How can the Tory leadership solve its DD problem?

Chris lancashire

I'm afraid that Davis' ego is greater than his IQ (or loyalty). Consequently any role other than leader is unlikely to satisfy him.

Dr Blue

Davis is going to have to sink his differences with the Cameroons.

There's much Davis says I agree with, but he didn't get the party leadership, and Cameron is doing a good job as leader.

Davis is going to have to back Cameron, and play his part in the larger project of sorting the country out after the next election.

Publius

Here's a suggestion. Rather than couch all this in terms of fights and splits, why not listen to what he (or anyone else) says, and discuss it, and then adopt the best bits as policy.

I'm so sick of the Hothouse testosterone bullshit.

The white dragon of olde england

Cameron will not tolerate anyone with half a brain, or anyone with the ability to challenge the great Blair 2 project!

Like Blair 1, Cameron will place in his cabinet people that will tow the line. Ken Clarke has been well and truly neutered and Cameron shares Clarke's view of the EU- as people will discover almost from day one of a Cameron administration.

David Davis had the leadership stolen from him by one glib 'act' and that is what it was.

People talk about Cameron changing the Tory Party- just like Blair changed the Labour Party BUT what does Cameron stand for?

Cameron stands with both feet planted on each side of the fence. Waiting to see how the public react (like Blair) before committing himself.

David Davis should just carry on telling the truth. Peter Hitchens was loudly applauded on Any Questions when he called for the return of Grammar Schools. David Davis is right to bang on and on about it.

Cameron - as a son of Eton- can have no idea except that Grammar Schools kept many young people away from public schools- as they gave a far better education in most cases.

Peope are sleep walking into Cameron's fantasy land- Not knowing what he is going to do and how he is going to do it.

He keeps his privately educated clique around him without sacking the majority of them for the outrageous expense claims they submitted!

He sacks others who would have opposed him.

Cameron will bring about the end of the Conservative Party - as Blair and Brown have brought about the end of the Labour Party.

We are entering unchartered waters and I can only forsee scenes in this country normally attributed to foreign shores.

Cameron is a charlatan and people should wake up to the fact!

Keep it up David Davis, for England and St. George.

Dan

Ignoring him is the best option

Alan

What DD says though is completely sensible. It is naive to use google to store third party data. By suggesting it, the Tories are demonstrating a technological naivety equal to that of the Labour party.

Jonathan Cook

Maybe they need to think differently......... I'd hate to see the Tories end up like Labour - where independent thought is crushed and people are smeared against and where they battle each other with coded articles in the press.

Hopefully Cameron can engender a balance.

He should debate this issue with Davis behind closed doors and then provide an opinion piece that either takes on board Davis's criticisms, or justifies the original policy.

David Ossitt

"A return to the shadow Cabinet for Davis is unlikely"

And yet it is the only solution to the problem.

David Cameron should bring him back; shadow Home Secretery would be the best, but failing that, a much elevated shadow Secretary of State for Defence.

By much elevated; I am of course referring to the fact that Gordon Brown devalued the post and thereby insulted the armed forces when he appointed a plonker, the Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth.

David Ossitt

And; by the bye, it is high time that Cameron gives a proper job to John Redwood.

mart

Dr Blue: "Davis is going to have to back Cameron"

I beg to differ. Davis is entitled to his opinion, and to express it. We need the openness of public debate that such disagreements bring.

What we don't need is the incessant media "ha, there are splits in your party" stories that inevitably attend such disagreements.

I am a touch unimpressed that this "splits" story is a post on Coffee House, to be honest.

But otherwise, keep up the good work.

Free Thomist

If he wants to give him a useful purpose that will appeal to him, Cameron should ask him to head up a review of Labour legislation with a remit to identify those that have compromised our liberty and to recommend their removal from law.

Percepied

I suspect that in Government DD will be to the Conservatives what Frank Field currently is to Labour.

Sheila

He really is the most bitter man in politics.

Cameron's decisiveness in keeping him out of Cabinet is admirable.

His appetite for open disloyalty must condemn him forever.

He is a disgrace.

C Powell

If you give your personal information to a private company they will want to make money out of it. And this applies to health records. So either the Tory's policy is to pay Google to store our records and explicitly prevent them from using it for their own commercial purposes or we give Google our health records and take our chances. If the latter, I too want nothing to do with it.

