I spent a little time at the weekend reading the newspaper coverage of the campaign started by David Davis here in the UK. Davis was until Friday one of the most senior members of the opposition Conservative party, a political grouping that continues to struggle for credibility even in the face of an increasingly unpopular Labour Party in power under the humourless gaze of Gordon Brown (all Blair's values, none of his charisma).

Hearing Davis' speech on Friday as he resigned his seat in Parliament was a breath of fresh air, the first political statement I have heard over here for ages that has had any connection with my fears for our liberty. It seems to be a genuine act of principle, a grasping after one of the few tools at his disposal to put the issue on the agenda.

What has he done? Well, we has the shadow Home Secretary, the politician appointed by the opposition Conservatives to handle home affairs. It's one of the more visible political jobs in the UK and reflects his seniority after he was beaten to the Conservative leadership by David Cameron. He has resigned both that job and his seat in the House of Commons, with the goal of forcing an election in the constituency that put him there. He wants the election to be on a single issue and to highlight that issue in Britain. He's chosen that path becuase it was the only way to get the issue raised.

What is the issue? The triggering issue was the vote over whether the police in the UK should be able to hold a terrorist suspect without charge for two weeks longer than at present - a total of 42 days. The Labour government has been steamrollering the issue through, using the same disreputable "if you're against this you love terrorists" rhetoric that's become so common. The Conservatives, sensing a play in their own turf, have effectively rolled over and let it happen.

But more widely, the issue is the fact that the erosion of civil liberties in Britain has just gone too far. Davis said: "I will argue this by-election against the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government." Not just "this government", David, your own lot are complicit too. In that context, it was going to take something pretty extreme to have a decent public debate on the subject.

And will we have that debate? Not if the establishment and the leader-writers have their way. Davis is currently at the focus of a set of campaigns intended to undermine his position by his own party, who fear he distracts from their "direction" and are framing this a sour grapes from the leadership loser, and the government, who want to paint him as an egotist playing "a farcical stunt". But I hope they have miscalculated. As The Guardian says:

Could David Davis somehow have stumbled across something the establishment has missed, an untapped anger with what the public sees as a snooping, heavy-handed state that spies on it through speed cameras and CCTV and microchips on its rubbish bins, that tramples its freedoms and makes sloppy mistakes with its private data?

Davis is the first voice with any chance of getting heard that has shouted "enough is enough, protect me by protecting me not by making me a slave". Despite my position usually being to the left of his, Davis has my support (maybe even some of my money) since this is an issue that needs tackling, and none of our current elected leaders seem to have the stomach for it. I'm with him, and I'm not the only one.

--
Posted By webmink to WebMink on 6/17/2008 08:15:00 AM