David Amess: Face-to-face surgery chats vital to keep MPs plugged in to voters’ lives

For almost all MPs, constituency surgeries like the one at which Sir David Amess was murdered are a major part of their work which it is difficult to imagine giving up, even in the face of the evident danger which they represent to their safety.

The regular Friday sessions held in church halls, libraries and community centres across the country take them out of the bubble of Westminster and firmly into contact with the day-to-day worries of the people they represent.

Disputes over housing or anti-social behaviour, worries over sickness or access to welfare benefits or joblessness and complaints about the failings of the local council or police force jostle for MPs’ attention with campaigns for new schools, parking schemes and hospitals and rants on Brexit, immigration or crime.