Cameron responds to Davis

Kevyn Bodman

Davis isn't bluffing.

And Cameron did say he'd go to Davis' constituency and campaign for him.

Denis McShane is on now, babbling nonsense.

Martin Denning

Game of bluff James? I think not. I was moved by Davis' speech and think his action courageous. He sounded like a man standing up for a real and important principle of great and funamental value to all of us. Well done D D and thank you.

CS

Probably the best reaction from DC. Appointing DG immediately. No suggestion that DD wil walk back into his job. A polite expression of good luck to DD.

Stops the Tories looking as if they will be on hold until after DD's by-election.

How tacky was the New Labour reaction, calling DD unhinged?

Mind you, the Tories can't go overboard in their praise of DD. If DC praised him as a man of principle, he'd inevitably be asked why he wasn't resigning to fight a by-election on the issue too.

Gill Thomas

Good for David Davis - its about time somebody stood up for the ordinary person. Our government resembles a dictatorship and our hard won rights and liberties have been ignored, eroded and removed - all in the name of freedom and democracy. Support DD and contact your local MP!

Wilfred

It looks like the Tories have cracked at the first hint of the great clunking fist fighting back. Oh dear.

PayDirt

The man is not living in the real world. Go back to the middle ages if you believe so much in Magna Carta. I am more interested in avoiding terror bombs.

C Powell

That's what worries me about Cameron: that when he gets into power he'll do nothing about repealing the authoritarian laws Labour has introduced, will back ID cards and all the rest of it and we, the people, will have been well and truly stuffed. I'm glad that David Davis is making an issue of it - not just the 42-day stuff, but ID cards and the database, the childrens' database, the 240 agencies with access to our private details, the proposal to keep track of all our emails and phone calls, the spy cameras in our bins, the petty officials spying on us over trivial matters, the abuse of powers given for one purpose but used for another the childrens. It would be good to have this debated and to strengthen the hand of those within the Tory Party on the side of liberty and freedome - not all of them, not enough of them are, I fear. If Labour don't stand they will look even more like cowardly berks than they are already. And Cameron would be mad not to use someone of Davis's abilities.

Kevyn: I agree with your comments on other posts about the liberty question being the most important there is. Very well said.

Auld Simpy

The old boy's stacking the cabinet with eye-candy, eh?

Travis Bickle

It's about bloody time somebody stood up and said these things about the way Labour have introduced legislation upon legislation (and I'm not just talking 42 days) that has eroded our privacy and freedoms for 11 years.

Maybe now the apathetic British public will wake up and smell the coffee.

CS

Sorry, can we have more details of how the great clunking fist has fought back please?

Most of us only saw a man just managing to climb out of a hole he'd dug himself by offering taxpayers' money to any whore who'd sell his vote.

TomTom

42 Days is simply Internment Without Trial - a foretaste of Rule 18B all over again....and 18B was intended for IRA men but used against so many others. Tiny Rowland's mother died of cancer under 18B in prison because she was German and for no other reason.

Do we really want to give the government legislation to arrest Opposition candidates before elections as in Zimbabwe ?

Cameron should be careful not to posture. the ECJ and ECHR are going to blow this out of the water. Having removed the Home Secretary from sentencing they are hardly going to let Parliament interfere with judges - we are getting back to the causes of the English Civil War. If they go on like this we may have another

stephen hoffman

anyone think davis would be a better leader than cameron , he has principles after all.

Huw Thornton

If, as reported, the issue between DD and DC is whether the 42 days legislation should be repealed, we are in a hell of a pickle.

I do not consider myself especially as a DC loyalist, but I think that he's right to resist such a position. It could be politically catastrophic to commit to changing back to 28 days especially if - God forbid - there is further terrorist action.

It wouldn't need a Great Clunking Fist to win an election in these circumstances - there wouldn't be any chance of power for a further generation.

Ted Tedford

Travis Bickle and Kevyn Bodman are spot on. A stand against the insidious expansion of State powers was long overdue, given the shoddy, badly-drafted gunk that has been slipped into the statute book - including the Enabling Act-style Regulatory Reform Act they tried to smuggle in in 2006. I think Mr Davis should be applauded.

Chris SE9

Davis sounds a bit unhinged. I hope a truck driver campaigning against soaring fuel and food costs stands against him and wins. They are the issues which real people are concerned with.

