The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess has launched a blistering attack on government ministers after the home secretary refused the family’s calls for an inquiry into his killing.
Monday 10 March 2025 14:00, UK
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Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy have their guide to the day ahead in British politics.
With Zelenskyy heading to Saudi Arabia to join US sponsored peace talks in Saudi Arabia, Sam and Anne assess the UK’s response to any concessions Ukraine might be made to make to Russia.
And with Mark Carney waiting in the wings to take over from Prime Minister Trudeau in Canada, how will his premiership differ and how will he respond to Trump’s threat of tariffs?
Domestically, Labour’s wish for economic growth is well known, but do their planning reforms go far enough to get it?
And speaking of Reform – as their internal rows rumble on, Anne and Sam discuss what the latest intervention from an unnamed KC means for the party.
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A tanker and a cargo ship have collided in the North Sea.
There are reports of both vessels being on fire, and people having to abandon ship.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has just said she is “liaising with officials and HM Coastguard” about the situation.
“I want to thank all emergency service workers involved for their continued efforts in responding to the incident,” she added.
This week looks set to be busy, as world leaders scramble to put together a plan for peace in Europe.
Today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is heading to Saudi Arabia to meet with Mohammed bin Salman before talks between Ukrainian and American officials begin.
Zelenskyy himself will not attend these talks – weeks after a fiery Oval Office exchange with US President Donald Trump – but his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, will.
Meanwhile, the UK will be working on the so-called “coalition of the willing”, which hopes to develop a plan for peace that it can present to the US.
Here’s what we know is going on this week:
Over the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer spoke to NATO allies, the prime minister of Australia Anthony Albanese and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
On Tuesday, Admiral Sir Antony Radakin – the chief of the defence staff – will head to Paris to host a meeting of the “coalition of the willing”.
On Wednesday, Defence Secretary John Healey will also be in France for a meeting with his own counterparts.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy will head to Canada on Thursday, for a meeting of the intergovernmental Group of Seven (G7).
Finally, on Saturday, Starmer will host a virtual meeting of the “coalition of the willing”.
Earlier, the family of murdered Conservative MP Sir David Amess launched scathing criticism of the government in an emotional news conference in Westminster.
Katie Amess, the daughter of the MP, accused ministers of an “absolute insult and betrayal” after calls for a public inquiry were rejected.
‘An awful tragedy’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said it was “hard to see how an inquiry would be able to go beyond” terrorist killer Ali Harbi Ali’s trial and the recently published Prevent learning review.
But Katie rejected this, alleging her family had been “strung along” by the home secretary – and that her father had been “let down so badly”.
Asked about this, Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said while the MP’s murder was “an awful tragedy”, there had been “significant improvements” since then to the Prevent counterterror programme.
Ali had been referred to it several years before murdering Amess, and a review found he’d been released too early.
‘We understand family still want answers’
A review into Prevent commissioned after last year’s Southport murders (that killer, Axel Rudakubana, had also been referred), found the programme had improved in the years since Ali’s case.
“We understand that the family are still looking for answers,” the PM’s spokesperson added.
Katie and her family are due to meet Starmer and Cooper on Wednesday.
The family of murdered MP Sir David Amess have long campaigned for a public inquiry into his killing.
Speaking after the home secretary announced one would not take place, his daughter Katie Amess compared the case to the 2023 Nottingham killings and 2024 Southport murders – both of which have seen the government commit to public inquiries after reports identified failings in how the perpetrators were handled by authorities beforehand.
So too did a review into Sir David Amess’s murder.
What did the review find?
The man who killed the Conservative MP was Ali Harbi Ali.
He was a supporter of Islamic State and had become radicalised by the terror group’s propaganda before he attacked Amess at a church hall constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in October 2021.
Ali had previously been referred to the government’s counterterror programme, Prevent, but had been released “too quickly” – a similar conclusion was drawn from a review into Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who murdered three young girls in Southport last year.
Ali’s case had been closed five years before, after just one meeting at a McDonald’s to deal with his interpretation of “haram” (forbidden under Islamic law), as well as texts and calls with an “intervention provider”.
The key points:
The review found most of the failures in Ali’s case would not be repeated today as the guidance and requirements are much clearer.
It said referrers, in Ali’s case his school, are kept informed and engaged, and other departments and agencies – not just police – have clear roles.
Which records need to be kept is now clear and guidance for detecting underlying vulnerabilities has changed and would have made a difference, the review added.
‘A useless paper review’
This review and Ali’s trial (which saw him get a whole-life jail sentence) are the home secretary’s justification for not granting an inquiry.
But the MP’s daughter said this amounted to nothing more than a “useless paper exercise”, and suggested Yvette Cooper had “strung” the family along for months.
