Richard Lutz steadies himself for the forthcoming week

Today, the House of Commons is recalled to pay tribute to murdered MP Jo Cox. It will be a fitting way to say goodbye to a young woman attacked and killed because she had opinions. And those that knew and worked with her all seemed in agreement that even if they didn’t agree with her left of centre ideas, they respected the courteous and committed way she entered the political fray.

A man has appeared in court so let’s respect the legal process. But one thing that can’t be ignored is that this hideous crime erupted in the same week that a deranged man went on a bloody spree in the States and killed 49 nightclubbers.

The stark difference between the gun culture in the UK and the States is stark. In Britain, a hunter or gun enthusiast can have a licensed shotgun after a rigorous application. No pistols are allowed. A gun crime is rare.

In the States, it seems most people can roll into a gunshop and buy a weapon for no other reasons than to shoot another person whether in self defence or as an attack. The US politicians have to sort out this demented climate.

With Jo Cox’s death in British minds, millions will go to vote on Thursday, to decide whether to stay in the EU. It’s a close run thing. But the Leave lobby seems intent to make it a hate campaign against imagined hordes of non-white immigrants rattling at the gates. It is a paranoia campaign based on fear.

My email buzzes with a vigorous debate on this. Bob, a friend from Birmingham, comments: “Most (not all!) Brexiters seem to be fuelled by the frustration/bitterness & grandiloquent & narcissistic national myths that mobilised Oswald Moseley (a facist black shirt from the 1940s).

“Their myth of Little England – or even GB or UK – “standing alone” in both World Wars discounts people & materials from India, Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Eire.’

“Whatever the Referendum result, as a child of Jewish Austrian refugees, they increasingly frighten me. That stone’s been turned over… look what’s crawling out.”

Bob aside, we will all know the outcome come this Friday.

And from where I am right now in Scotland there will be a a very local event that will attract attention.

Donald Trump will arrive in Ayrshire on Friday to officially open his revamped Turnberry Hotel golf complex. Depending on what you read, he spent somewhere between £150 million and £200 million on the resoort, which sits overlooking the silvery Clyde estuary below Glasgow.

This bumptious man, who represents the gun lobby, the frightened and the xenophobic, will add a piquant, weird sideshow to the EU vote. He has said he won’t comment on the ballot. But then says he thinks the UK should leave (thus commenting on it).

Trump clearly doesn’t care about Europe, Britain or Scotland except to make a buck out of the nation. He will arrive, and leave, this Fiday, full of bombast, vile bombast, and hate.