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What do you think of 42 days' pre charge detention? What do you think of David Davis' by-election campaign?

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Comments

[Iain]

Its authoritain and unecessary, as is 28 days.

I have utmost respect for David Davis and wish him well, I only wish he was my MP and I could cast my vote in support of his campaign.

[Matt Kellett]

Good on you for showing what members' opinion is on 42days following Brown's lies at PMQs.
I'd be surprised if members were as against it as PPCs and MPs. The 70% of British people in favour of 42 days has to include a lot of Conservative-inclined people.

[Anthony Broderick]

As I said on CentreRight...
"Ambitious MP with large majority in publicity stunt shocker!"
Clever politics, but that's all it is.

[Sam Tarran]

It's inspiring. To those of us who often deride MPs as being spineless jobsworths, it's such a relief to find that there remains, at the very least, one true honourable gentleman. We should all wish him all the luck in the world.

[Vince]

If there was any chance he'd lose then it would be brave. It's just a stunt.

[Alan Douglas]

42 days detention is so socialist (previous believers Stalin, USSR, and Hitler, the famous Nazi, or National Socialist), but until now I had thought so passe.

I look forward to DD's campaign, and hope it will raise a stink right across Britain.

Alan Douglas

[Kate Bollinger]

Am I going mad? Can someone confirm that the party does support 28 days?

If so isn't this like resigning over inheritance tax because Labour's policy is the same as ours but to a slightly different degree?

[Henry Mayhew, ukipper]

Support him to the hilt. Time to expose the sell-out of ancient liberties most people won't miss until they are gone. He is ahead of the game of public opinion but almost too late to stop the European and Etonian rot. The system works too comfortably for some people. Unfortunately, they are in charge.

[passing leftie]

I'd like to hear hwo many days Davis is in favour of. Is he really resigning over the difference between 28 and 42 days?

[Felixstowe Fiddler]

If I was a Labour Party strategist, I would advise the party not to field a candidate. That would stytmy Davis and knock his publicity stunt on the head.
Remember the Red Duchess (the Duchess of Atholl) in 1938 - quit as a Tory MP appeasemnent to fight the resulting by-election in Perthshire, only to find on the instructions of CCO that the local Tories selected a candidate against her, resulting in her defeat.
Davis won't lose of course, but the BNP and UKLIP could both save their deposits, giving them masses of free publicity.
I support 42 days and ID cards - why should the Conservative Party project itself as soft on terrorism?

[Edward Huxley]

As I said before, he has started something. A politician who puts country before party.

The next Tory leader? You bet!

[Tony Makara]

This will take the debate on freedom into every living-room in our country. Many people don't even know that children are fingerprinted or that someone can end up being arrested and have their DNA taken just for throwing out the wrong type of rubbish.

The government information films that stalk our TV screens everynight tell us everything about the mentality of this government. "There is no hiding place" "its all on the database" "we know where you live" "We can crush your car" etc. Voters need to understand that the re-election of a Labour government will mean even more statist laws that limit our freedoms.

[John]

I support David in every way, he has shown true Churchillian courage and he is an example to all the other Conservative MP's. Good on you David.

[John]

Madness – thank the lord that he was never elected party leader! I hope the whip removed - Let him stand as an independent candidate and let him find the funds to fight a by-election.

[John]

If Labour do not contest the by election it will only show a. their contempt for the electorate and b. their cowardice.

[ET]

Admire DD but we really didn't need this.

[John Broughton]

passing leftie

In a recent interview he made it reasonably clear that he had accepted 28 as a compromise and no more.

I have a personal belief that demands for as much as 28 days were an excuse for incompetence within the police/judicial system.

At last, David Davis, a politician who puts principle before expediency. He deserves our unequivocal support.

[Christopher]

He is not just against 42 and for 28 days. He is saying that the rot has gone far enough and No Further. DNA,CCTV,logged phone calls,its 1984! Nick Robinson is quite, quite wrong on this one. This will cause real problems for Brown and the real terror- the State.

