Home Secretary Priti Patel has asked all police forces to immediately review security arrangements for MPs following the death of Sir David Amess.
Following the killing of Sir David at his constituency surgery in Essex on Friday afternoon, Ms Patel chaired a meeting of police, security and intelligence agencies and also spoke to House of Commons’ Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
“The home secretary has asked all police forces to review security arrangements for MPs with immediate effect and will provide updates in due course,” a spokesman for Ms Patel said.
Sir David died after being stabbed at a surgery – where MPs offer face-to-face meetings with constituents – in his Southend West constituency in Leigh-on-Sea.
Sir Lindsay also promised to “examine” safety measures for MPs following the killing of Sir David, but cautioned against a “kneejerk reaction”.
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He described himself as “shocked and deeply distressed” by Sir David’s death – the second killing of an MP in their own constituency in little more than five years.
Sir Lindsay told Sky News that he had gone ahead with his own constituency surgery on Friday following the news of Sir David’s death.
“Nothing will stop democracy, nothing will stop us carrying out our duties,” he said. “Those people who don’t value the job that we do, those people who don’t support us will not win – hence why I’ve had my surgery tonight.”
Sir Lindsay said he would continue to “look at” security measures, adding: “We won’t sit back on our laurels, of course we know the challenges.
“We’ve got to protect MPs and allow them to carry out their duties. The duties that the electorate put them there for – to speak, to meet and to make sure that their views are conveyed to parliament.”
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Sister of Jo Cox in shock over MP death
Labour MP Lucy Powell on Friday night revealed she had received “a number of reassuring calls from Greater Manchester Police” with “some extra measures and support being put in place”.
Sir David’s death follows the 2016 murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was shot and stabbed in her Yorkshire constituency on the day when she had been due to hold a surgery.
But senior Tories have urged caution over new security measures that would move MPs away from meeting with members of the public.
Lord Pickles, a former Conservative Party chairman who was an MP for 25 years before joining the House of Lords, acknowledged that security risks were “part of the job” for parliamentarians.
“It’s something you sign up to,” he told Sky News.
“There are some places in the world… where they [politicians] operate in a bubble, where they are a political class.
“But you could see David on the train to Southend, you could see David in local restaurants, you could see David just about anywhere.
“David’s accessibility was one of the reasons why he was such an effective operator inside parliament, inside politics.”
Lord Pickles described Sir David’s death as “tragic”, “dreadful” and “not normal”, but added: “We live in an age where sometimes you have to take risks.
“No one expects you to die, of course you don’t, but you don’t expect it to be entirely risk free.
“A doctor doesn’t entirely expect themselves to be risk free, a nurse doesn’t entirely expect themselves to be risk free, in teaching you are taking some risks.
“When you’re dealing with people who are often emotional, who feel like the system has let them down, often they’ll look for someone to blame.
“But, you know, if we sort of close up shop and just disappear behind a security bubble, it is democracy itself that will be the lesser thing.”
Image: Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in June 2016
Lord Pickles’s fellow former Tory cabinet minister, ex-Brexit secretary David Davis, told Sky News that Sir David would “hate” the idea of MPs being distanced from their constituents.
“It’s an awful paradox, frankly, that it was in his constituency surgery that he was attacked and killed,” he said.
“I do hope – and I think he would hope – that one of the outcomes of this is not that we distance ourselves from constituents.
“He would hate that idea.”
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Eyewitness video at MP attack scene
Pauline Latham, Conservative MP for Mid Derbyshire, told Sky News there was a need to review MPs’ security.
“We can’t be totally protected,” she said. “There will always be nutcases who will try to stifle democracy, there will always be unpleasant people who will try to cause mayhem and we’re no different from any other member of the public.
“But we do put ourselves in a vulnerable position over surgeries.
“Maybe we need more security at places like that where the public know where we are – and so perhaps there should be a bigger police presence supporting MPs.”
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‘A stalwart of parliament, a great man’ – Hoyle
Kim Leadbeater, the sister of Jo Cox who is now a Labour MP herself, said that many MPs will be “scared” by the death of Sir David.
“It’s so hard because we’ve got a job to do,” she said. “I find myself now working as a politician and trying to help people and trying to do good things for people.
“It’s really important that we get good people in public life. But this is the risk that we’re all taking. So many MPs today will be scared by this.
“My partner came home and said ‘I don’t want you to do it anymore, because the next time that phone goes it could be a different conversation’.”
Ms Leadbeater said that safety was “always on my mind everywhere I go and everything I do” but added she was “really well looked after by the police”.
The amount of money spent protecting MPs rose substantially following the murder of Jo Cox in June 2016.
Accounts from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority showed MPs spent £2.5m on security in 2016/17 – up from £170,000 the previous year.
Image: Stephen Timms was stabbed twice in the stomach at a constituency surgery in east London in 2010
The murder of Jo Cox came six years after Stephen Timms was stabbed twice in the stomach at a constituency surgery in east London.
Roshonara Choudhry, a 21-year-old student, was later found guilty of attempted murder and jailed for a minimum of 15 years.
During her trial, a court heard Choudhry had made a list of MPs who had voted for the Iraq war.
Mr Timms underwent emergency surgery but survived the attack and continues to serve as MP for East Ham.
In January 2000, Andrew Pennington died while saving the life of Cheltenham MP Nigel Jones when they were attacked with a Samurai sword.
The 39-year-old, who was acting as an assistant to Mr Jones, was posthumously awarded the George Medal for bravery.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.