last 10 years to remember Jo and ensure her name and her values are never forgotten – but there is undoubtedly more to do. And I believe we can – and we must – all play our part.

There is no doubt that we face some challenges as a country, and it can be hard to stay positive. But I do remain optimistic – because it is also true that we have a country full of inspirational people who – day in and day out – show the very best of us. And it is their stories that need to be told.

Whether it is the litter pickers, the sports coaches, the library volunteers, the doctors, nurses, teachers, charity workers or the scout and guide leaders. The people who seek to unite us, not divide us, and who show compassion, empathy and unity every day.

And surely we must all choose compassion, empathy and unity over hatred and division. Empathy is not weakness. Compassion is not naivety. Understanding another person’s fears does not mean abandoning our principles. 

Jo understood this better than most. She believed deeply in human dignity. She believed people from different backgrounds could live together peacefully. She believed Britain was strongest when it was open-hearted rather than fearful. 

That belief cost her her life. But it must not die with her. 

If there is one lesson we should take from her legacy, it is this: hatred grows when good people become indifferent to division. The answer to polarisation cannot be more polarisation. The answer to fear cannot be more fear. The answer must be courage. 

The courage to listen. The courage to speak responsibly. The courage to reject extremism. The courage to defend democratic values even when emotions run high. And most importantly, the courage to remember that we belong to one another. 

Do we want a society defined by outrage and suspicion? Or one defined by compassion and solidarity? Do we want future generations to inherit division? Or do we want them to inherit hope? The choice is ours. 

And perhaps the greatest tribute we can offer Jo is not merely to repeat her words but to live by them, and show that we really are “far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us”. 

Kim Leadbeater is the Labour MP for Spen Valley

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Gambling harms millions of Britons a year. An estimated 1.4 million people experience problem gambling, including tens of thousands of children, with multiples more harmed indirectly. Families are ruined, debt is accrued, crimes are committed, high streets are ravaged, and lives are taken.

Why would society want something so destructive to be promoted? These facts alone should be enough for a government to end gambling advertising, but we know that economic growth is a defining mission and must be considered.

Fortunately, action on gambling ads is a kind of holy grail for policymakers. Sir Iain Duncan Smith recently said: “It is a rare thing for a policy that will protect people from harm to also help deliver economic growth, cost the government nothing, and have popular public support. Gambling reform is one such policy.”

Numerous studies have shown that if we reduce gambling at the population level we would boost the economy. According to Sheffield University this year, a 10 per cent reduction in gambling spend would lead to a £1.25bn uplift and more than 22,000 new jobs. Imagine what could be achieved if we cut it in half.

The researchers emphasise that these figures are likely an underestimate of the true economic benefit as they don’t account for the massive secondary gains from a healthier workforce, such as reduced sickness and increased productivity. Neither do they allow for the reduction in the multi-billion-pound cost to society of the damage gambling causes.

Evidence in this area is growing all the time. Latest Department of Culture Media and Sport statistics on the Gross Value Add (GVA) of their sectors show that gambling is by far the lowest contributor. What’s more its GVA has fallen by as much as 40 per cent since 2019 despite gambling revenues growing.

What lies behind this apparent paradox is unclear, but it might be to do with the gambling sector’s move away from labour-intensive forms of gambling (high street bookmakers/land-based casinos) towards data-driven online slots, based overseas in low tax jurisdictions.

That won’t stop the sector crying foul against a ban on gambling ads with siren calls about the need to protect jobs at bookmakers, and sport’s dependence on gambling revenues. But land-based bookmakers were sustainable before ubiquitous gambling advertising was permitted, and sport’s dependence on gambling revenues has been described as “illusory” by the former CEO of the FA and Chairman of Tranmere Rovers, Mark Pallios. You only need to look at how Formula 1 thrived after its cars stopped looking like cigarette packets to get an appropriate parallel.

So what of the sector’s final challenge – the “black market bogeyman”? The argument goes that if we ban gambling advertising then illegal casinos will simply swoop in and take over the market. If this sounds familiar it’s because a similar argument has been deployed by big tobacco for years, but policy makers have become so accustomed to their misinformation that it bounces off.

