MEMBERS of Parliament including Philip Dunne in Ludlow and Harriett Baldwin would not be human if they did not cast glances over their shoulders following the terrible death of Jo Cox MP.

At this stage we do not know what was behind the killing – personal animosity, political motivation or mental health.

What we do know is that no-one should go about their work in fear of violence – physical, verbal or viral. But we also know that the attitude to politicians verges on the poisonous and they have probably never been held in lower esteem.

Perhaps this terrible event could be the chance to press the reset button and change attitudes to the way we do our politics.

Let us understand that not all MPs are from a privileged, opportunist and self-serving elite with little or no understanding of the lives of ‘ordinary’ people.

But let us and they accept that for many, too many, that cap fits.

A problem is that the system has failed to adapt to a changing world.

In the past, many MPs came into parliament from all sorts of careers and life experiences – business, farming, the law, trade unions and journalism to name but a few. But we now have the ‘career’ politician – university to a research job and on to parliament.

The nature of political parties has changed.

Let’s use the Conservative party, as the party of Government, as an example, although much the same applies to Labour.

In the 1950s, membership of the Conservative party was measured in millions. Now it is 130,000 with an average age of 68.

So it is a very small unrepresentative sample of people at local level who select MPs for what, because of the electoral system, is in the vast majority of cases a job for life.

Our first-past-the-post electoral system was okay for a time when most people voted for one of the two main parties. But now it delivers a majority government with the support of just 37 per cent of the votes cast and of one in four of those entitled to vote. Meanwhile other parties with large numbers of votes can end up with a handful, or fewer, of MPs.

It does not deliver a parliament that is representative of the electorate and is, frankly, democratic in name only. The fact that the two main parties seek to preserve this system is one of the worst examples of the self-serving nature of some politicians.

Politicians must also treat people with more respect and the outrageous presentation of opinion as facts of which the EU Referendum debate was but an extreme example must stop.

There also has to be a moral compass to the job. Taking a big pay-rise for a job that is already well paid with great perks was bound to anger at a time when many people are struggling.

Behaviour must also change and the disgraceful Punch & Judy that is Prime Minister’s Questions must stop.

For here is part of the problem.

The public see PMQs and disgraceful antics of some MPs. But for the most part they do not see the hard work on committees or at local constituency level helping people with very real problems.

Members of Parliament are human with the same human frailties are the rest of us.

Let us not forget that for every MP that is privileged, self-serving and out-of-touch – you supply the name – there will be at least one Jo Cox, respected, hard-working and keen to build a better world.