New Essex city is testament to MP's spirit and work

Last Thursday, Sir David Amess was on BBC Radio Essex talking, to the surprise of absolutely no one, about his campaign for city status for Southend-on-Sea. He also happened to mention what he’d been up to the day before. He had been in Doha, personally asking the Emir of Qatar to support his campaign for city status for Southend-on-Sea.

- TOM PECK

It’s hard to imagine quite how he would have reacted had he been told that his campaign of more than two full decades had just a few more days to go. That, over the weekend, the Queen would privately grant its approval, and yesterday, the prime minister would formally announce to the House of Commons that city status for Southend-on-Sea would now go ahead.

Of course, we shall never know the reaction because Sir David wasn’t there. That Southend-on-Sea will now officially be a city has already been described as a fitting tribute to him, but tribute is the wrong word. It’s not a tribute, it’s a testament. It was not some act of largesse, or patronage or easy generosity. It happened because the Sir David made it happen.

If he hadn’t fought so hard for it, for so long, and concerned himself so utterly with the betterment of his town (quite literally), it would never have happened.