The unlicensed market for gambling is more complicated, and the sector’s claims are worthy of investigation before being dismissed. The best estimates of the size of the unlicensed sector are that it represents less than 10 per cent of the online gambling market in Great Britain excluding the lottery, and approximately 4 per cent of the total gambling market. Not insubstantial, but not significant enough to dictate policy.

Go a little deeper and the scaremongering becomes more apparent. It turns out that over half the people who use illegal gambling websites are doing so because they’ve excluded themselves from legal sites. In other words, they’ve become addicted to gambling using licensed operators’ products, have tried to stop by self-excluding online, and have then relapsed by being lured back in by unlicensed casinos that don’t abide by the rules.

In this way a liberal licensed market for gambling eventually leads to growth of the illegal market. This is a situation that is currently playing out in America, where states are being lobbied to liberalise gambling as a way to combat illegal gambling, only to end up with an out-of-control licensed sector alongside an out-of-control and growing illegal sector.

The only sensible response is to stop stimulating the market for gambling – full stop. Banning gambling advertising across the board would make it much harder for both illegal and legal sites to advertise, and it would stop normalising gambling, which undoubtedly has been a disaster for Britain. Polling for the Coalition to End Gambling Ads (CEGA) by More in Common shows support across the political spectrum.

The cherry on top of this opportunity for government is that it already has the power to ban gambling ads included in the 2005 Gambling Act. The Labour government that passed that legislation thought they might need a policy handbrake in case their newly liberalised gambling sector got out of control. It’s time for the current Labour government to use it.

Photography by Tom Pilston

10 min read6 min

In Lord Heseltine’s sitting room, which offers a view of his estate’s sloping lawns and serpentine lake, a bookcase is lined with Nikolaus Pevsner’s 46-volume series The Buildings of England. The Northamptonshire edition has been bookmarked, possibly on the page describing Heseltine’s 261-year-old Palladian manor, Thenford House, as “decidedly conservative for its date”.

The former deputy prime minister, now aged 93, is perhaps known less for what he conserved, and more for what he tore down and built anew. His most enduring legacy can be found in two of 20th-century Britain’s most significant regeneration projects: the redevelopment of Liverpool and the creation of Canary Wharf. Both were instigated during his time as environment secretary under Margaret Thatcher.

As the Labour government plans to build seven new towns across England, along with potential development corporations to deliver thousands more homes in Oxford and Cambridge, ministers could do worse than look to Heseltine, who overcame significant opposition within Whitehall to get his projects off the ground.

“Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas,” the peer points out. “Every aspect of the British administrative system was opposed to what I was trying to do.

“The Treasury were against because it cost money. Keith Joseph, who was the great intellectual guru of the Thatcher years, was against because it was interventionist. My department was against because it was interfering with local government. The spending departments were against because it was a challenge to their monopolist, functional power structure.

“But I knew enough about government across the world to know that we were a top-heavy, centralised, functionally divided, administrative country – and that is the least effective way to run a country.”

In Liverpool particularly, Heseltine took what now seems a remarkably hands-on approach. Every Thursday for about 18 months, he would meet with a team of secondees from the public and private sectors in the city. They would update him on any political or logistical blockages hindering the scheme – and each Friday, he would ensure they were unblocked.

“For 18 months under Mrs Thatcher, I was [part of] the most interventionist government in British history,” he declares.

Heseltine later set his sights on getting new homes and infrastructure built in the “east Thames corridor” of south Essex and north Kent – a vision never fully realised in the years since. But the peer has not let go of the idea, and in a call for action from ministers, he urges them to resurrect his plan for ‘Hezzaville’, as it was dubbed by the media.

“The biggest potential growth area in Britain is the Thames Estuary,” he says. The problem that governments face there and elsewhere, he believes, is one of political and economic geography. He argues that England’s local government is still far too fractured and should be simplified along the lines recommended in the 1969 Redcliffe-Maud report.

