David Davis’ decision to resign as a Con­ser­vat­ive MP to re-contest his seat is one of the more extraordin­ary polit­ical decisions of our time. The fact that a former news­pa­per editor of the old right (Kelvin MacK­en­zie) may be his only com­pet­i­tion only adds to the strangeness.

To me, it’s like watch­ing a mutual embrace become a death­lock. The unrep­res­ent­at­ive polit­ical media and the rep­res­ent­at­ive polit­ical sys­tem squeeze each other to death as their needs entwine.

What is miss­ing here? The ‘grass roots’ reac­tion? The response of local people? But are there grass roots? Is there a real polit­ical com­munity in the West Hull sub­urbs and dormer vil­lages of Hal­tem­price and Howden?

Instead our root­less elect­oral geo­graphy awaits a battle that has a frus­trated and prin­cipled par­lia­ment­arian for whom polit­ics is a pro­fes­sion (Davis), pit­ted against a mil­lion­aire motor­mouth (MacK­en­zie) for whom it is a leis­ure pursuit.

This is the con­fused crisis of rep­res­ent­at­ive demo­cracy, where the only enthu­si­asm for a polit­ical con­test comes from a politi­cian, and the only oppos­i­tion has to be injec­ted by a national news­pa­per, to the likely ennui of its own readership.