Futile? Hardly. This will make it much more difficult for the Tories to backslide on 42 days when the bill goes to the Lords.

But I think its more interesting than that.

First, its a point of principle than practicality. So in that sense standing against no one makes a point. The Sun is going to annoyed, which works for me.

What’s more interesting is how this will pay out with the right of the Tories. ToryHome, Mel Phillips, Matthew D’ancona all supported 42 days because, well, it doesn’t look like the civil rights of British Muslims concerns them much. So this will also expose that rift within the party.

I bet the ToryHome editors are fuming. Heh.

Indeed, it’s got to be seen at least partly as an internal Conservative Party affair. It also, of course, represents an attack on tabloid fear-engendering, by suggesting that not all politicians can be scared into doing what Rupert says. It’ll be interesting to watch the Sun’s response.

Hmm, Unity. I dunno. Just *how feeble* would Labour look if they ran away from the chance to contest a by-election on a single issue on which (they claim) 70% popular support?

“It’ll be interesting to watch the Sun’s response.”

They gave the job to their most insightful commentator.

http://www.bloggerheads.com/images/sun_page3_42_days.jpg

Wot DonaldS said.

The Government claims to be in tune with popular opinion. They claim the public should get what it wants – extension of detention, id cards, etc.

It will be interesting to see if that’s enough to overcome a Tory majority.

Cameron has called his bluff already. So should Labour – by not opposing him. Let him drown out the sound of his own voice on a personal crusade around his constituency.

Here’s the other point, I’m not sure the LibDems are entirely doing the right thing either.

They could argue if DD was all for civil liberties and personal liberty, he wouldn’t be so against gay rights and abortion rights.

DD in fact isn’t your typical liberal Conservative. If it was John Bercow I’d have more respect.

Why on earth should labour pull out? This is a single-issue contest, and if they refuse to face the voters on it, it will be the general election that never happened all over again.

Obviously Unity as a partisan beast is ticked off, but I would expect a site with ‘liberal’ in the name to cheer a stand like this. Or do you still think Labour are – in some indefinable essence – the good guys, or something?

I hope Davis gets a record majority (gosh I never thought I would say that).

Earth to David Davis: New Labour won the Commons vote. It doesn’t need to hold a plebiscite in your constituency to debate the merits of 42 days detention.

PS: Labour supporters who reject the legislation *and* the Tories will still be stuck for what to do.

“It’ll be interesting to watch the Sun’s response.”

Page 3 girl running against Davis as an independent, on a ‘caging terrorists’ platform.

The very best thing for the Lib Dems to do would have been to arrange that Chris Huhne and David Davis would both resign, in a joint statement, and that neither party would oppose the other in their respective seats. That horse has bolted, and it would in any case depend on a degree of coordination with the Conservative leadership that it seems may not have been feasible.

Their next best option is to stand aside. In the short term, of course, Davies and the Tories get a win, while all the Lib Dems manage to do is avoid awkward questions like “if you are principled liberals, why are you standing against the guy who is running on a single-issue campaign of liberal principle?”. But in the long term, this all gets authoritarianism, liberty and surveillance higher up the political agenda. The Lib Dems can then campaign hard on these issues, opposing Labour while exposing the splits in the Tory party. Long term, it’s a positive outcome for the Lib Dems, but only by eschewing a potential short-term by-election gain.

One thing is for certain is that Davis has staked the Conservative position out to the extent that they have now publicly stated they would repeal ’42 days’ were they to form the next government.

In the interests of party unity Cameron can’t be pleased, but I think he will consider it a worthwhile political gamble in that it is increasingly unlikely the conservative hardliners will cause trouble when they have the chance of influencing policy from the inside, so long as he isn’t personally implicated as ‘soft on security’ and publicly abandoning all they hold dear.

Davis is certainly brave, but a move like this was probable sooner or later, and it is less damaging for a party loyalist to make the gesture than for a truly loose cannon to build an alternative power base.

