Bodyguard-style threat to target MP’s children
A DERANGED protester has threatened to track down a female MP’s children at their primary school.
A police inquiry was launched last week after the protester correctly identified the school.
The threat had chilling echoes of the BBC’s political thriller Bodyguard, which starred Keeley Hawes as Home Secretary Julia Montague and Richard Madden as her protection officer David Budd.
In the drama, terrorists locate Budd’s children’s school then try to blow it up. The plot is foiled just in time, although several police officers are killed.
The threat to the MP’s children is the latest in a surge of abuse directed at politicians on all sides amid tensions over Brexit.
An all-party group of female MPs, led by Labour’s Harriet Harman, met Speaker John Bercow this week to complain that the Metropolitan Police is failing to protect MPs and their staff.
Women MPs are to demand a meeting with Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick to discuss the issue.
Tory MP Robert Halfon said ‘Brexit madness’ had turned Parliament into a ‘boiling pot of mental ill-health’.
He claimed the Commons was ‘having a collective breakdown’, which he described as ‘a cross between Lord of the Flies and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.
The Speaker last week issued advice to MPs urging them to seek medical help or counselling for exhaustion and stress caused by threats and feuds over Brexit.
Former Labour Europe minister Pat McFadden collapsed in the Commons during a Brexit vote, while another MP fainted shortly before he was due to make a speech.
Both were taken to hospital by SNP MP Dr Philippa Whitford, who says politicians’ physical and mental health is under ‘relentless’ pressure because of Brexit.
Dr Whitford said: ‘Some of the death threats have been worse than general social media abuse. MPs have been told, “We know where you live,” and even, “We know which primary school your kids go to.” They even named the school. It’s scary.’
She said many MPs are over 50 and unfit, and that Brexit tensions meant those with a history of heart problems, diabetes or high blood pressure are at greater risk of ill-health than usual.
Several have been put on medication for stress-related ulcers, while others have been told to rest by their GPs.