Is Davis the sanest man in the Westminster madhouse?

C Powell

I agree that this will strike a chord with the public. If only the Tories had been braver in fighting for a less intrusive State they could really have made this cause their own. But my suspicion is that - once in power - they would do nothing to reverse Labour's surveillance state. I suspect many others feel the same hence the admiration for Davis's stance. At last someone has said something they believe in.

PJ

The answer to your question is yes. He is a man of integrity.

Chaz

DD may be petulant, he may be principled, what he has done is raised the issue of English liberty.

Some of us, and I've looked at Pravda's HYS on the subject, so I could say 95% of us agree with DD.

You are the ones out of touch.

Quelle surprise!

Tina

Yes the public might support Davis the individual man standing up for his principles. However I would be willing to bet there will be a negative effect in the opinion polls for the party as a whole. It shifts the focus off Brown and his woes and puts scrutiny on Cameron's national security policy and rifts within the tory party.

Tiberius

Is DD making the judgement that he can better undo all the anti-freedom legislation of New Labour from the outside, rather in in government where he was surely heading?

I wish him well if his motives are sincere, but I can't see how he will achieve his aims.

Silent Hunter

Oh Right!

To stand for your principles is now seen as MAD?

And I suppose, locking people up without trial or accusation for 42 days, indulging in an illegal war, Lying about saudi arms contracts, losing half the populations financial date etc, etc, is perfect sanity?

Perfect sanity....New Labour style; where ......Truth is Lies, War is Peace & Ignorance is Strength.

Read the blogs!

Davis is getting almost unanimous support for his stance and has single handedly spiked Browns, what is it now?, 6th re-launch. Hahahahaha!

KB

This is a politician we're talking about, remember. He must believe that there is something to his advantage in jumping.

He reminds me of Heseltine and his flouncing out of cabinet over Westland - another storm in a teacup that gave the jumper the chance to look principled. Of course, Heseltine had the added sanity factors that his party was in power and that he actually disagreed with its policies.

Pete

I have never regarded myself as a Tory, but this is a politician I can respect.

Christopher Chantrill

I agree. People should do much more in the resigning line. We know why they don't. It's the money. And the perks. And the power.

Owld Grumbleton

He's been in politics too long to not know what he was doing. This was a considered move, and the real target was his own party, which was forced to finally say unequivocally that it would repeal the 42 days act .

John

"Eveyone in Westminster thinks Davis is mad, loopy, gone off on one"

To the lunatics in Westminster cuckooland, sane people are mad. The very fact that they consider him mad should tell us that he is sane.

Come on, those people live on another planet. I am pleased to see that DD has rejoined humanity on the third rock from the sun.

Pleased Perry

There is madness, - and there is madness.

But at last! – someone, apart from good Boris, - actually says, and more importantly – DOES something, principled. And, to use the vernacular, ‘walks the talk’.

What a relief.

I’m not clever enough to predict what his future might hold. But if he touches the right buttons, I feel he certainly has many votes denied to the metro-champagne-quaffers, - of Right or Left.

Ray

He's a bloody good bloke. And just as it took Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher to remind the Conservative Party that they must be unashamedly the party of economic liberty, so let's hope that David Davis can also stir the Party into nailing its colours unreservedly to the mast of personal liberty.

C Powell

Grieve has just been on Newsnight saying that Davis is opening up a debate on these important issues. Why on earth aren't the Tories running this debate? Why aren't they attacking Labour over all the issues listed in Davis's magnificent speech? It sounds to me as if they're going to revert to their traditional contempt for civil liberties and we won't be able to rely on them to reverse the strangulation of our freedoms. God help us if we end up with 2 parties: one authoritarian and illiberal and the other ... well just as authoritarian and illiberal.

Napoleon

Yes, he has principle, but why people think he is mad? He's going to win anyway, it's not like he resigned and will lose his seat. "power for politics, jumping ship on his way up."
Do not agree, he knows that the seat is safe, so don't see any power for politics, and jumping ship? He will get back soon!

Seasurfer1

This is a Churchillian moment. Most thought Churchill was mad, loony, and silly during his Wilderness years, when he was ranting about the threat Germany posed on Europes freedoms. He went on to be Prime Minister.
Lansbury resigned over the vote for women and spent 10 years out of Parliament before he returned and became leader of the Labour Party.
David Davis may pull a similar stunt and become leader of the Conservative Party and also Prime Minister.
Right Wing Conservatives are hoping.

Max Kaye

It's good to get out of the 'village' from time to time. Eh, Fraser?

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, "is DD making the judgement that he can better undo all the anti-freedom legislation of New Labour from the outside, rather from within government where he was surely heading." This takes us right back to our previous debates on the nature of a possible post 2010 Dave government.