But in any case I do wish - as Alan says - that politicians would stop their infatuation with computer databases and technological solutions. IT is a means to an end not an end in itself. Just because it's technologically whizzy and can be accessed at the press of a button doesn't mean that it's worthwhile. The key point - which is being lost - is that our health records should be accessible only to our doctors and only for the purpose of treating us not to a vast range of other people for other subsidiary purposes which may well not be in our interests or to our benefit.

Steve.W

“How can the Tory leadership solve its DD problem”?

Perhaps it cannot. For example DD is known for his opposition to ID cards. The Tory leadership says it will not have ID cards. But the bit of plastic is NOT the problem, it's the database that supports the card that's pivotal here.

The Tories, like the LibDems, seem keen to get a good sound bite, no cards. But the voters are smart enough to see where the problems are and wait for more clarity on this point, what's to go and what's to stay?

Cameron should tell us and his party what is going to happen. 'Heir to Blair' cannot hide behind “it's too early to say”.

Ruairidh

Ignore him.

He is a loose canoon but an egotist. Getting him back inside the tent will not stop him pissing on everything.

Fergus Pickering

Davis is right. Is it disloyal to be right? Who was the bloody fool came up with this? Do you really want our Tory MPs to be as supine as the Labour lot? Well, I don't.

Verity

The White Dragon is correct. The Heir to Blair, like Blair, is going to say absolutely anything to get his feet under the desk of No 10 and the Heirites are loyal to him, not the Tory Party and certainly not to the people of Britain. Cameron has a couple of very wispy Tory ideas, and the rest of it is One Worlder, Blairesque, Europhile destructive rubbish.

Do you really want another round of monstrously fake Tony Blair?

I am one of the tens of thousands of people who feel that there is something of the luxury car showroom salesman (as there was with Blair) about Cameron. That he espouses "green" issues without the slenderest thread of evidence tells me he is either feeble minded or false. He has no convictions, like Blair, other than that he wants to be PM and thinks he can thrill people into voting for him.

Bring on David Davis. I think Cameron must be associated with Common Purpose.

Maggie

We can only hope that the voters of Haltemprice & Howden will solve the problem at the next election by voting for someone other than David Davis. One of the attributes that is desirable in an MP is mental stability and unfortunately Davis hasn't got it.

Francis

Why ignore common sense? Don't be stupid. David Davis speaks the truth.

cuffleyburgers

I do not understand why DD is acting as he is.

I thought he was a better man than this. It looks to me as thogh DC is doing a good job holding things together in order to secure the victory the country so badly needs, he and his team are producing some increasingly good policies,a so far have managed to avod major gaffes or hostages to fortune, helped by the sheer unlessness and unpleasantness of the Brown administration.

DD is a capable operator and would be a good spokesman for the party as well as a capable minister, his abrupt departure could have created chaos to be there sniping from the sidelines is incomprehensible if he genuinely has the good of his country at heart.

Simon

what about a job on this blog. I'm sure he would feel at home.

TrevorsDen

white dragon is talking rubbish.

He was Shadow Home Sec - and INSIDE the shadow cabinet - before he resigned. what better position to be in to influence policy? Is resignation was pointless and the plain fact is people cannot just resign in and out of the shadow or real cabinet on a whim.

I like Davis - I am not sure his protests about google and hospital records amount to much. What option is there that will save the billions currently being wasted - did he offer one?

I hope Cameron gets to be PM - I am not an idiot. He and the tories will do some good things and some poor things. But hey lets make it easy for labour to stay in or get back in. Tell you all what - lets forget the shambles Labour have inflicted on the UK these last 2 years and just give vent to all our vain self serving prejudice. THATS really going to be good for the country.

CS

DD behaving like a slapped arse because he got beaten in the leadership election. I've always thought that triggering that by-election to oppose something that another party was doing came across as a bit weird. Now I wonder if he'd always been looking for an excuse to make "a moral stand".

Remember how Robin Cook had no principled objections to fighting a war (Kosovo) against someone who'd never attacked us or an ally and which was not approved by the UN when he was Foreign Secretary. But when he'd been humiliatingly relegated to Leader of the suddenly rediscovered his principles?

I've always thought that Cook didn't resign over being demoted as he would have looked petulant and so he waited for the first excuse to resign "on a point of principle". I reckon that's pretty much what DD did. if he'd refused a post in Cameron's shadow cabinet after the leadership election it would have looked like sour grapes. So he bided his time until he could find a point of principle to "resign" on. And he ended up having to invent a spurious one.

His record as a doughty champion of civil liberties is, after all, not a long one.