“You need about 60 authorities, with directly elected mayors. Instead of doing a development corporation for a new town in a particular area, you should let the mayor of the county create the necessary structures. The important thing is to have the local person in charge and with resources,” he says.

To get ‘Hezzaville’ off the ground, the peer has a roadmap at the ready: “Essex and Kent should have unitary mayors – full stop. They should then set up a development corporation with roving powers over the estuary. They don’t need to take away the whole power structure – they should simply determine where growth is relevant in the estuary and then work with any development corporation to accelerate that potential.”

Some of the infrastructure need is already being met. The government is pressing ahead with the Lower Thames Crossing, and it is thanks to Heseltine that the High Speed 1 rail route already includes a stop at Ebbsfleet.

The peer was a big supporter of its successor, High Speed 2, and accused Rishi Sunak of committing a “gross act of vandalism” by scrapping the route’s ‘northern’ leg to Manchester in 2023.With an estimated cost now stretching potentially above £100bn, Heseltine laughs when asked what can be done to rescue HS2.

“I have a simple slogan in life: show me a problem, show me the person in charge. It’s not a bad slogan. You need somebody with the skill, tenacity and frankly the determination to make the thing work.”

Comparisons with road and rail projects on the continent, he caveats, are not entirely fair.

“We are a very small, tightly-developed island, so the problems here are quite different to building great motorways on the continent – but it is a national disgrace.”

The scheme will be one of several to watch if Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham becomes prime minister. In his campaign to become Makerfield’s MP, Burnham lays the blame for Britain’s ills squarely at Thatcher’s door, as he condemns her government for the “privatisation of life’s essentials”.

Heseltine refuses to get into a sparring match over this. He knows the Labour leadership hopeful “very well” and praises him for having “made a success of the Manchester mayoralty”.

In his 2025 book From Acorns to Oaks, however, Heseltine argued that privatising each public utility “required careful examination to ensure the proposed structure would deliver a wider spread of wealth in a more competitive environment”.

He wrote: “Judged against the above criteria, it can be argued that water privatisation failed both of these tests, for example.”

It is a point he reiterates to The House: “It’s very difficult to see how you have competition with the water industry, so I think there is a legitimate case to ask questions there.”

What he wants, he says, is “the maximum amount of competition and accountability in the management of resources”, while emphasising that the private sector “is an absolutely fundamental bastion of freedom”.

Does he see any case for renationalising the water industry, then? “I would be very reluctant to do that,” he says. “Look, I have not studied the water industry in the last week, month or year or so, so I don’t know what I would do.

“All I know is, whenever I looked at any of these things – and I certainly did privatise more of the state than anybody else ever has, or ever will – I’ve never regretted [it].”

Even if the formal mechanisms for one haven’t yet been triggered, a Labour leadership contest is effectively underway. Would Burnham or Wes Streeting make a better PM than Keir Starmer?

“I actually like Keir Starmer,” the peer replies. “I think he’s a nice guy and a good guy – and he’s got a terrible job.”

Starmer is struggling, he points out, amid problems caused by Donald Trump’s US administration, the war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East and the impacts of Brexit.

“Every aspect of the British administrative system was opposed to what I was trying to do”

While the PM is “undoubtedly culpable” for the effects of his government’s tax policies, Heseltine argues there is “very little he can do” about those other four issues, calling it an “absolutely non-win” situation.

“In many ways, any prime minister would be in this present situation, because the underlying malaise affecting this government is the one that always affects governments: living standards are falling and people want change. It’s as simple as that.”

He will not be drawn further on the question of Labour’s leadership, but adds: “My preoccupation with the Makerfield by-election is very simple. We must not have Reform or Restore or anything like it anywhere near the corridors of power in this country. I’ve seen it all before. [Oswald] Mosley in the 30s, Enoch Powell in the 60s.”

He claims that “the Reform and the Restore generation” are making “the most sinister, antisemitic, extremist appeal to a very nasty side of the human character”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has always admired Thatcher, saying after her death that she was a “great inspiration” to him. What might the Iron Lady have made of Farage, had she been alive to see the rise of his political project?