Labour have to stand. They are the party who have argued tooth and nail for eroding our civil liberties to fight terrorism, and while I fundamentally disagree with Labour’s viewpoint on this, they have to put their candidate where their mouth is.

And on a single issue campaign, Labour could win. The opinion polls are in favour of extending the limit for anti-terrorism.

For the first time there will be a situation where I want Conservative to beat Labour. I think I’m ill.

If Gordon Brown even has a glimmer of his old reputation for strong leadership left, then this could be a disaster for everyone.

Strong leadership, allied with some xenophobic right wing voting for Labour, then a narrow loss or even a small win could give him enough momentum to sneak over for another general election win.

Nick Clegg needs to get on the platform with Davies and campaign hard. He’ll look good on principle, and get some coverage in the media, which he’s sadly lacking at the moment. Plus, a good win for Davies will not only force 42 days off the statute books, but a strong Davies will pressure Cameron, and we could see some old fashioned Tory infighting.

If Gordon Brown is given even the smallest chance in the by-election, then everyone loses.

There is no way in the world that Labour will ever win a by-election at this time, even with the public split on this issue (he majority is a fallacy based on limited question scope), in a sense the Tories have a win-win either way. I’m sure they’d prefer to defeat Labour in the contest, but even a walk over will be a statement of Labour’s duplicity or weakness.

I find it a bit strange to resign on this issue when he happily voted for the original extension to 28 days.

The die is cast… everything is up in the air… we shall see where it settles.

What can we do to influence events?

Why on earth should labour pull out? This is a single-issue contest…

Yeah, right – and I just got off the last boat.

If Davis genuinely wants a single issue contest in Haltemprice and Howden then he, and the Conservatives, should step aside entirely and leave the field to a Labour candidate and an Independent running on a single issue civil liberties ticket. A Labour Party candidate vs Shami Chakrabatri would be a single issue election, not one with Davis running as a Conservative candidate in a constituency where he had a 16,000 plus majority over Labour at the last election.

I’m neither ticked off nor being partisan here, simply calling the tactical situation as it exists… or is there some problem with a poster with ‘liberal’ in the name pointing out the strategic and tactical realities of the situation rather than mooning over somewhat spurious claims to principle.

Davis may easily be opposed to 42 days as a matter of personal principle but that doesn’t mean that this isn’t also a carefully contrived and calculated political manoeuvre or that it wouldn’t be a tactical mistake on Labour’s part to allow themselves to be drawn in a contest on Davis’s home turf.

I agree with Sunny and Tom that the internal dynamics within Tory ranks are a much more interesting issue here. I noticed Iain Dale complaining, only the other day, that both Tim Montgomerie and has been unceremoniously dropped from the Tories internal e-mail lists, which neatly confirms what many have thought in regards to Guido for quite some time.

While Cameron managed to co-opt most of his parliamentary right-wing by chucking them a bone or two in his policy review process – IDS got families and Redwood got business deregulation – outside CCHQ and the Commons his grip on the right-wing of his party has been much less certain and efforts to get a Tory Home style Cameroonie web presence up and rolling with Platform 10 have basically died on their arse.

There’s been hints that he might make a move on the right-wing in the past, when Willetts opened up the grammar schools issues and the speculation that he might demote Davis and one or two other right-wingers in last year’s reshuffle, only for him to back off at the last minute and fail to follow through.

You have to wonder whether this something that Cameron and Davis have cooked up together as a relatively safe means of reigning in the right-wing before they become uncontrollable. That may not seem to quite fit with what we know of Davis’s politics but he’s been around long enough to know that there are short-term sacrifices that sometimes have to be made in the interests of pursuing a long term goal.

“I find it a bit strange to resign on this issue when he happily voted for the original extension to 28 days.”

