Campaigning to resume after a minute's silence at 11am today

As previously mentioned the UK will be observing a minute's silence in memory of the victims of the Manchester bombing, at 11am today (25th May.)

Local political campaigning will resume at noon today following that act of respect, and then national political campaigning will resume from tomorrow.

There are legitimate difference of opinion about how long political campaigning should have been suspended for in the wake of this dreadful act of terrorism, but I think this gets it about right.

I don't agree with those who suggest that suspending campaigning for a few days was a victory for the bomber.

If the political parties had stopped campaigning because they were afraid, it might be seen that way, but that is not what happened. As one Mancunian friend of mine tweeted observing Manchester's busy shopping centres the day after the bombing, "the terrorists can't even stop us shopping!"

Most of Britain's politicians chose to suspend campaigning for a few days as a mark of respect to the victims, not because anyone was afraid of terrorists.

Suspending the campaign in memory for the victims for two or three days and resuming today when there are still two weeks left for parties to get the message over for and voters and journalists to challenge them does, in my humble opinion, strike the right sort of balance between respect for the victims and ensuring that the terrorists do not prevent proper democratic debate.

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