CS

Plus there's the fact that, as his main challenger in the leadership election, Cameron can't risk looking as if he's kow towing to him. Which is why, every time DD sounds off like this, his return to the shadow cabinet looks less and less likely.

Michael Taylor

It is ridiculous to have talent going begging on the back benches, given the situation the Conservatives will inherit. Are we really to believe Britain will be better governed without David Davis, without John Redwood?

jon dee

As a long term admirer of David Davis I have been saddened by his eccentric and provocative behaviour following his unnecessary and self-indulgent call for a by-election.

His subsequent conduct seems to manifest a constant need for attention and does nothing for his reputation. If he is no longer interested in being a team member he should declare his position.

Sadly, he's beginning to look like a sore loser.

JONNY

'Do you really want another round of monstrously fake Tony Blair?'

And the jolly old record spins on.

The white dragon of olde england!

Verity. Cameron, like Maude, is well associated with Common Purpose. His aide, Llewellyn, is another Eton toff and a well known europhile, he was that Patten's adviser for years! so we know which way he will blow! and that is the way Cameron will blow.

Left. left left into Europe. The most undemocratic organisation ever and the British people are being denied a voice!

If Cameron was the patriot, he likes us to believe he is, he would call for an in or OUT referendum!

No chance as he will get the answer he, and the rest of our politicians, do not want to hear, OUT!

Verity, I see nothing but trouble!

Diogenes

The Conservative leadership can solve this problem by adopting a robust, considered, and consistent stance on the issues of privacy and civil liberties, and by avoiding making questionable policy on the hoof (like Grayling's recent nutty mobile-phone-confiscation stuff). The Tory policy on, say, ID cards, is undoubtedly better than Labour's, but it is by no means always clear that they have fully "got" the issues.

Marc Oliver

David Davis should show loyalty to the Conservative Party and resist his impulses to seek personal glory as a 'maverick'. He seems to be carrying some grudges( his failed leadership bid?)which have led him into some questionable,erratic behaviour.
The country needs David Cameron and the impressive team he has assembled.David Davis is a busted flush.

David Ossitt

Sheila

"He really is the most bitter man in politics.

Cameron's decisiveness in keeping him out of Cabinet is admirable.

His appetite for open disloyalty must condemn him forever.

He is a disgrace"

The most bitter man in politics! what absolute drivel, he is now and always has been a man of honour.

Cameron is not keeping him out of the Cabinet, it is a shadow cabinet and when we win the next GE, Cameron would be a silly little man if he failed to offer him a job.

"open disloyalty"

Ours is not the labour party nor the lib-dems; we are allowed to think for ourselves and at times to disagree, it is not disloyal for a conservative to have an opinion nor is it disloyal to voice that opinion.

As I wrote before; he is an honourable man and so can not possibly be called a disgrace.

Occasional Ostrich

Eisenhower is reported to have said of Patton, "I'd sooner have him inside the tent, p*ssing out than outside the tent p*issing in."
All great leaders have to understand the art of compromise.

EC

"I am one of the tens of thousands of people who feel that there is something of the luxury car showroom salesman (as there was with Blair) about Cameron"

Swiz Tony followed by Swiss Toni !

mart

cuffleyburgers:

"I do not understand why DD is acting as he is."

How about the most obvious explanation: he wants to point out the flaws he perceives in this policy.

For those who are keen on the policy, let them defend it against such attacks with confidence.

But don't heed the media with its "ha ha your party is split" stories - they are just childish.

I'm agree with Fergus's point. Give us MPs who have a view and argue for it.

Tiberius

"I do not understand why DD is acting as he is".

Cuffleyburgers: Maggie had her Willie and her Heseltine. I would suggest Cameron is still only looking for his former.

Colin

Who does he think he is, Heseltine?

I'm no fan of Cameron, I think he'll turn out just like Blair, but, DD should either shut up or ship out.

Ken

I read the other day that Cameron is going to need veteran Tories on his front bench if he wins the election. Davis would be an excellent start. Redwood also. Both speak sound commonsense and both are hard-hitters. Never mind about the in-house squabbling. Let's get some brawn and brain involved.

Jean Monnet

It's strange how no one has mentioned Rachel Whetstone yet! (If you don't know who she is then - er - Google her.)

David Davis, the man who whipped the rebels for the Maastricht vote. Thanks, David.

Brightonia

Cameron should seek DD's loyalty on the day of the General Election, and give him a big Cabinet job, like Health or the Home Office, to get his teeth into. Much that DD says is spot on; the problem seems to be that he wants to trumpet his ego, rather than push his message from around the Shadow Cabinet. I am afraid that all this Eton/toff stuff is chaff, sent up by people who clearly have chips on their shoulders.

