Is David Davis planning a second resignation?
Could this create the vacancy so Boris could return?
I’m picking up a vibes from Tories in Yorkshire, where I used to work, that David Davis is thinking about leaving the commons early next year so he can be his party’s candidate in next year’s election for the Police commissioner of Humberside where, of course, he is currently MP for Haltemprice and Howden.
These elections, which have hardly attracted any attention, are set to take place almost all over England next May and will each cover many parliamentary seats and involve huge electorates.
What’s clear is that successful candidates are going to need to have a high level of name recognition in the respective police force areas and my guess that a number of senior MPs, who now see their chances of preferment drifting, might be tempted to chuck their hats into the ring.
And could this open up a Tory by-election vacancy to provide the platform for Boris to return to the commons? I’d be surprised if the Mayor has not thought about it.
As for David Davis he’s no stranger to resigning as MP and forcing a by-election. He stood down in Haltemprice and Howden in 2008 as a protest against what he saw as Labour’s authoritarianism and then got re-elected. In 2005 he was hot odds-on favourite for the Tory leadership only to be beaten by David Cameron.