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Counter-terrorism police are now leading the investigation into the death of Ann Widdecombe, after “new information and evidence has come to light”. The 'political ideology' of the suspect is now being examined by detectives. Tom Swarbrick says this raises questions for the security of our political figures. 00:00 Tom Swarbrick is joined by LBC's crime correspondent Andy Hughes for the police update. 03:24 Reform's Andrew Rosindell MP, who was a friend of Ann Widdecombe, says he has been conducting his contituency surgeries in a different way since the murder of Sir David Amess MP. 10:21 Former Conservative Security Minister Tom Tugendhat says in his position, he requested security for Nigel Farage upon him becoming a candidate to be an MP. 13:03 Labour's Lucy Rigby discussed the 'culture of abuse, intimidation and in the very worst cases, violence', which has resulted in increased spending on security for MPs. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #lbc #tomswarbrick #annwiddecombe #security #police #crimenews #crime #uknews #ukpolitics LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
The diplomatic way of putting this would be to say that statement from the police the other day
0:05
is now pretty regrettable. Having been relatively categorical about there being no terror or
0:13
political motivation for the alleged murder of the reformed politician Anne Whittacombe, yesterday afternoon all that changed. Now counter-terror police are leading the investigation
0:22
after police say new information came to light. Andy Hughes is RBC's crime correspondent
0:28
and co-host of the global podcast, The Crime Agents, to take us through the story of the police response here, Andy
0:34
Yes, good morning, Tom. Let me start by setting out the timeline of the events of the last week
0:40
Anne Whittakin was attacked at a home in Devon at around 12.30 on Wednesday afternoon
0:46
Two days later, on Friday, Devon and Cornwall police launched a murder investigation
0:50
and said they were looking for a white male. Later that day, they arrested a 26-year-old man
0:57
but he was released the following day without charge. And on Saturday, a 28-year-old white British male was arrested in Rotherham
1:05
more than 260 miles away from the former Tory minister's home. Police later said there was no evidence to suggest that the killing was politically motivated
1:16
But that all changed yesterday, when counter-terrorism police announced it was leading the investigation
1:21
after new information and evidence had come to light. Sources have told me that detectives have found materials suggesting that political ideology may be a motivating factor
1:33
However, the investigation is in its early stages. Counter-terrorism investigations can also involve religious, racial or other extreme ideologies
1:44
This case raises serious questions about the security of political figures. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said this in the House of Commons
1:52
Mr Speaker I know this raises questions about the security of those in public life
1:58
I will not be the only one here thinking also of two other beloved members of this house
2:04
Joe Cox and Sir David Amess Politics is a calling for those of us here
2:10
But it should not be a dangerous one And so it is incumbent on the house and the government
2:15
To work together to protect those who choose to serve The Home Office and the police work closely with the Parliamentary Security Department
2:22
to provide practical advice and support directly to MPs. The suspect has been re-arrested on suspicion of the commission
2:30
preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, and that means under terrorism laws
2:36
the suspect can be held for up to 14 days for questioning. There's a suggestion in some of the newspapers this morning, Andy
2:41
that one of the things that might have changed the police's mind here, or at least the new information that came to light
2:46
is the political material that they may have found, including, I see papers reporting, communist material
2:52
Do we know any more about that? We don't, yeah. I mean, this is all through different sources
2:57
What is clear is that either in the questioning of the suspect
3:00
or the search of the suspect's home or the search of the suspect's devices
3:05
they have found something which has made Devon and Cornwall Police pass this over to counter-terrorism police
3:13
As you say, there are questions about the police initial response and then, of course, what it means for the security of politicians
3:18
Andy, thank you very much indeed. Andy Hughes, obviously crime correspondent, and co-host of the global podcast The Crime Agents. Nine minutes past seven at a time. Andrew
3:24
Rosendale is a reform UK MP for Romford and a friend of the late Anne Whittacombe. Thank you
3:28
very much indeed for coming on the programme Mr Rosendale My condolences to you I wonder what you make then of the police initial response to this Well good morning Tom We all still devastated at the loss of Anne She was a wonderful person and a dear friend and a great loss to the country
3:46
But I have to say, the way the police handled this to start with
3:50
really calls into question their judgment. Why would they rule out any type of political or terrorist activity