As you know in the economic sphere it is my contention that Dave has no intention of unwinding in government the level of taxing and spending because he quite looks forward to dispensing all that taxpayers' loot.

Similarly, I think C Powell is on the right track here and I believe DD has concluded that Dave has no real intention of unwinding the Labour anti freedom legislation much of which has been enacted in pursuit of the political correctness agenda which is so enthusiastically embraced by Dave and is so inimical to a man like Davis.

As you know I very rarely watch the Thursday night political programmes QT and Andrew Neil's even sillier show, but tonight I did and was struck by the degree of agreement that this was no synthetic display but genuinely reflected very deeply held views by DD. I also noted the obviously Cameron briefed observation that it might all have something to do with it being intimated that DD might not after all be Home Secretary in a Dave government.

I know we come from entirely different views on Dave, mine severely jaundiced and yours heavily rose-tinted, the difference, though, is that if I'm wrong I'll be only too delighted to say so but if your'e wrong I hope you well are practiced at handling major disappointments in your life.

Lee Jakeman

TIBERIUS: "Is DD making the judgement that he can better undo all the anti-freedom legislation of New Labour from the outside, rather than in government where he was surely heading?" This is absolutely spot on. TINA: "It shifts the focus off Brown and his woes and puts scrutiny on Cameron's national security policy and rifts within the Tory party." This is also absolutely spot on. CONCLUSION: DD is a sanctimonious twit. Does he know that the public SUPPORTS 42 days, according to the latest opinion polls?.

John

"indulging in an illegal war"

Oh, god, here we go again. There was nothing 'illegal' about it. This is an empty-headed, ingnorant slogan.

The Iraq war was the one honest and decent thing the government has done since 1997.

John

So according to Lee, being honest and brave makes you a 'sanctimonious twit'. Very strange values you have in your looking glass world, Jakeman.

John

"the Tories ... their traditional contempt for civil liberties"

I wonder where you get this bizarre idea from. Not from living in this country under Tory and 'Labour' governments, that's for sure. The erosion of civil liberties has been under 'Labour' - liberties that existed under the Tories were killed off under 'Labour' since 1997.

Fergus Pickering

So, Lee Jakeman, what the ideal politician does is to ook at various polls and stand fearlessly for whatever the public thinks. Those are my principles and if you don't like them I have others. As for me, I like Ann Widdecombe though I think she is wrong about fox hunting nd 42 days. I like her because I know what she thinks. What YOU want i what used to be called a Trimmer. Well, there are plenty of those about. Take your pick.

Ted Tedford

Tina, Lee Jakeman: If "this shifts the focus from Brown['s failures]", is this not another way of saying the Tories - well, *a* Tory - is setting the agenda, and for something positive? It's all very well to dwell at leisure on Mr Berown's incompetence, but it doesn't actually get much done. This is starting to look like a genuine attempt at developing political debate on a serious matter, rather than just petty point-scoring on the back of someone else's incompetence. Is that what real political leaders do?

C Powell

John: I have been living in this country under both Tory and Labour governments for decades. May I remind you that it was the Tories under Michael Howard who voted for ID cards and the intrusive database which goes with that. (It was also the Heath government which introduced internment without trial and trials without juries in Northern Ireland.) If that doesn't show contempt for civil liberties, what does? Had the Tories opposed the ID cards bill it would not have got through. so they have played their part in the slow strangulation of our freedoms. DD reversed the Tories' position but I fear that Cameron and those around him simply do not care enough about our freedoms and liberties to reverse Labour's authoritarian legislation. Nothing that they have said or done since DD's speech yesterday reassures me. But if the Tories won't stand up for liberty and freedom, for the individual not the State, there is no point to them.

Tiberius

TGF: it would always be a subjective judgement, I suppose, but if Cameron did bomb, then my world would not fall apart not least because matters would have inevitably improved from the blight that is Gordon Brown.

But you continue to ignore the stated policy improvements in family taxation and education, for example. On the economy (and perhaps I'm soft) I do not see swingeing cuts financed by throwing hundreds of thousands of public sector workers on to the dole as productive. This is the very troublesome legacy of New Labour. But I'm sure we will have a Boris type review which can produce tax cuts by efficiency savings.

On DD, I now he's your man, and I wish him well. If he has quit because Cameron won't promise this-that-and-the-other, he is seriously failing to appreciate that it is quite different to talk about radical change, and being able to do effect it responsibly when in power. This is a universal problem in life generally.

To succeed outside the use of official channels, DD is going to have to produce results on an Emily Pankhurst scale. I hope he pulls it off.