Richard Holloway

So we want politicians who speak for themselves and don't always obey the whip in Parliament. We also want MPs who don't rock the boat and do as their told. You can't have it both ways. I for one find it refreshing to have different opinions represented in public from one party. It used to be called debate.
Ignore the media, they will represent a fly landing on a person's shoulder as evidence that they smell.

Verity

White Dragon - How do you know that Cameron is associated with Common Purpose - other than that he espouses all their causes, of course, and slithers around any topic that requires a straight answer?

Tiberius - Tee hee.

Ian C

Davis has a useful contribution to make. The trouble is nobody knows quite what or how.

He is known in Westminster as a 'lazy' MP with a good brain who only gets excited by things that wind him up.

He needs to make up his mind if he is going to make a positive contribution or spend his days firing rockets that could damage his own side. That piece in The Times is a prime example of an attempt at what exactly?

Rhoda Klapp

IF he's trying to get the tory party to avoid bad policy and adopt good policy, where is the harm? If his acts are indistinguishable from those of someone who has the interests of the electorate at heart (no matter what his own agenda) that's good. I don't want my records in the hands of some cowboy outfit such as google. I disagree with him a little on grammar schools, but I wouldn't scrap one more until I'd replaced it with better. Would you?

mac

Agree with Fergus and Mart.

What DD is saying makes sense. Presumably his arguments were rebuffed internally so he's voicing them openly.

Good, that's healthier than the Con Central insistence on saying as little as possible on any policy matter before the GE. I want Brown out but I want to know what we're going to get instead: Blair demonstrated all too clearly the perils of electing a party to govern comprising lobby-fodder, ovine MPs and empty rhetoric topped off in his case by a cheesy grin and the 'hey, you can trust me . . . " lie.

George Laird

Dear All

Speaking out is a problem?

Am I to assume that all Cameron wants is yes men and women?

How do you solve a problem like Davis?

Call Andrew Lloyd Webber.

There is no problem.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Verity

Also, David Davis has a face that's been shaped by a life of striving. I cannot see how anyone can trust the bland, anodyne, unlined face of David Cameron.

Sorry, but there you are. Looks count.

Ruairidh

The problem with DD's outbursts appears to be that he isn't interested in finding out what the actual policy is. He's happy just to destory a straw man of his own making. Handed for bashing out an article for a newspaper but very damaging to the party because in the minds of his readers the straw man is the policy.

Occasional Ostrich: I made reference to the Eisenhower quote in my first post. Getting DD inside the tent won't stop him pissing on the inside, he'll just do it with more authority. He is a loose canon that no longer wants to be tied down. He is no Heseltine, more a Tam Dalyell. Consistently wrong but based on impecable principles.

Lee Jakeman

Sack him.

Bluebottle

The problem for Cameron (if it is a problem) goes deeper than just DD. The Tory slogan at the last election was "Are you thinking what we're thinking?".

A lot of Conservative voters are thinking what DD is thinking.

Dan

Al of these rantings are comical.
Davis' views will have minimal impact. Try comparing this to the civil war in the Labour Party.
The moaning about Cameron is also laughable. When the guy took over, the Conservatives were in a total mess and seemingly destined to be in permanent opposition. They are now certain to win the next General Election - and it's not all down to the pathetic Labour Party.
I'm not in love with the guy, but I must admit that Cameron has been a fantastic party leader - the best since Disraeli eh?

Kirsty

Whether Davis is right is a matter of opinion. He can have his opinion, just don't expect Cameron to hand out a cabinet job every time a bitter backbencher decides to sulk and rock the boat. Just ignore him, it's hardly news that DD disagrees with his own party, I dont' see it generate a lot of interest.

Verity

Kirsty - DD doesn't disagree with his own party. He articulates its concerns. It is Cameron that puts a headlock on anyone who wants to discuss issues freely. You go with the Cameron programme, no matter how Blairesque and inherently wrong-headed it is, or you go. Anyone who thinks Cameron is a Conservative is truly off dancing with the fairies.

We seem to have a lot of new people today, all, to no one's amazement, sticking up for Cameron.

David Parker

It would be very surprising if Cameron, along with almost every senior shadow minister was not involved in Common Purpose, for it would appear that the main objective of that organisation is to provide a framework of organised governance (at all levels) in the event of a total breakdown of law and order.