“She’d have hated him,” Heseltine replies without hesitation. “Nigel Farage will assimilate himself with anyone he thinks has got a resonance in public opinion. He is Donald Trump’s vicar in Britain…

“But the origins of ‘Nigel Trump’ are a guy with a beer tankard and a fag. Then the farmers get into trouble, and he turns up looking like a farmer – and this is all a communications process.

Successful, but based on opportunism, based on a degree of prejudices which I find abhorrent. She would have had nothing to do with him.”

If Farage’s party is as dangerous as he claims, should the Tories have stood down in Makerfield and endorsed Burnham?

“I don’t think you can stand aside. I think you attack Reform. You throw everything into the battle.”

So far, the Tories have distanced themselves from Reform on fiscal policy, but have made little attempt to do so on areas like immigration.

“There will come someone,” is all Heseltine says in response to this point, with a slight smirk. Is he saying someone in the Conservative Party will have to start making that case?

“There will come someone, yes,” he repeats. “David Cameron came from not a totally different background.”

What then of the party’s current leader, Kemi Badenoch? Has he been impressed by her performance over the last 18 months?

“Well, I think she is beginning to climb the ladder,” he offers, cryptically.

Has his opinion of her changed at all?

“I had no opinion. I’ve never met her.”

Does he think she’ll win the next general election?

“I think she’s got a very challenging journey, and I’m not going to make any simplistic statements.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

At an age when most people would be looking to retire from public life, Heseltine clearly enjoys his status as an elder statesman – and he stands ready with a prescription to deliver Starmer’s elusive “decade of national renewal”.

“I know what this country needs to do,” he says. “First to get rid of its punitive tax policies, secondly to rejoin the European Union and thirdly to go for a devolution agenda.”

Devolution, he argues, has stalled outside England: “What Scotland and Wales did was to replicate Whitehall in Cardiff and Edinburgh.

“I come from South Wales, Swansea. We didn’t think that Cardiff was all that special. Why can’t Swansea be its own self-governing unit? Pembrokeshire, mid-Wales, north Wales [too]. If I was a Conservative in those principalities, that’s what I’d be saying.”

Rejoining the EU, meanwhile, has returned as a serious long-term prospect. If rejoining would be so beneficial for everyone concerned, should Brussels be making a compelling offer to Britain that even Farage would find hard to argue against? For example, one that would give the UK all of the opt-outs it had before?

“If I was the EU, I wouldn’t do that, because I wouldn’t want to look silly. You’ve got to wait until this country has people who are prepared to say, ‘This is what we want to do,’ and carry the public support with them. If I was the EU, I would be waiting for that to happen; I would do everything I could to encourage that to happen. That’s what diplomacy’s about; that’s what private conversations are about.

“If I was a European today, I would know that Britain is an invaluable part of the European power structure. When I see what Donald Trump is saying, it’s a vital part of the defence of Europe.

“But it’s for the young people. It’s for the opportunity to be part of the only credible power structure which can offer us the avenue to research and development on a relevant scale in the modern world.” 

In May 2019, Ellie Gould was murdered in her home by an ex-boyfriend. She was 17 years old. Because her killer was also 17, he received a prison sentence much shorter than if he had been older. That injustice motivated Carole Gould, Ellie’s mother, to campaign for changes to the law and catapulted her into the public eye.

“Ellie had such a bright future ahead of her,” her mother tells us. “She would have given so much to society. She was so caring and kind and bright, vivacious, and intelligent. She was an amazing young woman.”

At the start of our sit-down conversation with Gould, I describe what she has experienced as “unimaginable”. As the words come out, I apologise for it being a cliché. But some things are clichés precisely because they are true. Having to deal with the murder of your child is something that few of us can imagine.

But Gould is clear that it was not something that she ever contemplated either. Instead, a single act of violence ripped through the fabric of an entirely ordinary life.

 “I just quite enjoyed our little life in Wiltshire,” Gould tells us. “You know, we were happy.”

