Most voters will have noticed by now that a general election is taking place and that the key date is July 4, polling day. But for would-be MPs there is another date that is just as important, or even more so: June 7. That’s this Friday, the day nominations close at 4pm. By then, all candidates must be chosen.

This is the week, therefore, when the identity of the next MP is, in many seats, effectively decided. It’s the week in which Labour HQ can use temporary powers to shoehorn high-flyers loyal to Sir Keir Starmer into seats that otherwise would not have selected them; the week for Diane Abbott to torment her leader after his botched attempt to stop her standing; the week for Conservative bosses to check that none of their new candidates will defect to Labour like some of the old ones.

It’s the week in which smaller parties scramble to ensure they have candidates at all — particularly Reform UK, which had to apologise for admonishing a candidate for inactivity only to find that he’d been dead for several weeks. Behind the scenes, it’s a frantic week.

As a result, by Friday we will have confirmation of an important trend in the composition of our next parliament. Not which party will command it — that really is up to you on July 4. But we are highly likely to see that, whichever party wins, there will be more MPs than ever before who claim a close connection with their seat, that they are a true “local” representative. Never mind whether they could sit down with Joe Biden or eyeball Vladimir Putin — they will show, in their rapid response to your emails, they know about that months-old pothole from those recent roadworks. They will prioritise the parish meeting no matter what is going on in the wider world.

Taking up local issues, even though they are usually matters decided by councillors or other local bodies, has always been part of an MP’s role. But something has changed in the past 20 years: it has become most of an MP’s role. Answering the torrent of messages has taken over from legislating in MPs’ daily work. Voters increasingly demand a truly local MP. The parties obligingly respond to this by providing one.

It’s an understandable trend: people are mystified about who is accountable for what. They seek someone who will at least campaign for something locally in a world where bigger issues seem impossible to resolve. Yet the overall effect is very worrying. Instead of a national parliament, we are moving towards a meeting of local representatives, each pleading for their own area. The House of Commons is being turned into Birmingham city council on a bigger scale, and we all know what just happened to that.

Assiduous research by others has shown the trend. Analysis by Philip Cowley showed that at the last election 43 per cent of new Conservative MPs and 52 per cent of new Labour MPs were councillors — much higher proportions than in the past. In this election, those percentages will go higher still. Michael Crick’s work suggests that, prior to the election announcement, the great majority of Labour’s new candidates were “local” and perhaps two thirds of Conservative associations had picked a serving or former councillor when selecting a new candidate. Sir Ed Davey’s first appeal in the election was to say the Liberal Democrats would offer “local champions”. It’s a far cry from Gladstone rousing the nation with a vision of liberal values for the world.

I would not deny that many councillors make good MPs, nor understate the importance of an MP being responsive to constituents. In my time as an MP I toured my constituency almost every weekend, even when foreign secretary. But that does not mean that parliament should be dominated by former councillors. The prime minister who had the most distinguished local government career was Neville Chamberlain, famously described as viewing everything “through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe”.

The problem is that the obsession with localism, in Crick’s words, “greatly restricts choice. Budding candidates have fewer seats they can realistically try for, while the party has less choice, so it reduces the quality of the candidates”. The parties seem to understand this, which is why the last-minute selections of recent days involve the imposition, in Labour’s case, or a very short list, in the Tory case, of promising future politicians who have run think tanks, been special advisers or been close to the party leaders. This brings the opposite problem — of limited local input into the choice of an MP — but is a reaction to the underlying trend of localism at all costs.

Britain does need vibrant local democracy, which is why elected mayors with more powers are a good idea. It also needs, however, a strong national parliament, with members who can get there on account of their great ability, irrespective of where they grew up. We will need in the future our Churchill, Thatcher, Callaghan, Cameron or Macmillan — none of whom represented a local constituency.

There is a danger of parliament becoming more like a conference of many pressure groups than a gathering of leaders. Starmer’s commitment to ban almost all second jobs for MPs threatens to accentuate that trend, with fewer experienced MPs staying in the Commons and a public sector outlook predominating. Future MPs, it seems, must not only be predominantly focused on local matters but not allow anything to distract them. The paradox is they will face dangers that are overwhelmingly global and must seize opportunities that require the promotion of entrepreneurship.

What made the biggest impact on all our lives in the last parliament? Covid. Its origin was international. The defences against it relied on the ingenuity of business and science. What might be the greatest dangers of the next five years, the term of these candidates being nominated this week? A new pandemic, a rampant Russia, a crisis with China, a financial meltdown, a climate catastrophe, uncontrolled mass migration — take your pick. They are all global in nature. Where will the greatest opportunities lie? Leadership in AI, transforming the modern state and public services, developing the best talent in the world — all require leaps of imagination in national leadership.

As the issues become more global, our expectations of future leaders have become more local. There is a widening mismatch that political parties must address more coherently than rushing high-flyers into seats this week. In the meantime, we all have a part to play. When the candidates come to the door, ask something more than if they went to the school down the street. Ask how they will lead in a world where the events that change your life come from much further away than that.