This is certainly not a new idea, or even reality, since administrative structures (with legislative powers) such as this existed during the second world war and througout the cold war, with the objective of coping with reorganisation after nuclear or biological strikes.

The important question is not therefore if Common Purpose exists, but whether it is being subverted to particular political ends and this, in turn leads to questions about the desirability of having a professional political class, supported by an over-powerful, over-pensioned, under-competent and increasingly unaccountable civil service.

TGF UKIP

The fanzine hacks are, predictably, trying to blow smoke on this issue.

Both Messrs Hoskins and Forsyth manage to write pieces carefully avoiding any mention of the role of Mr & Mrs Mekon in all this. Who do you think you are kidding guys?

Of course DD is very consciously and deliberately lobbing a handgrenade and he is quite right to do so because it will be now a done deal with Goggle and the affair stinks.

If you drew a map of the hierarchy of The Clique, right at the top, and above Osborne, would be the unholy trinity of Dave and Mrs & Mrs Google-Hilton.

Remember folks what a spivvy bunch The Clique are. They have ownership of the Tory Party and probably soon of the government of this country and by God they intend to make use of it.

If you are sensible you will be just as cynical about the Cameron Clique as you are about the Brown Bunch.

PS Anyone wanting to seriously lobby against this stitch-up might be well advised to enlist the assistance of Lady Sheffield.

David Ossitt

Verity.

"We seem to have a lot of new people today, all, to no one's amazement, sticking up for Cameron"

Well spotted.

Verity

David Parker, we have the military for the unlikely event of a breakdown in civil order.

And the raison d'être of Common Purpose is One Worlderism/universal Communism. All these thousands of people, who cannot admit that they are members, were not attending civil defence lessons.

If there really were such an organisation for civil defence in case of a breakdown of law and order (I mean, an even worse breakdown than we see in Britain today), it would be run by a military man, and it would be official. Not Julia Stephenson or whatever her name is. It is not "being subverted". It has always been a low-key, secretive vehicle One Worlderism.

Chris Morriss

Even though I think Davis's libertarianism isn't as well thought through as it might be, it still has an order of magnitude more integrity than anything the frankly limp Cameron is putting forward. Although I want an end to the current government, I despair of the morass to which the glossy, media-friendly, but vacuous Cameron will lead us. Davis should continue to speak his mind, but should perhaps broaden his scope a little.

JohnAnt

I'd personally have no problem with contracting out a data issue. But to a US company??
Also surely it's unwise of Cameron to want to promise Google such a large government contract, given the high office his advisor Steve Hilton's wife in the company? She is its European Head of Communications.
Possibly DD is trying to stir it up? I don't trust his motives or balance of mind much recently - I thought the by-election a costly and pointless tilting at windmills.

Kirsty

All the tech firms who're in the cloud business are from the US. This is about data security, personal privacy is not the concern here. Google won't analyse your health record like your search history, no way in hell they would sneak a peek into their clients' data. This is not about morality, it's professionalism. DD is the one who's naive here. He sounds indignant about nothing most of the time. The real issue here is datacenter security, not Google. Anyone can write a rant against Google like that in 5 mins.

ToryNerd

All politicians should know by now (post Brown and youtube) that IT is an assumed skill. If you get it wrong you are by definition a prat. DD is right the Google idea is the work of a prat. Name him or very possibly her. Don't waste time trying to read the runes.

TomS

DD does an excellent job representing us traditional Tories. I hope he continues to remind the "heir to Blair" what traditional Tories are thinking.

Maggie

TomS: I'm a traditional Tory and DD doesn't represent me. He lost the leadership election because he wasn't good enough and he would have ensured a 4th term in opposition. There is a long list of other wannabees who aren't self-aware enough to grasp the obvious fact that they're just not good enough for a starring role. They had their chances and they blew it.

PauL

I see Davis as the man who will step up to the plate when we are really in the crap. Like Churchill, he will be a lone voice prophesying doom on the back benches, unheeded, not credited with a political career. And then we will need him.

Verity

Tory Troll alert!

BrockleySteve

I second Free Thomist's idea.

I admire DD for his stand against detention without trial.

David Ossitt

Maggie.

What utter tripe; nonsensical drivel.

He would not have ensured a 4th term in opposition; you are so wrong, if you were to put up any of the half dozen top Tories against Brown today they would win.

David Cameron would not (at the time) have stopped Blair from winning his third term.

David Ossitt

Maggie.

What do you mean by a traditional Tory?

He lost the leadership election because there could be only one winner, not because he was not good enough.