That life was turned upside down when Ellie was killed. Gould was thrust into a new and entirely unfamiliar world of police liaison officers, courtrooms and barristers. Having to navigate that system felt like stepping inside a hidden world where the voices of victims were often coldly disregarded.

“We understood it that victims were meant to be first and central to the criminal justice system,” she tells us. “Well, they’re really not. It’s all the perpetrators. It’s all about them.”

Gould often felt a huge sense of powerlessness in the face of a legal system that she describes as “cold.” Because Ellie’s killer was 17, he was not sentenced as an adult. Instead, he was handed a life term of twelve-and-a-half years in prison.  

“I just remember saying to our barrister, ‘That can’t be right. That’s immoral. That’s unjust. You’ve got to appeal it,’” Gould remembers. “He just said, ‘I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again, that is the law. It’s sentenced within the guidelines. The law is cold, and there’s nothing more I can do.’ And off he went. That was it.”

But for Gould, that was certainly not “it”. Fuelled by a sense of injustice, she began to publicly speak out about the inequity of sentencing guidelines that made no distinction between the actions of a 10-year-old and those of a 17-year-old.

“I think it was the injustice, how immoral the outcome was,” she tells us. “Ellie was an amazing young woman. For the state to say, your life is only worth twelve-and-a-half years was just shocking.”

She contacted her local MP and began to raise the issue in the media. Other families who had experienced loss through homicide contacted her. Soon, a new campaign was born. Killed Women was co-founded by Gould and Julie Devey, whose daughter Poppy was murdered in 2018. The campaign has supported families, pressed for sentencing reforms and given a voice to those who felt let down by the legal system.

And as Gould learnt more about the rules around sentencing for domestic homicide, the angrier she became, leading her to campaign for tougher sentences for teenage killers.

“When they introduced Ellie’s Law, they said that the youth sentencing would be a percentage of the adult sentencing. Then I looked into the adult sentencing and thought, how can it be right that if you’re murdered in the home, that’s 10 years less than if you’re murdered in the street? It just felt like you unpick one thing and then you have to unpick another.”

When Ellie’s Law was first announced, Gould spoke out against it because it perversely led to a starting point that would actually have been lower for her own daughter’s murderer. Arguments that it would increase sentences for terrorists, and some other killers missed the central point that the driving force behind the campaign was speaking up for women killed by men.

“Ellie was a victim of male violence, so it felt like a huge insult and that we were used as a poster family to make the government look good,” Gould says. “I think at the time, Sir Robert Buckland [the then Justice Secretary] was horrified that his civil servants had not looked into the detail enough.”

The law was subsequently revised so that a 17-year-old can now receive 90 per cent of an adult sentence. With other campaigners, Gould has also been successful in having a range of new aggravating factors applied to sentencing. It now means that if a woman is murdered because of the end of a relationship, if there is strangulation, overkill, or a history of coercive control, then extra time can be added by a judge.

However, Gould believes that having those factors in the sentencing guidelines is not yet delivering the longer sentences that she and others would like to see.

“Even though it’s written into the sentencing guidelines, they are not adding any extra time for these new statutory aggravating factors,” she explains. “I just think there needs to be a huge cultural shift within judges and the judiciary to start taking crimes against women and girls seriously.”

Coincidentally, the week that we spoke with Gould, the headlines were again dominated by a story about youth sentencing. Three teenage boys had just received non-custodial sentences for the rape of two girls in Hampshire. Ellie’s Law applies only to murder, but Gould told us that the Hampshire case illustrates an ongoing disregard for the seriousness of offences against women and girls.

“I think what it exposes is a judge, a male judge, once again, not taking violence against women and girls seriously,” she told us. “And not understanding the huge impact that it will have on those young girls for the rest of their lives.”

Throughout our conversation, it is clear that Gould remains angry. It would be easy to conclude that this is what motivates her. But that would be a mistake. Above all else, her campaigning is driven not by anger but by love.

“Ellie was worth so much more, and this is what she would have wanted,” she says. “She would have wanted proper justice and accountability. I have to be that voice.”