I’ll stop banging on about this soon, but the resignation of David Davis has really shone a light on how we view our politicians. When I first heard he had resigned, I wondered what sort of scandal had brought him down. It never occurred to me – and I’m sure I’m not alone in this – that he was resigning on a point of principle. After all, politicians don’t do that. Career means more to them than principles.

And we’ve also developed this reverence for political parties in this country – that anyone who doesn’t tow the party line is in some way insane and is somebody to be avoided and shunned. Why? I mean, people join parties (in theory) because they feel an ideological link to that party. What if that party doesn’t represent your ideas any more? Or if you feel that your ideas could me more effectively represented in a way other than party politics? Are you really going to stick to that party through some sort of dumb, tribal loyalty? Fuck that. There’s no evidence – yet – that Davis has damaged his party, but so what if he does? Maybe the principle is more important than the fucking party.

It could be Davis doesn’t get his big debate about civil liberties if Labour doesn’t run a candidate against him – but that speaks volumes about the validity of his case. The other parties agree with him, whilst the Labour party may yet show themselves to be too scared to actually put their case for 42 days detention in front of the people. But even if the debate doesn’t happen, for me Davis has shown that there can still be integrity and ideology in British politics – and placed into sharp relief just how little there is of it normally.

No-one knows what happens next for Davis, but I am glad that someone in Parliament has taken a stand for what they believe in ahead of all other considerations. As Mr Eugenides, having considered the Davis situation for nearly 24 hours, wrote:

God speed, you magnificent fucker.

Amen.