Haltemprice and Howden (UK Parliament constituency) Conservative David Davis, who had previously been the member for Boothferry; he was re-elected in the 2001, 2005 and 2010 general elections. The area was placed as 10th most affluent in the country in the 2003 Barclays Private Clients survey. On 12 June 2008, a day after a vote on the extension of detention of terror suspects without charge, in an unexpected move, Davis took the Chiltern Hundreds, effectively resigning his seat as the constituency's MP. He stated this was to force a by-election, in which he intended to provoke a wider public debate on the single issue of the
2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election June 2008. At 26, the number of candidates broke the record for a UK parliamentary by-election, previously held by the Newbury by-election, 1993, which had 19 candidates. The greatest number of candidates to have contested a UK general election seat is 15, at Sedgefield in 2005. Due to the large number of candidates the ballot paper for this election was arranged in two columns. Also, the candidates stood in a line in front of a small platform with the returning officer on it, rather than on a temporary stage as is normally practised because it was feared that the stage