Dedicated and tireless, David Amess was a paragon of a good constituency MP | Simon Jenkins

In a country of centralised power, he did all he could to make himself a man of Southend rather than simply Westminster

British politics rightly commemorates its own. David Amess, killed in his home constituency last week, was eulogised on Monday in the Commons and St Margaret’s church, Westminster, as what the prime minister called “one of the kindest, nicest, most gentle people in politics”. He was not a star of the parliamentary firmament, but rather that paragon: a “good constituency MP”. The...