She said she had not even been offered the chance to be part of the Southport inquiry.
It’s only Monday morning and the government is already finding itself under fire – here are the main things you need to know:
That’s all for now – stay with us for more updates through the afternoon, including the full line-up for tonight’s Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge.
Sir Keir Starmer promised to free officials from the shackles of bureaucracy as part of the government’s sweeping Civil Service reforms, which will see an increasing focus on digital and data work.
In a message to all civil servants, the prime minister and cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald said they wanted to see a “rewiring of the British state”.
The Civil Service must be “more agile, mission-focused and more productive”, they said.
The message is an attempt to win support from civil servants for a programme which will see radical changes to their roles and potential job losses.
The reforms will mean the Civil Service becoming smaller, with more of the remaining jobs moving outside of London.
Katie Amess, the daughter of Sir David Amess, has accused the government of an “absolute insult and betrayal” after a public inquiry into his death was refused.
After the decision of Yvette Cooper to refuse the inquiry, Katie told a news conference: “This decision is an absolute insult and a betrayal to my family and our father’s memory.
“How can the government justify holding inquiries for other tragic events like Southport and Nottingham, yet they refuse to investigate the very system that failed my father.
“Is his life worth less than the others?
“Does our family not deserve the answers that the other families so rightly deserve?
“We need to be sure that this never happens again.”
‘Our time has been wasted’
Katie accused Cooper of “stringing us along for months”.
She said the home secretary had “suggested that she was working on ways to help us, however all she has done is remove the possibility of us being included in the Southport inquiry”.
“Instead she had offered us another useless paper review done by a person of their choosing.”
Katie said this appears to be an attempt to “placate me, and make me go away”.
“I do not accept that. Our time has been wasted, and it has caused further pain and heartbreak by giving us a small glimmer of hope, only to crush it.”
She said the refusal to hold a public inquiry makes her family feel “abandoned, ignored and disposable”.
Speaking directly to Cooper and Sir Keir Starmer, she says: “Do not let my father’s murder be forgotten.
“Do not let his death be just another statistic.”
Katie Amess, the daughter of murdered Tory MP Sir David Amess, is now addressing a news conference in Westminster.
She is speaking in the wake of news that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has rejected calls for a public inquiry into the 2021 murder.
In an emotional statement, a tearful Katie said there are “no words to describe the unbelievable pain of losing a father in such a brutal and a senseless way”.
“From the moment I woke up on 15 October 2021, my whole world was shattered beyond repair. My father Sir David Amess was not just a public servant, he was my protector, my guide, my greatest champion.
“And above all, my friend.”
‘His death was entirely preventable’
Katie added: “His murder has left an unimaginable void in my family’s life that no amount of time will ever heal, and it’s difficult to explain what life is like when you lose a loved one to murder.
“Unless you have lived through something like this you will never truly understand it.”
She described a “burning anger” in the wake of her father’s death, but also “a desire for justice and to get the answers that you deserve”.
Katie said she wants “the authorities and the government to be held accountable, as they let my father down so badly”.
“His death was entirely preventable,” she said, describing him as “one of the hardest working people I have ever met in my life”.
‘An attack on democracy’
Speaking of the man who killed her father, Katie said: “He would have met that man with open arms and a huge smile, and that is how he met his end in a church.”
She pointed out that this was not a random attack: “He was targeted.”
“This is not just a personal tragedy… but it is also an entirely preventable murder and an attack on democracy itself.”
Katie claimed that his murder has been “watered down and brushed under the carpet”.
“If an elected member of parliament is not safe in our community, then none of us are.”
She also spoke about her wedding, which was due to take place just six weeks before Sir David Amess was murdered.
“I will never have a wedding picture with my father even though he had already bought all the frames,” she said.
“My future children will never meet their grandfather. My children will never know him or his laugh, they will never be taken on adventures like I was as a child.
“All they will have are pictures and stories – and that is simply not enough.”
Direct message to PM
Katie went on: “I want Sir Keir and Yvette Cooper to know exactly what the consequences are when the very government agencies that are set up to protect people like my dad and members of the public fail.
“We know that there were serious failings with both Essex Police and the Prevent programme, but what we don’t know is why, who was responsible and what is being done to ensure another family doesn’t have to go through this pain.”
As we reported in the last hour, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has rejected calls from the family of murdered MP Sir David Amess for a public inquiry into the killing.
Cooper said it was “hard to see how an inquiry would be able to go beyond” terrorist killer Ali Harbi Ali’s trial and the recently published Prevent learning review.
Amess was killed at a constituency surgery in Southend-on-Sea in 2021.
The family are now holding a news conference – we’ll bring you updates here in the Politics Hub.
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