Nancy Pelosi tells of chilling moment she learned of hammer attack on husband Paul Pelosi

• Watch ITV News US Correspondent Emma Murphy's report on Nancy Pelosi's interview on the eve of the 2022 midterms.

Pretty much every set of elections in history are described as having something defining, something unique, something that sets them above all others.

In reality the nature of them is defining to a certain effect, each is unique, but not all are set above the others. The 2022 midterms do have a variety of all those descriptions.

Yet on the eve of this one came an interview which perhaps proves many of those points.

It was with one of Washington’s political veterans. Nancy Pelosi, 82, Democrat Speaker of the House.

When it comes to politics and playing them, she is the doyenne.

Yet, though her interview was political, it was the result of the personal.

A week ago, her 82-year-old husband Paul was ambushed in their San Francisco home.

Hit on the head by a hammer-wielding intruder demanding to know where his wife was so he could take her hostage and apparently smash her kneecaps.

An emotional Ms Pelosi recalls the moment she was informed about the attack

On the eve of some of America’s most contentious elections she assessed what the attack meant for her, her family and the nation.

She believes that it was the result of the weakening of democracy and the misinformation that fuels so many.

The interview was saddening in its content and I found myself thinking how different the United States is to the United Kingdom.

Then I remembered the MPs Jo Cox (Labour) and David Amess (Conservative).

Both murdered for their roles in politics, both deaths appalling and shocking on so many levels.

Ms Pelosi calls out the Republicans, saying the US is seeing a "one-sided attack on our democracy"

Both sobering, not least but in part, because we have our own threats to democracy, yet we don’t necessarily accept them as being as great as those in America.

We should, because as solid as democracy feels, it has weaknesses that can be lost in plain sight.

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