Brendan Cox is a special man. Nine months ago his beautiful wife Jo, a Yorkshire MP, was gunned down by a madman apparently attracted to the philosophy one of Britain’s neo nazi fringe groups.

A young mother, a dedicated representative of her constituents, by all accounts a fun loving, compassionate, life enhancing presence in her own family, and Yorkshire county.

Brendan has chosen to mark his awful loss with positivity.

The Jo Cox Foundation tackles some of the issues about which this former charity and aid worker cared so passionately: lonliness, protecting civilians in conflict zones, women in public life, children’s mental health. Before she was elected Jo was a charity worker and travelled with aid convoys to war zones.

He has chosen to mark the anniversary of her murder by urging us all to have street parties over the weekend of June 17 and 18 because “Jo loved a party".

But, just as importantly, Brendan has taken up his late wife’s mantle as the voice of reason raised against a howl of hate.

When the latest atrocity hit Westminster last week he went on the airwaves to say that the perpetrator “was no more typical of the Muslim community than Jo’s murderer was typical of Yorkshire".

He urged us to honour the dead and the wounded, not publicise and give prominence to the attacker.

That was an important intervention. Because Brendan Cox speaks with the voice of a man who lost the most precious person in his life to a random, unprovoked attack.

It could have made him irretrievably bitter and vengeful. But that wouldn’t be in his personality.

That wouldn’t have honoured the memory of a woman whose maiden speech in parliament was devoted to celebrating that “what we have him common is much greater than what divides us.”

It is tragic that it’s often the brightest and best who seem to be taken, whilst those who preach hate and racism live on.

But Brendan Cox has ensured that what Jo lived and died for will not perish with her.

He continues to celebrate diversity and compassion.

Jo would have been pretty proud of him.