The most gripping issue to emerge in the Glasgow North East by-election is whether the Scottish National party contender was born in the constituency. Unemployment, social deprivation and the dependency culture have taken second place to the far more provocative question of David Kerr's provenance.
Is he a native of Shettleston, as he has said, or was he delivered in a hospital on the south side and thus outside the seat? Or was it further east, in Cumbernauld, as his election leaflet claimed when he stood in the Falkirk West by-election nine years ago?
As voters go to the polls on Thursday to choose a replacement for Michael Martin, the former Commons speaker, they will be bombarded by leaflets highlighting the confusion. Even Alex Salmond has been drawn into the debate, wasting precious campaigning days trying to contain the damage.
But does it really matter? Kerr obviously thought so or he wouldn't be in this mess. But there have been many illustrious members of parliament who have adopted constituencies far from home.
Winston Churchill, born in Blenheim Palace, represented Dundee for 14 years, although he had moved to Epping by the time he became prime minister. Margaret Thatcher never stood in her home town of Grantham, famously scouring the country for a winnable berth and ending up in Finchley. Tony Blair started life in Edinburgh but made Sedgefield his own. And Roy Jenkins came from Welsh mining stock but still managed to win Glasgow Hillhead for the Social Democratic party.
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Voters tend to warm to anyone willing to defend their interests; in Glasgow North East the electorate will surely be guided not by the candidates' birth certificates but by their calibre. And that is a far greater worry.
Kerr has never been convincing as a prospective MP. Prone to gaffes, tactless and a member of an extreme religious group, he was his party's fourth choice to fight the seat. Recent blunders include ignorance about jobseeker's allowance, in a constituency where one in six of potential workers is on incapacity benefit, and asking a fishmonger standing at a fish counter what she was selling (answer: fish).
Labour has played up the local credentials of its man, Willie Bain, the only one of the 13 candidates for the seat who lives in Glasgow North East. But he spends most of the week in London teaching public law at South Bank University, returning to his parents' home at weekends.
The Liberal Democrat candidate, Eileen Baxendale, a social worker from South Lanarkshire, is perhaps the most uninspiring of the lot. She is quite out of her depth, unaware who her party's Scottish leader is and vague about Lib Dem policy.
A seat that incorporates some of the most deprived parts of the UK deserves an MP who is not just honest and principled, but also competent, seasoned and empathetic. There is not much sign of these qualities among the Glasgow North East rump.
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If a high profile by-election cannot attract top-notch rookies, what hope is there for the general election when there is likely to be a record turnover of MPs? One Tory MP told me recently he was seriously considering a new career, partly because his profession has been so denigrated by the expenses scandal, but also because he was dismayed by the fibre of prospective candidates.
Of course, the two causes are linked. Revelations about parliamentary excesses have destroyed the integrity of the House of Commons and it will be up to the next generation of MPs to atone for the sins of current members. It is not much of a job description any more.
Tom Harris, the MP for Glasgow South, said he found the situation heartbreaking.
"I aspired to it as a great job with respect in the community. That has all turned sour, so we need urgent action to turn that around."
The problem is that the urgent action, as recommended by Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the committee on standards in public life, removes many of the temptations that have lured high-flyers to parliament.
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Why would a bright and ambitious youngster choose to enter the disgraced world of politics, where the pay and conditions are unexceptional, when he could join the disgraced world of, say, banking where both pay and perks remain extravagant?
Some MPs argue that their salaries should be increased to compensate for the loss of earnings in expenses, but this would further anger voters, and the suggestion indicates that there are still some members who are out of touch with the public mood.
Besides, in an ideal democracy, public servants should be driven by civic duty, not by financial rewards - although even the dutiful demand a decent standard of living.
The difficulty in recruiting able political candidates reflects a disillusionment with formal politics that pre-dates the expenses debacle. Turnout at elections and party membership have both been declining for years, yet people are not uninterested in politics - they are as opinionated as ever and still getting involved in local campaigns, petitioning and charity work.
None of the political parties has a magic formula for reconnecting with the electorate or for broadening their traditional bases; they are not concerned with the bigger picture, being motivated primarily by the need to win elections.
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Party strategists are kept awake at night attempting to make their organisations more electable, but invariably they get it wrong. Take the Conservative party's initiative to engage the female vote by engineering all-women shortlists.
This not only erodes the quality of the intake by barring potentially good male candidates, it also fails to curb the chauvinism rife in Tory circles that put off women in the first place. The treatment of Elizabeth Truss, the Conservative candidate maligned by the South West Norfolk association for having had an affair with a married man, illustrates the point. What clever woman would want to follow in Truss's footsteps?
Having said that, there will always be queues of megalomaniacs, male and female, trying to get elected. The trouble is finding the right mettle of megalomaniac. In post-devolution Scotland, the dilemma is especially acute since we must produce enough honourable members from a tiny population for two parliaments - unless they can be drafted in from elsewhere.