Jane

He knows that he will be returned as an MP as the Lib Dems will not be contesting the seat. I expect the Labour Party will also not contest a seat that they are unlikely to win as it costs money for bye elections which they do not have. Therefore, David Davis is not jeopardising his livelihood and regrettably the poor taxpayer will have to fork out the £100,000 to stroke his ego. What he is jeopardising is his becoming a Cabinet Minister in the event of his party winning the next election. However, he has no doubt weighed this up - he is known for being a calculating man.

He does confuse me when one looks at his voting record. He believes in the death penalty, the scrapping of HR rules, against homosexual adoption etc etc. All issues of individual freedom in my book yet he opposes 42 pre charge detention in extreme circumstances?

I thought that Parliament passed laws after appropriate debate? Is Mr Davis stating that Parliament has no right to pass laws that he does not agree with? What happens if MPs in safe seats (they are the only ones likely to resign on principle) follow this petulant action. What about the poor taxpayer who has to pay for unrestrained politicians ego in the cost of elections? Were he is right is the shabby way that the government got the legislation through by bullying and bribing MPs. However, all governments have done this in my lifetime so what is new?

What Mr Davis has demonstrated in addition to his inflated ego is that he is not a team player or loyal member of his party. Somehow, I believe that he must think that David Cameron will not be leader in the future and that somehow this current action by him will somehow ensure his wish to be party leader. Of dear - if this is so he really is foolish. He may appeal to a broad section of Tory supporters but he certainly has never appealed to me. The Shadow Cabinet are, in my opinion, better off without him.

Glen

I hope he stands as an independent at the next general election. He'd get my vote.....you just never know!!

T A Griffin

This is a sure sign of the death knell of party politics as we have known it for decades. All MPs must be elected as independents. All votes must be free votes. We must acknowledge that the days of a PM are gone. We must actually have a democratically elected 'President'.
There must be a directly elected second chamber, and before you say it I know this sounds very , well American.
Our system of government is falling apart in front of our very eyes. If MPs seriously consider, as I do, that Brown should never have taken power without an election then the power actually lies with members with any conscience. They also should resign their seats, all of them. The game is over, the revolution is not far away, and who thought that the USSR would collapse, just use your imagination.
Brown paid for the war and subsequent occupation of Iraq. With Bush in town over the weekend now is the perfect time to announce our imminent withdrawal from Basra, we have retreated to the air base after all. Have you not noticed how many British soldiers have been killed in Iraq this year, we always were the problem and never the solution.

Freespeechoneeach

David Davis led the stampede to reclassify cannabis last year. He wants people who use cannabis to alleviate chronic pain, in private, at their own risk, locked away. He is just as keen on the Nanny State as Labour.
This by- election is Davis' vanity. He should not be rewarded for it. Davis is not alone in loathing Labour repressions, nor is he the only person opposing them.
We need a candidate who can expose the limits of Davis' commitment to liberty. A person for whom the 24,000 Labour and Lib Dem voters might consider voting.
Pledge to donate to fund a pro- cannabis candidate here
http://www.lca-uk.org/lcaforum/viewtopic.php?t=11397&start=15

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, I would like to come back to you on this but unfortunately I couldn't do justice to you tonight. Will carry this a stage further tomorrow.

Darrell

This is a campaign of personal vanity and has everything to do with splits in the Conservative leadership....if he is so upset about the 42 day vote why did he resign his post?? He was in the ideal position to do something about it...now all the indications are he will never be invited to the top table by Cameron again and I am definatly not a Tory but I can't blame Cameron for that...

Roger

The overwhelming public response to the brave stand taken by Davis shows an electorate truly INSPIRED by his defence of that frailest of human values - Liberty.

Gordon Brown must reflect on the fundamental question Davis now poses him:
WHAT 'COURAGE' IS IT WHOSE ENEMY IS LIBERTY ITSELF?

By all accounts, Brown might be too psychologically unfit to arrive at any useful answer to this... but his failure to do so must not invalidate the question. Nor must his 'pigmy' accomplices in government be allowed to distract the electorate from it.

In fact the question so vital and relevant that it is directed in equal measure towards the Tories - who could find in its answer their own inspiration and rediscover a will for genuine 'difference' in policy and aspiration to offer and excite the electorate with.

Thanks to Davis, the genie of liberty is now out of the bottle. To catch this public-mood, the press must act in surrender to it - NOT be seen attempting to force it back in again.

Ian

All the comments on the BBC news website may well be agreeing with Davis, as are the numerous bloggers- the real point is that most people agree with 42 days. Davis is standing on a single issue- however the greater loss of liberty is surely the state imposing the death penalty- which Davis supports. I personally believe he has gone mad. Is 42 days such a big issue? A bigger issue is that Davis has given political capital back to Brown - could this be the turnaround moment?

