Davis vs The Munsters

Max Kaye

This wont wash with the public.

Are New Labour saying they can't find anyone willing to stand up in public and argue for their 'principled [sic] stand' on '42 Days' and other 'security' measures?

Pete

For the sake of democracy, surely bottler Brown cannot be allowed not to put up a candidate to defend his Governments policies. This is not an issue of party politics but of democracy itself. Not to field a candidate would be an absolute disgrace.

Pete

On this one occasion I think all other parties should stand aside and let this be a clear fight between David Davis and Labour. That way the media are free to focus on the issues being debated.

David

Labour are stupid, then. To field a candidate and lose, they could at least spin their usual nonsense about being sent a message, or that DD's lead over Labour there is huge anyway. But to not field one at all says 'we don't care about this important issue'. Thinking about it, ignoring the by-election is the worse choice. Not that I don't want to see Labour making wrong choices time and time again. Go DD!

Tiberius

So David Davis finally has the opportunity to mimic his cult hero, Patrick McGoohan, as The Prisoner.

We will never discover the real reason for his resignation, and his fate will be to be buffeted around a no-man's land by a big white balloon.

What a waste of a future ministeral career, which could have been a very significant force in retrieving 60 million people from the hangover of 11 years of the things he's now trying to overturn from a position of hopelessness.

John Johnson

I've heard that Tom Montgomerie of the Conservative Home website will be carrying the banner for 42 days, ID Cards and camera implants in everyone's noses.

J H Holloway

Good God Spectator editorial, don't be so knocked-kneed over this brave move.

Try reading the Times' blog responses

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4120459.ece

95 percent very pro. His speech went down very well with the real world outside the M25. Even though I live in the capital, I think the rest of the country agrees with Davis and he'll pull off a great victory.

Imagine him polling 3-4 times the votes he got last time...you'll all be hitting reverse and praising him to the skies in a month.

Adam McNestrie

So, Davis has resigned. He’s called a hissy-fit by-election – the first in history apparently. Yes – this is an unprecedentedly vain and hollow piece of political bravado. It is historic. No one wants to fight him (who can blame them? he’s former SAS), no one understands why he has to fight a by-election to demonstrate his fondness for civil liberties; but he’s going to damn well do it anyway. No one – not Gordon Brown, not the Murdoch press, not hundreds of years of accepted Parliamentary practice, not common sense, not even David Cameron – is going to stop him.

Just think, though: what if they all start doing it? What if he’s just the first Tory MP to have this particular eureka moment? We’re all vulnerable to crazes, fads and bubbles. Imagine a Parliament in which the Conservative Party has done the decent thing and resolved to act as the kamikaze party… The remaining Parliamentarians appreciate the increased elbow space at the bars; there is a fire sale of Tory offices; Labour MPs stretch out in the Chamber, taking to sitting on both sides of the Speaker’s Chair; a wonderful spirit of bonhomie and harmony descends on the House of Commons. Without the Conservatives, MPs finally get round to doing all of the things that they had always been meaning to do, but had never been able to find the time for. A fair tax system is introduced. Child poverty is abolished. Comprehensive environmental legislation is passed. Nuclear disarmament begins. All of a sudden no one can remember why they used to think governing Britain was such a tricky business…

It could happen. If we want it bad enough it just might happen.

Read about Davis at greater length in my blog, just who the hell are we?, at:
http://adammcnestrie.wordpress.com/

Pete

"Logic is to make him look like a mad bloke in the pub touting for a fight at closing time." Another way of looking at it is that he is seen as a man whose principles and honour have been offended and feels he must defend them.

Silent Hunter

I agree!

Labour are just showing themselves to be utterly unprincipled if they choose not to fight for their case of 42 days.

David Davis is a breath of fresh air after the stink of New Labour.

JohnT

So that's Labour's new policy: retreat to the bunker and refuse to fight?
Can only be a matter of hours before the cyanide capsules are brought in.

Nuff Said

1. This was a decision ratified by the House of Commons. That's how democracy works. If Davis doesn't lie it, resign and don't stand again.

2. Are Conservative supporters able to hand on heart declare that they wouldn't have promoted the same policy if they had been in power? Of course they would. Cameron hasn't said he would repeal it.

Silent Hunter

Nuff Said..........well, quite!

David C

Nuff Said
June 12th, 2008 11:06pm
This was a decision ratified by the House of Commons. That's how democracy works.

Not quite!

That's how politics works.