The Good Constituent

 

When the memorable, if not for the reasons that typically nor ideally mark the passing of a represenative of the people, Jo Cox became the first Member of the House of Commons in a quarter of a century (the last case, Ian Gow, occurring just into the 1990s and the post-Cold War period and then as never obliviated into the very-long ago) and the first of her sex to suffer death at the hands of a political foe, constituent or not. Afterwards, in an undignified and haphazard celebration of a temporary one-party state, or status, the alternative Liberal and Conservative candidates obviated their candidacies in order to hand a seat lost back to its Labour "owner" (by-elections, being by nature held to ascertain who the proper owner, or rather member, is). Now, five years and only one more by-election in Batley and Spen, noteworthy on its own merit, a hypothetical imbalance was adjusted when MP David Amess, near 70, stubborn withdrawal Tory was stabbed without the smell of cordite, and without mercy, at a constituency surgery (a peculiar phrase) in his native city. Before dusk, he was passed beyond this imperfect world of parliaments and the House had lost yet another member to this peril, as I hope he would not mind me saying. 

Now, aside from the question of whether Labour and LibDem will, or ought to file candidates in the Tory heartland - which they should, or else cease to do so altogether - there is the question of what offence this does pose to democracy itself, or parliamentary rule and supremacy, as it ought be called, for all its recognised (including by Churchill, for many years the hind-est of backbenchers) flaws.  

I would like to support that sentiment, and in particular, the notion of a representative which (deliberately not "who") is just that: A representative, not of every constituent in spirit or opinion - likely not half, most of the time - but in the sense of putting constituents, as an entirety, beyond and before the prospects of advancement in the halls to where they, once upon a time, selected (from a slate of imperfect men, and, yes, imperfect women) to send him. 

For David Amess' positions were perhaps never fashionable, and a heterodox - not least in the time of Johnson and his Tories, if they can still be called that, except in the original invective - 

The pettiness of the act, smaller yet than the rather obliquely justified (compared to her, back then, male progenitors) assassination of Cox, somehow makes the sacrifice seem so meaningless as not befitting the term. Sacrifice, yes, over decades on the backbenches, never asking for higher office, making clear his duty was first, and second, to last, to his constituents, with his competence and, mayhap, family as only limitation.