This sort of causal suggestion isn't warranted by the evidence we currently have. And I think linking it to Cameron at all is ludicrous. A number of fairly sensible people I know have gone all Chicken Licken about this. It's a tragedy. We get a lot of them
Extrapolating from them is difficult unless there is pattern.
My intention was not to present a "causal suggestion".
The Conservative Party is split down the middle. It has had serious management problems for many years. Since John Major stood down William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and David Cameron have each found themselves elected party leader, their main qualification for that office being that none of them was named Kenneth Clarke.
Since he became prime minister, David Cameron has demonstrated that party interests come first. The rational consequence of the Scottish referendum would have been to hold a constitutional convention which would look at all aspects of the governance of the United Kingdom - self-government, regional government, the nature of the second chamber, the electoral system and so on .... and this would include the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. He decided instead on a quick fix - EVAL because he perceived a built-in permanent Conservative majority in England.
I consider that his primary intention in calling a referendum was to put the right-wing of his party in their place. He reasoned that a majority of the electorate would vote Remain and that would kick the matter into touch.
What, I think, no-one anticipated has been the rancorous, destructive, nasty campaign which has emerged. There has been little rational discussion of the factors which should determine an individual to vote to leave or to remain but accusations of bullying and lying and cheating.
Mrs Cox appears to have been a decent, humane, caring and compassionate woman and a dedicated Member of Parliament. She was engaged in her duties in her constituency. If reports of the attack upon her are true, her killer shouted something like Britain first. I am very sure that he was mentally unstable. But I am also sure that his mental condition had been further affected by the intellectual violence that has characterised this referendum campaign.
In a world less dominated by partisan in-fighting this referendum would never have been called.
Edit: Correction of typographical error