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, I sometimes wonder if "Tiberius" is in fact a pseudonym for Fraser Nelson and vice versa. You both hold tenaciously on to the Ugly Duckling theory on Cameron in spite of increasing evidence to the contrary and you both seem to regard the education policy as almost the Holy Grail.

I do, indeed, note and applaud the intention to encourage marriage via taxation alterations though I also note that this encouragement is not to be via actual cuts in taxation but rather via re-arrangement of tax and benefits. And no doubt, this being Dave's world, "marriage" will be stretched to include the sundry other modish arrangements he approves of.

So far as the Cameron/Gove education policy is concerned, I would simply point out that it is a policy with which Blair/Adonis would also have been supremely comfortable. Indeed, they would have probably started out including a profit element for companies successfully running schools, would have allowed a degree of selection in the name of schools' freedom and would also have permitted parents to top up the state's £5 or 6k if they so wished. Now patently Blair would then have had to battle over and probably ultimately withdraw these elements to have any chance of getting the policy by the PLP but Dave isn't supposed to be leading the PLP but the Conservative Party. The fact that he, with either Gove's reluctance or positive assent I know not, chose not to include these three identifiably conservative elements in the policy speaks volumes to me.

In particular it is the absence of any profit incentive for the developing corporate education sector which I consider most revealing. Indeed, it is the complete absence of any mention of the word "incentive" in the discussions on any subject including taxation which helps define Cameron (and Osborne) for me. When taxation is discussed at all it is inevitably within the social democrat context of social justice but I have yet to see or hear any mention of the supply side arguments for cutting taxation from either of them. But then as the good social democrats I consider them to be I wouldn't really expect otherwise.

This takes us to your view of Gordon's massively swollen public sector jobs roll. You really do surprise me here and all I need do I think is point you towards Society Guardian job ads, the at least 2 million imported workers most of whom are in the private sector and the fact that pre 97 even Labour promised "a bonfire of the quangos." If you think all Gordon's additional public sector workers are productive or that keeping them "employed" in the public sector is a productive use of national resources then we really are on a different page.

You are right of course about my view of DD and I am glad you feel able to wish him well. I fear both parties will collude to make sure there is no coverage of the by election in an attempt to bury him. Being the canny bugger he is though I'm sure he's already factored that in.

BTW, your alter ego thinks Cameron is now "home and dry" for 2010, do you?

Tiberius

TGF; my user name is a result of some early banter between myself and Fraser, but that's as far as it goes - there are many Conservative supporters who agree with Cameron's strategy.

On public sector jobs; of course I realize many are non-productive, but my point was that I see it as wrong to consider putting many such employees, with families and mortgages, out of work at a stroke. (And it's not like the miners, as I've been responded to before on this point. The NUM had to beaten politically because it had been ruining the country from 1973 until its defeat in 1984). Therefore the roll back of the state payroll has to be graduated.

On tax, I recommed George Osborne in the first edition of "Standpoint", if you haven't read it. Cutting the tax burden is recognized as necessary, but can only be over time, thanks to the unholy mess being bequeathed by Brown.

Modish family arrangements may be unpalatable to you and me, but they are a reality. They have to be recognized by politicians because they can no more be wished away than the pressure groups claiming CO2 emissions go up because of Man rather than solar activity.

And the country may never have suffered during the last 11 years if Blair had joined the Conservative Party and followed the politics of his family. Such a tragedy.

Would you be referring to Fraser's column in the magazine this week with your final comment? I think Cameron is home and dry barring Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns, and that would have to be pretty spectacular because Labour is completely wasted. You are right when you've said the Tories have a lot of cracks in their operation compared to the NuLab operation of 1994-97, but they were exceptional.

So I'll drink to you and DD (and the Irish electorate again)this evening, TGF, and we'll all hopefully be around to judge Cameron by our respective yardsticks both before and after the next GE.

TGF UKIP

Different prisms, perhaps, old friend, but as I raise my glass to you and my lips Tiberius I'll say "Amen" to that last para.

Dave Bush

Is it brave to make sure your closest rivals, the Liberals, are not entering the contest before you decide to run? What does he lose? His wages, his seat? No he might not be mad, but he certainly isn't brave.

Dave Bush

Is it brave to make sure your closest rivals, the Liberals, are not entering the contest before you decide to run? What does he lose? His wages, his seat? No he might not be mad, but he certainly isn't brave.

Joe Collison

We hope David Davies will clearly show each erosion of personal liberty which has occured
over the last 11 years.
Our controlling politicians - until now - have sold our birthright for the sake of party 'unity' ( or worse DUP.) Was forty two days a necessary measure, or further muscle flexing from the most controlling, totalitarian
government this country has had since the, arguably necessary, measures of the wartime coalition.
Perhaps also the loss of the freedom to believe in manifestos e.g. referendums, may also count as a further key erosion of ourliberty.