[Adam]

I have the highest regard for DD (with the exception of Maastricht), but todays action is arrogant and self-serving. It will detract time, resources and attention from the bigger battle and give a fillip to the trots. He is absolutely right on the substantive ssues, but this is not the way to take the battle to the other side.

[James Sproule]

Where can I contribute to the DD fighting fund?

[David Galea]

David Davis must address some of the criticisms. The ego trip claims can be dismissed easily by relaying the content of his speech. The waste of money criticisms must be resolved. The fight to protect civil liberties is worth more than money. David Davis needs David Cameron's help. Look at George Galloway and Charles Kennedy's success from fighting IRAQ. The Conservatives can emulate that success on civil liberties. Don't be gutless. Don't be slaves to the polls. Fight New Labour and destroy them.

[Kate Bollinger]

'Am I going mad? Can someone confirm that the party does support 28 days?

If so isn't this like resigning over inheritance tax because Labour's policy is the same as ours but to a slightly different degree?

Posted by: Kate Bollinger"'

I take it you all think I am mad to be bemused by all of this excitement?

[Frank McGarry]

Politicians with principles are becoming an endangered species. Maybe we should put David Davies out to stud.

Until then he has the full backing of freedom fighters everywhere.

[Chris Myers]

Will Tim Montgomerie be running on a pro-42 day ticket against Davis?

[Angelo Basu]

If Labour don't field a candidate they run the risk of someone like the BNP fielding a candidate who is in favour of 42 day detention because it protects "decent British folk" from "evil Muslim terrorists" and in favour of making foreigners carry ID and register their DNA etc.

Would Labour really want to have their policies defended in such a way? They have to field a candidate to defend their policies and have the battle knowing that it will be lost.

In the olden days the caricature would be that the Tories were the hang'em and flog'em law and order party and that the LibDems and Labour more soft. In each of the past 3 elections in H&H there were more votes cast for Labour + LibDems than for Davis. A sign of just how far wrong Labour has gone is that the LibDems, despite being close enough to have thought of H&H as a possible gain in 2005 are standing aside to let Davis kick the government and there's little risk that their supporters will switch to Labour.

[Editor]

No, Chris!

I have great admiration for David Davis and look forward to his speedy return to Parliament.

[BW]

Totally with DD. What a breath of fresh air to see an MP make such a stand on a point of principal.

I disagree with some commentators that this is a help to Brown. I think that the issue of freedom (as opposed to just 42 days) will rear up and bite him. This will ring a chord in middle England.

A risk certainly but I do think this could work and be a great boost to the Conservatives. Great to see DC saying he will campaign for DD.

The SAS motto is 'Who Dares Wins' True to that motto our 'SAS MP' dares and as a result he and the Conservatives will be stronger than ever....

[Tanuki]

A truly principled stance from DD, one which will gain him massive respect and ensure that the whole civil-liberties issue becomes a major talking-point.

If the US and Canada can still manage the war on terror with only 2 days pre-charge detention being allowed, surely the UK can too?

[HF]

The questions were a bit slanted against DD.

I hope that is not a sign of the past Editor's clashes with DD.

[Richard Edmund]

Well done David Davies, a man of principle that puts his country first.

It seems to me that 42 days has acted as a catalyst; it's about the insidious erosion of civil liberties he talks about.

CCTV
Council snooping
ID cards
DNA databases
Telephone tapping,
... and all the other invasions on our privacy and liberties.

All this brought about by a Stalinist regime that has ruined this country and now led by a PM that either has his head in the sand or right up his own a**e that he cannot see what misery his administration has caused.

Good on you DD for enabling a widespread and public debate about our fundamental freedoms.

[James H]

How on earth can this move be justified as making a stand on principle? It is not going to achieve anything positive at all. It will not garner more support for the conservatives; the public broadly support 42 days. It will not affect the bill's passage through the lords. Indeed, given how it must be making Cameron loath to make Davis home secretary, it may even reduce the chance of the conservatives repealing the (then) act once in power.

What it will do, however, is damage the conservatives, knock them off course, and give brown breathing space and yet more time to flex his phoney muscles on terrorism.

