As by-elections go, this one is shaping up to be the wackiest race in memory.

Holding the starting gun is our odds-on favourite, not Dick Dastardly but David Davis, unbeaten on his home patch for more than 20 years and looking like a shoo-in.

Our DD is eager for challengers but struggling to find any. No Liberal Democrat contestant, almost certainly a no-show from Labour. Even UKIP and the BNP have balked at the course and distance.

Step forward tentatively the former editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, no doubt to be joined by assorted eccentrics. For Penelope Pitstop and the Anthill Mob read The Miss Great Britain Party and the Monster Raving Loonies - the only two other confirmed runners so far.

It was small wonder that the voters of Haltemprice & Howden looked a shade confused yesterday.

Mr Davis, 59, has been the Conservative MP for the East Yorkshire market town of Howden since 1987. For the first ten of these years his was a largely rural constituency in the Vale of York, but in 1997 boundary changes created the new seat.

Howden, a few miles north of Goole, stayed in his patch but the seat now extends eastwards along the M62 corridor, north of the Humber, to reach into the western outskirts of Hull.

The constituency is still dominated by huge tracts of farmland, but 70 per cent of its electorate lives in the big city's middle-class suburbs and a scattering of affluent dormitory villages near by.

One of these is Cottingham, where lifelong Conservative voters were a large majority among those attending to their shopping yesterday morning.

With only one exception, those voters who spoke to The Times yesterday were positive in their assessment of Mr Davis. Many had met him, liked him and thought he did a fine job for his constituency.

There was, however, a catch. Several said that they would definitely vote for him in the by-election even though they totally disagreed with his stance against extended detention for terrorism suspects.

Which would surely defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Bill Thorpe, 73, a retired Crown prosecutor, said that he supported the Government's 42-day plans but would vote for Mr Davis because he was impressed that “someone is actually prepared to put his money where his mouth is”.

Usually a UK Independence Party voter, Ian Chapman, 57, said he loathed liberalism “with every ounce of my venom”. “I've got nine grandchildren and I'm worried about about their future,” he said. “Longer periods of detention are a price worth paying for their safety. I see it as a necessary evil.”

So Mr Chapman would be voting for Mr MacKenzie, then? Not so.

While he admires Mr Davis as “a man of principle and probity”, he “wouldn't let Kelvin MacKenzie clean my shoes”.

Paul Sutton, a small businessman, was “completely in support of 42 days” and would like the death penalty for terrorism, but intended to cast his vote on the single issue that mattered most to him: getting rid of Labour.

Back in the courtyard of his converted farmhouse, a few miles from Howden, Mr Davis talked a good fight as he brushed off all talk of Tory in-fighting, ambition-fuelled ego trips and vain political stunts.

When asked what message he had for those of his loyal supporters who intended to vote for him despite opposing the sole issue on which he is standing, he said: “I will say to them: if you disagree with me, vote against me. That's the message I'll give them. If I'm wrong, then I'll live by the consequences.”

He went on to explain his vision for “a series of big debates” about the erosion of civil liberties, admitting that he was hoping for a Labour opponent but pledging to “get some serious people to argue the other side” if no heavyweight challenger steps forward.

Mr Davis spoke of “astounding levels of support” pouring in from across Britain, with pledges of donations ranging from £25,000 to the widow who phoned to offer £5 once her pension had come in.

Would he not admit to the slightest moment of reflection since Thursday to consider the possibility that he might end up looking like an heroic failure, or even worse, a prize chump?

“I knew this was a risk. The consequence is very likely to be deleterious. But sometimes some of the principled issues matter too much,” he said.

“I feel very uncomfortable sounding so bloody self-righteous, but if you talk to people who have known me for a long time you'll find this is a long-standing concern of mine.

“People think of me as a right-wing Tory, but I was a member of Amnesty International in my twenties.”

Mr Davis would have taken heart had he heard the words of Dorothy Smith, 79, a retired clerical worker and one of his constituents.

“I think he's being very brave. I thought I supported the 42-day thing, but since yesterday I've realised that I'd never thought about it too deeply,” she said.

“I thought it was all about keeping us safe from terrorists. I wasn't thinking about the possibility of locking up innocent people.

“I'd become disillusioned with politics, with all those expenses scandals, and I'd decided I wasn't going to vote any more. But David Davis is a good man. He's got principles, he's making a stand and he'll have me on his side.”

Haltemprice and Howden

Geography
A mixture of rural and suburban areas along the M62 corridor, north of the Humber

Biggest employers
BAE Systems, in Brough; The Press Association, in Howden

Famous former residents
Neville Shute, Winifred Holtby, Sir Brian Rix

Buried there
Philip Larkin

Irrelevant fact
In the television comedy The New Statesman, Rik Mayall’s corrupt Tory MP, Alan B’stard, below, represented a fictional constituency that was called Haltemprice

2005 General Election result
David Davis, Conservative 22,792 (47.5 per cent)
Jon Neal, Liberal Democrat 17,676 (36.8)
Edward Hart, Labour 6,104 (12.7)
Jonathan Mainprize, British National Party 798 (1.7)
Philip Lane, UK Independence Party 659 (1.4)
Conservative majority: 5,116.
Turnout: 70.2 per cent

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