‘I can’t listen to my sister Jo Cox speaking 10 years on – it’s too upsetting’

Kim Leadbeater with her sister Jo Cox, who was murdered by a right-wing terrorist in 2016

Watching Jo Cox’s maiden speech as an MP from 2015, what stands out now is how normal it is.

She speaks in her warm Yorkshire accent, wearing a plain red dress, holding some papers and cracking a few gentle gags. Cox was one of 177 new MPs who had been elected the previous month, and all would get their moment to stand up and beat the drum for their local area.

Even the line that would ultimately resonate so strongly with the public – that her diverse constituents in Batley and Spen ‘are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’ – gets barely a nod from those listening around her.

Kim Leadbeater, Jo Cox’s sister and Labour MP for Spen Valley, has not watc...