Seasurfer1

Could be dangerous for David Cameron. He is in Cornwall today and some blogs are saying the place is jinxed for the Conservatives. There is a tranche of tories in Cornwall who say they are going to stand as right wing Independents. Maybe Davis in his stand is giving them some encouragement.
Is this the start of a BIG bIG split in conservative party ranks?

Miranda

PayDirt 2.19

Any when they throw you in a cell for 'who knows what' for 42 days you will suddenly remember why Magna Carta has been important for all these centuries!! Do you want to go back to the dark ages?

Do you realize this bill has got so little substance that Brown had to bribe votes out of the DUP with our tax money to win?

Don't you think coming down on the preachers of hate, and ridding this country of every potential terrorist is a better way to face the threat? But no, nothing is done about Muslim hate crimes, instead we have to lose our freedoms.

Guy Incognito

Chris SE9: That would be a pretty tedious contest, as I doubt Mr Davis would be arguing in favour of food inflation and higher fuel costs.

Although I'm not actually a real person, I too applaud Mr Davis's stand.

cameronp

A pathetic stunt to gainsay the accusations of political opportunism in voting against the 42 days bill.
Clearly linked to the deliberate leak of documents to the BBC over security matters

Nicholas

PayDirt:"I am more interested in avoiding terror bombs."

Puerile comment. Miranda's comment says it all.

Nicholas

I see it has brought the national socialist (Labour) trolls out in force.

Nazis.

PayDirt

The difference between us Miranda is that I believe in our civilization not to throw me in a cell. I’m not living in paranoialand where you seem to need your Magna Cartas, Civil Rights Charter et al. Maybe people’ll accuse me of naivety and it’s all the start of a slippery slope. It’s not, it’s more to do with detaining the bombers before they explode. By the way, neither Cameron nor anybody else is about to deport every potential terrorist just so that we can keep Magna Carta.

Craig Strachan

This is a piece of self-indulgence on Davis's part. If the Lib Dems won't field a candidate against him, maybe the Tories should!

PayDirt

Nicholas:
I won't try to argue with someone who doesn't mind being bombed.

David Lindsay

The Tory Leadership Election is on, I see.

One of the morally and socially conservative, Eurosceptical, Unionist remnant, or at least someone as near thereto as could possibly be permitted within the Shadow Cabinet, has finally had enough (at least fifty years late, but never mind), and is quite clearly mounting a challenge.

Almost everything on Davis's entirely correct list of assaults on liberty was pioneered by the Tories' immediate previous Leader when he was Home Secretary, and it is inconceivable that the Cameroons really would repeal any of it.

There is an underlying point here. People go into politics because they believe that the State should do certain things.

When the State delivered education and health care, and ran things like railways and mines, then it felt no need to introduce ID cards, or to bang people up for six weeks without even so much as charging them, or to keep vast databases on them, or to watch them all the time. For that matter, no such needs were felt when the Police patrolled the streets on foot.

But now, having arbitrarily decided that they will not do such sensible and necessary things as delivering education and health care, or running railways and mines, or ensuring that the Police patrol the streets on foot, how are the political and administrative classes to occupy their time?

Why, by introducing ID cards, and banging people up for six weeks without even so much as charging them, and keeping vast databases on them, or watching them all the time, of course.

That, and waging pointless wars.

Stan, UK

Cameron is off his head! Allowing Davis to go banging on about CCTV, DNA databases, 42 days detention is lunacy. The public support government policy on these issues that is why they have elected them at the last three general elections!

PATHETIC

This is a kamakazee mission and has now just highlighted the tories as being out of touch and fundamentalist. All the good work that has been done to make us electable again has just been ruined. I am very annoyed!

Nicholas

PayDirt: "I won't try to argue with someone who doesn't mind being bombed."

Good. Because I do mind being bombed. You are very naive if you believe that:

a) 42 days will reduce the chance of being bombed; and
b) that it will be in force and of any practical use by the time the next bomb goes off

You are also making the common presumption in this debate that those subject to arrest will be guilty.

And, although I mind about being bombed, I mind a lot more about the erosion of our freedoms by this rotten (in every sense) government.

Commondog

Gill Thomas.

"Good for David Davis - its about time somebody stood up for the ordinary person"

But according to the BBC, over 60% of people - most of them normal I'm sure - support the move to 42 days.

David Davis and his defence of civil liberties then, would amount to no more than the denial of the will of the majority.

Is this the stage at which we refer to the majority as a mob?

Commondog

Just wondering.

This 42 days lark.

They are free to go after that are they? And they would have to be involved in matters which threaten the national security?

Is 42 days enough then?