It is a little bit silly, given the vast difference between the 28 day legislation and the 42 day legislation, to try and compare stances as hypocritical. It’s not exactly sitting well with each other, but at least 28 days is dealt with in a judicial manner without parliament interference and bureaucracy. As some MPs stated in the debate yesterday, by the way, there was a certain amount of ill-feeling from those MPs that did vote for 28 days because they did so to put the issue to rest…knowing full well that they couldn’t vote it out completely by themselves.

> I find it a bit strange to resign on this issue when he happily voted for the original extension to 28 days.

I think the specific way the 28 days legislation was voted on is salient, too.

http://is.gd/vSf

> he might demote Davis and one or two other right-wingers…

I think that’s a simplistic caricature of Davis. He’s pretty consistent on the specific issue of state power/intrusion (and in direct opposition to Continuity IDS). There’s really no analogy with abortion legislation, gay adoption rights, etc.

It’s a principled gesture which adequately reflects the gravitas of the matter at hand.

What will be interesting is whether any of the Labour rebels take a similar stand.

It has certainly made for more interesting news than Gordon’s planted ‘top secret’ documents- what a coincidence that was, eh?

Labour have to stand. They are the party who have argued tooth and nail for eroding our civil liberties to fight terrorism, and while I fundamentally disagree with Labour’s viewpoint on this, they have to put their candidate where their mouth is.

Not at all…

Lee’s right in saying that Labour have no chance of beating Davis in a by-election on his home turf because no matter how much effort Davis puts in to selling this is a single issue campaign that’s the last thing it will be.

Davis knows perfectly well that is he draws Labour into contesting the seat then he’s holding all the aces. Having held the seat since 1997 he’s had 11 years to build up his personal support amongst voters, he has his constituency office staff already in place and ready to roll. He’ll have no problems on the cash front – if Ashcroft doesn’t bankroll his campaign then the Midlands Industrial Council will and he’s starting out sitting on a 16,000 vote lead at the last election against an unpopular mid-term government.

Against that, where’s the incentive for Labour to run a candidate.

If the opinion polls are kosher and a majority of the public do support the 42 days extension then why on earth should Labour fight Davis on his terms.

Sorry folks, but their best tactical option is to, very quickly, decline to run a candidate against him and then pile into the Tories all guns blazing with the line that this is all just a cynical piece of tactical show-boating. What Labour needs to get after here and dismantle is that idea that this is a single-issue by-election by taking the painfully honest route of admitting that, given their own current lack of popularity and the dynamics of the constituency, there’s actually no possibility of this be fought on the one issue that Davis claims to want to fight the by-election on.

I think it’s quite hard to dismiss Davis as being opportunistic or selfish in his stance here. He’s given up a front-bench seat in a Tory party that is widely tipped to win the next general election, effectively giving up a near-guarantee of holding one of the ‘great offices of state’. There really doesn’t seem to be any obvious self-interest in it for him given what merely keeping quiet would have got him.

I expect that he will now join the ranks of Tory nearly men, wheeled out to demonstrate that not all Tories are neocon nutters and perhaps occasionally given a policy commission to chair or a report to write, in the style of Ken Clarke or Michael Heseltine. A shame, as this is not something I could imagine anyone aspiring to, leaving the only conclusion being that he’s genuinely doing this out of principle.

I find it a bit strange to resign on this issue when he happily voted for the original extension to 28 days.

I think it’s deceptive to characterise his vote as a happy one, and there was a genuine fear that if MPs hadn’t voted for 28 days they would have ended up with 60, such was the order of divisions.

Read the debate.

Unity:

> the internal dynamics within Tory ranks are a much more interesting issue here

I don’t disagree that there are some shenanigans going on (just) out of sight. You’re right. But I really don’t think there’s any grounds for doubting that his resignation is a matter of principle. Trouble is, we so rarely see it anymore, we’ve forgotten what it looks like. There’s nothing in this for Davis, in the long run. Whatever happens to him, the Tories will win. It just looks like he’s chucked the chance to be Home Secretary away. There was a time, not so long ago when doing that on principle wouldn’t have looked quite so odd.

