Abusive language has no place in politics

SIR – I watched the House of Commons tribute to Sir David Amess on Monday (report, October 19) and was full of admiration for the speakers.

All, in their own way, echoed Sir Keir Starmer, who said that politicians must make their political points strongly but called for “decency in our disagreements”. I did not, however, hear an apology from Angela Rayner, or a withdrawal of her recent comments about Tory “scum”.

I was a solicitor advocate for many years, and barristers and solicitors have the same ethos. If we used the sort of abusive comments made by Ms Rayner at the Labour conference, we suffered the wrath of either a judge or the Law Society and Bar Council.

Hopefully, parliamentarians have a standards committee that does the same job, although some of the people who heard Ms Rayner no doubt think her behaviour was acceptable.

Bruce Edgington

Rochester, Kent

SIR – Philip Spicksley (Letters, October 18) is sympathetic with the police for not allowing a priest to administer last rites to Sir David Amess, in order to preserve the crime scene.

In this case, however, they had the murderer (who did not try to escape or to hide his guilt), the weapon and witnesses. Under these circumstances, I cannot agree with Mr Spicksley.

If we follow his line of thinking, we should not allow paramedics or other life-saving efforts into such a situation. I hope that, in future, common sense and a degree of humanity will prevail. S P Morris

London W5

SIR – The letter (October 17) from Karl Ludvigsen on the need for CCTV in MPS’ surgeries does not address the sad fact that fanatics would not care about cameras, as they are usually happy to be apprehended after committing their atrocities.

Forestalling future attacks will require airline-style security, with an armed presence at the main entrance to the venue and all exits secured. Terry Eiss

Roses, Girona, Spain