3:59
only to then find there is evidence to suggest that that potentially is the case anyway
4:05
Surely they should have said nothing until they really got to the bottom of what was behind this
4:12
It almost looks like they were trying to manage the media and the feeling amongst members of the public over this
4:22
So, no, I'm not happy with the way the police have handled it, but we still don't know the full fact
4:28
so I'm not going to speculate. What I do know is that Anne Whittacombe was a great stateswoman
4:35
She did so much for our country. She was a conviction politician, and we don't get many of those these days
4:40
And to lose her in such horrific circumstances, I think is just so utterly appalling
4:48
And as someone who was a friend of David Amess, and Anne was a close friend of David Amess as well
4:53
this is particularly devastating for me and so many others at this time
5:00
Totally understand. The police, I think, might say that whilst they had no information at that moment
5:07
that there was a potential political or terror motivation, facts change. The investigation moves on and now that the facts have changed, they've changed their mind
5:16
Would that be a fair assessment of where we are with this rather than the police trying to steer people away from that
5:22
so look i don't want to get into too much criticism of the police at this stage they've got a job to
5:28
do i'm not here to to criticize or undermine their investigation what i am unhappy about is that they
5:34
should make any kind of statement about what it may not be about when they didn't know clearly
5:39
they didn't know and it just looked to me like it was managing the media on this now that's not
5:46
their job their job is just to tell us the facts as they come to light they clearly didn't have the
5:52
facts and it would have been better had they said nothing than say something which has turned out to
5:56
be potentially incorrect. Can I ask you then about what this raises in terms of questions for MPs
6:04
safety or indeed actually politicians, people who enter the political fray frankly because Anne
6:08
of course wasn't an MP at the time. Do you think MPs should all be offered personal protection
6:14
as a matter of course now? I think each MP is different
6:21
Some MPs just simply wouldn't want it. Other MPs are very high profile and should get it
6:28
At the moment, we have a very weak system of protecting members of Parliament
6:33
We all have very limited protection and we're all very vulnerable. One of the things that have been said a lot in the last few days
6:41
is that how MPs are extremely protected within the Palace of Westminster
6:47
In fact, we're overprotected there. But outside, as soon as we step outside into Parliament Square
6:54
there's no protection. And there's no protection in the constituencies either, or very little
6:59
So, yes, I think there needs to be a far better way of protecting public figures
7:05
MPs, politicians, and former politicians like Anne, who are still very prominent in politics In fact she wasn MP She was clearly still a target of those that want to do harm to people they disagree with
7:19
Do you now worry about holding your constituency surgeries? Well, I'll be honest with you
7:24
I reigned in on constituency surgeries after the murder of David. I mean, David was an MP up the road from me in Southend
7:32
And to have constituency surgeries in the old way, I stopped. because everyone said to me, you just can't do this anymore
7:40
So I still do surgeries, but it's in a very limited way and it's in more of a controlled environment
7:46
But frankly, it does make our job very hard to do. And also, we all walk around our constituencies
7:55
we go to the train station, we meet people, people stop us in the street
8:00
You know, it's very hard to protect MPs 24-7. Indeed. Do you think then that, as is being reported on the front of the iPaper this morning, that Nigel Farage should have declined taxpayer-funded security
8:12
He described the offer as inadequate and declined it. Should he have done? I haven't seen that article. What I do know is that 75% of Nigel's personal security was taken away from him the day after Charlie Kirk was murdered, the very day after
8:28
that's quite disgraceful nigel is one of the most attacked and at risk politicians in the country
8:35
probably the most and and therefore i believe that someone who's so prominent in politics in
8:42
the life of this country and someone who's a potential next prime minister should really
8:47
get serious protection from the state so it's disgraceful that that isn't happening and that
8:52
he's having to raise money and get donations to pay for his own security and then be, you know, sent to standards because of that
9:01
The whole thing, frankly, is wrong. And I hope that there will be a thorough review of security
9:08
And certainly people like Nigel Tharard should be given all the security they need to stay safe
9:15
Andrew, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on. Andrew Rosendale is a reformed UK MP for Romford
9:19
a friend of the late Anne Whittacombe there saying that as a result of what has happened to his colleagues
9:24
and their personal safety, of course, in the absolutely horrific murder of David Amess
9:28