“I think it’s deceptive to characterise his vote as a happy one,”

But he was definitely in favour and was positive about the move to 2 days – he outlined his reasons in the debate:

We recognise the Government’s difficulties on this. It is of course a matter of judgment. We acknowledge that the world has changed since the IRA halted its terror campaign. New technology brings new security challenges. As the Home Secretary said in relation to the National Technical Assistance Centre, the police and security services need more time to scour CCTV footage and to crack encrypted messages. The international dimension of Islamist terrorism also brings new challenges. That is why my hon. Friends made it clear in Committee that we agree with the Government that the current 14-day limit is too brief and propose its extension to 28 days.

Matthew, I have a different impression to yours – I guess we’ll agree to disagree.

“I think it’s quite hard to dismiss Davis as being opportunistic or selfish in his stance here. ”

Nope. Quite easy. Because he is being opportunistic and selfish. It’s a public foot-stamp because he couldn’t get his own way with Cameron. Since when have such internal party disagreements been the stuff of resigning from parliament? If he had been honest, he would just have returned to the back-benches.

It will be interestingly to see if the press report the obvious split with Cameron. Or do such things only get reported/speculated about when it happens with Labour?

I’m taking some internal Tory shenanigans for granted here. And so what? He’s dead right on the issue and if I lived in his constituency I’d vote for him, strictly on this occasion and for this reason.

ac256

What will be interesting is whether any of the Labour rebels take a similar stand.

Why would they? What stand is DD taking? It’s clear as day that he’ll walk it. It’s a no-risk strategy for him. Such safety couldn’t be guaranteed to Labour MP’s – many of which have families and mortgages.

I’m disappointed that so many commentators are arguing over what angle this is being played.

This is politics and it would only have happened if this was an attempt to coalign principle and partisan interests – it is a stunningly intelligent gambit, but it isn’t without risk because it can be defeated if it is understood for what it is.

By running as an independent with a promise of non-opposition from Clegg’s LibDems against a controversial and declining Labour government starting from a distant third Davis will sweep all before him unless an appropriate alternative independent can be found with the right profile to gain the support of serious ‘left-wingers’ who are untainted by any connections with Brown, but who can avoid alienating both voters and campaigners. This is of course a long shot, and any competent political figure will have spread their tentacles into every potential base of support to coerce and cajole any potential local figures into complicity to avoid just such an eventuality.

In other words whatever the result, the outcome has already been stitched up from the inside so that there will only ever be one loser – Gordon Brown.

It is one more nail in the coffin of this government. Everything else is secondary.

Joe – I’d have more respect for David Davis, and would happily cheer this decision, if he was genuinely socialliy liberal on other issues such as gay rights and abortion rights. He’s not. So not exactly a candidate that ticks all boxes.

Starting gun for the general election?

“Beyond the three major parties, Davis’ seat lacks any real tradition of attracting candidates from minor parties.”

It’s a by-election; obviously the minor parties will all turn up. Especially since, with only one serious candidate, they can pick up plenty of votes and media attention.

In fact, they could all do rather well. Say, the Greens picking up all the left-wing votes, and UKIP taking the ‘we want 42 days’ vote.

Won’t amount to anything, of course.

If you listen to Davis’ reasons for resigning, it was over more than 42 days. He’s trying to draw a line in the sand.

The question is whether civil society or party politics wins out at the end of the day.

“It’ll be interesting to watch the Sun’s response.”

I’ve just debated it on BBC Radio Wales with Kelvin Mackenzie, whose view is that Davies is wrong to do this, and that the attacks on our civil liberties are justified ‘cos there’s dangerous people out there. Apparently thanks to last night’s vote we can now all sleep safer in our beds…….

Aaron, you’re missing the point. Davis is clearly committing political suicide by resigning his front-bench seat. Whatever happens to him now, he will never achieve the office that he would have been easily destined for had he merely carried on quietly.

If you’ve spent years in politics building up your profile to the point where you’re considered by most political pundits to be the next Home Secretary (unless something happens to Jacqui Smith before the next election), would you throw that away for a publicity stunt, on the say-so of someone at Conservative HQ? Of course he’s going to be re-elected, but it’s hardly “no risk” given that he has already lost a lot just for doing it.

Rick: there does seem to be some reportage of the Davis/Cameron split coming through. It’s certainly going to run for some time, given their long-standing rivalry, and Cameron will presumably come under pressure to re-appoint Davis should he be re-elected. Might be a good opportunity to test Dave’s ‘liberal’ credentials – will he agree with Davis’ stance and promise to repeal the 42 days legislation?

“Davis is clearly committing political suicide by resigning his front-bench seat. Whatever happens to him now, he will never achieve the office that he would have been easily destined for had he merely carried on quietly.”

Davis is from a completely different background to Cameron and a large number of shadow cabinet members. It is a presumption with little foundation to suggest that he was destined for a role on the front bench of a Conservative government. He could have been reshuffled to a far less effective role at any time between this day and the next general election, which is widely expected to happen in two years time. If there really is a Davis/Cameron split then it is not the product of one decision and thus his ‘political suicide’ looks less humiliating than a political murder dealt to him from the Conservative leadership.

“Whatever happens to him now, he will never achieve the office that he would have been easily destined for had he merely carried on quietly.”

Am I missing a trick? Assuming he is still running as a Tory what exactly is to stop him getting back into the front bench team in the future?

Does anyone know off-hand the salary difference between a Shadow Home Secretary and a backbench MP?

Suggestions in Another Place that Labour may dump their prospective candidate (who’s on the side of the angels on the specific issue) and replace him with a figure from the police/security world. Such a candidate running as Labour would have no chance: running as an independent might well throw the whole thing up into the air. Especially if the poll is low, and we know people don’t like unnecessary by-elections.

Or we think we do: this is yet more evidence that British politics is mutating fast. It may be that people will see a by-election called as a referendum on a single issue as wholly appropriate. There are no landmarks in this territory.

“Assuming he is still running as a Tory what exactly is to stop him getting back into the front bench team in the future?”

Rob Knight thinks that there is a Davis/Cameron split, if there is then why would Davis be appointed to a position in the shadow cabinet while the Conservative leadership is intact?

Iain. Zero, unless things have changed under Labour, only the leader of the Opposition gets a salary increase. Other Shadow spokesmen get better offices and similar, but there’s no salary increase.

Worth noting here that the Conservative party backwoods is split on the issue. If ConHome and Labour can find an independent to run, they could split Davis’s vote—sure he’ll pick up a lot of Lib Dems supporters, but not all are as strong on liberty as the actual members, and a lot of Tory (as opposed to Conservative, not the same thing) voters will favour banging them away forever.

A decent independent could be a serious threat to DD if the backwoods and LAbour work together. It’s not a fait accompli that he’s in.

I do suspect his frontbench career as a Conservative is over though.

On the other hand, he has been MP there for a good long time (21 years), and that counts for something. He’d have to do something seriously unpopular to make LD and Tory voters flock to the arms of some goon transparently put up by the Labour Party. The local Tory party up there seems to be loyal, which doesn’t bode well for any putative swivel-eye from ConservativeHome who fancies campaigning against Davis up there. They’re very much a think-tank, metropolitan breed, so it’s not natural territory (it’s full of actual conservatives, for a start).

Don’t neglect the unease felt at things like data breaches, either. Davis isn’t just campaigning on 42 days, he’s got a lot of ammunition along the lines of ‘the government want to know everything about you, which they’ll probably leave on the train’ which isn’t susceptible to negation by fearmongery (‘Vote PC Lockemup for a less incompetent Labour Government’ will not be the rallying cry).

Unity,

But who, exactly, will he be arguing with? Himself?

As I have argued this morning (with nary a swearword!), he will be arguing with the British people, specifically the 69% who apparently back this illiberalism without even thinking about what they are signing away.

DK