he has taken the decision not to do those constituency surgeries, meet members of the public, his voters, in the way in which he once did
9:36
So this raises a couple of questions, doesn't it? What were the police doing in being relatively categorical about the lack of political or terror motivation
9:44
only for that to change? As the Independent Review of Terror Legislation, Jonathan Hall says
9:49
He says, I don't understand why Devon and Cornwall Police were steering the public away from the idea that this was a terrorist case
9:55
and I don't know why they didn't simply say they had an open mind as to the motivation
10:00
That's right, isn't it? And then there's this question about the safety of MPs
10:04
Is it now time to spend a lot more of taxpayers' money protecting many, many more members of Parliament
10:10
Those who you've heard of, for sure, who are on the television a lot, who have a high public profile
10:14
and perhaps those you haven't heard of that much. Do they all deserve protection now
10:19
Can I get a thought from you as a former security minister on the security of you and your colleagues as MPs
10:25
and whether or not what we have seen recently around the changing nature of the police investigation into the suspected murder of Anne Whittacombe
10:31
raises a question in your mind about how much security should be offered members of Parliament, whatever role they have
10:38
Yeah, it does. This is tricky because when I was in government I set up something called the Defending Democracy Task Force and its specific job was to look at the threats to our democracy so disinformation from tiktok and other propaganda arms of foreign states and to look at uh the way in which we
10:58
protect mps and ministers and of course the way in which we protect journalists because tom i'm
11:04
afraid uh journalism is also under threat in different ways so we set it up to do that and
11:10
we improved access to security for MPs. So in fact, one of the last things I did as a minister
11:15
was when Nigel Farage became a candidate, I phoned up my team in the Home Office and made sure he
11:23
was immediately offered security. Did he accept that? I'm afraid I don't know. I didn't follow
11:30
up with the details. But I know that the Home Office team were immediate in saying, of course
11:35
he should have security. He's a political candidate. And whether you agree with him or not
11:38
that's not the point. The British people have the right to elect whichever candidate they want
11:42
and those candidates shouldn't be put off. So that was one of the last things I did as a minister
11:47
And, you know, we've set in place quite a lot of areas. But one of your callers was just making
11:53
the point, do you really want to go everywhere with bodyguards and security teams? I don't
11:59
And by the way, you know, MPs are not special in inverted commas. They're not, you know, we
12:05
We shouldn't be offering one class of citizen a different level of protection than another class of citizen
12:10
What we should be doing is making sure that all citizens can have their voices heard freely
12:14
Now, MPs obviously represent communities, so it's a bit different. But this is a real problem, because quite a lot of us wouldn't want it
12:21
When I was security minister, you know, I used to go to work on the bus. I had absolutely no security at all, because I read the risk, right
12:28
I mean, I read the intelligence, and actually the risk to most MPs is actually relatively low
12:35
The challenge is there are individual lone actors, and then you end up with a situation like the tragedy around Anne
12:42
and, you know, it's utterly awful. I mean, it's utterly awful. But do we protect every former MP if they've still got a political voice
12:50
That starts to get very difficult, doesn't it? You get into a very difficult situation, yeah
12:54
Thank you so much for your time. Tom Tugendhat, Conservative MP for Tunbridge, former security minister. Of course, TikTok has always strongly denied links to the Chinese government
13:00
Can I ask you about security of you and your colleagues, your other members of Parliament
13:08
Do you think the time is coming when more money is spent on MPs' security
13:14
I think that the security that members of Parliament receive has increased greatly over recent years
13:26
it's deeply sad and troubling to be honest that it's that it's that it's needed to we do
13:34
unfortunately live in this world where and it's not just mps right it's it's people in public life
13:40
much more broadly there's a culture of abuse particularly online via social media and
13:47
intimidation and in the very worst cases violence as i said the security that members of parliament
13:55
specifically receive. They can ask for additional security and there's a range of measures that can be
14:01
put in place. Each of those things has increased over recent years but as the
14:05
Home Secretary made clear in the Chamber yesterday she will always keep
14:11
the security that is available to members of Parliament under review such that if we do need
14:17
to up levels of security then we stand ready to do that
14:22
Really appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on Lucy Rigby, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Labor MP for Northampton North
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