I am wholly against 42 days, and agree entirely with Davis' outrage at the state's ever-creeping encroachment on civil liberties, yet Davis' resignation seems to me staggeringly foolish.

Strikes me that Davis is trying to be too clever, and by doing so will do harm to the conservatives, and no good to his cause.

[James H]

How on earth can this move be justified as making a stand on principle? It is not going to achieve anything positive at all. It will not garner more support for the conservatives; the public broadly support 42 days. It will not affect the bill's passage through the lords. Indeed, given how it must be making Cameron loath to make Davis home secretary, it may even reduce the chance of the conservatives repealing the (then) act once in power.

What it will do, however, is damage the conservatives, knock them off course, and give brown breathing space and yet more time to flex his phoney muscles on terrorism.

I am wholly against 42 days, and agree entirely with Davis' outrage at the state's ever-creeping encroachment on civil liberties, yet Davis' resignation seems to me staggeringly foolish.

Strikes me that Davis is trying to be too clever, and by doing so will do harm to the conservatives, and no good to his cause.

[James H]

How on earth can this move be justified as making a stand on principle? It is not going to achieve anything positive at all. It will not garner more support for the conservatives; the public broadly support 42 days. It will not affect the bill's passage through the lords. Indeed, given how it must be making Cameron loath to make Davis home secretary, it may even reduce the chance of the conservatives repealing the (then) act once in power.

What it will do, however, is damage the conservatives, knock them off course, and give brown breathing space and yet more time to flex his phoney muscles on terrorism.

I am wholly against 42 days, and agree entirely with Davis' outrage at the state's ever-creeping encroachment on civil liberties, yet Davis' resignation seems to me staggeringly foolish.

Strikes me that Davis is trying to be too clever, and by doing so will do harm to the conservatives, and no good to his cause.

[Jennifer Wells]

CCTV is a vital weapon in the war on crime.

DD has lost my support.

[James H]

How on earth can this move be justified as making a stand on principle? It is not going to achieve anything positive at all. It will not garner more support for the conservatives; the public broadly support 42 days. It will not affect the bill's passage through the lords. Indeed, given how it must be making Cameron loath to make Davis home secretary, it may even reduce the chance of the conservatives repealing the (then) act once in power.

What it will do, however, is damage the conservatives, knock them off course, and give brown breathing space and yet more time to flex his phoney muscles on terrorism.

I am wholly against 42 days, and agree entirely with Davis' outrage at the state's ever-creeping encroachment on civil liberties, yet Davis' resignation seems to me staggeringly foolish.

Strikes me that Davis is trying to be too clever, and by doing so will do harm to the conservatives, and no good to his cause.

[Graeme Archer]

We're all so close to this and, like, I'm just about sufficiently self aware to understand why this is pushing my buttons. But consider:

- labour will @have@ to field a candidate. Or they're f******.
- DD isn't just running on 42 days. This is about all their hated acts of subjugation and illiberal posturing. The fact that the Sun supported 42 days does not translate into lack of broad national support for what he's doing.
- The Westminster village lack the capacity to understand the scale of this act. The politico-pathology - which faction said what to whom, which promise was or was not extracted in Shadow Cabinet - are conditionally independent of the sequel. Note the lib dems not fielding a candidate. This could be realignment - of proper liberal voters - and the ultimate irrelevance of Clegg and his MPs.
- thanks to the speedy action of Dominic Grieve, DD is running on what is essentially party policy. Anne Widdecombe aside, we have nothing to lose from this.

Liberals will support DD. Tories will support DD. Some Labour MPs will support DD. Some authoritarians and the DUP will oppose him. Nick Robinson will obsess about "what this means for Cameron". The terms of the debate which DD is bringing to the country are, please God, about to change the political landscape. There is one huge loser from the most likely outcome. He's a party leader and his name isn't David Cameron.

[David_McD]

Arrest for 28/42 days without charge flies in the face of Habeas Corpus which has been the mainstay of our legal system for some 800 years.

Arrest by Europol (which is immune from all laws) and deportation to a foreign country which one may have never visited for committing an act (such as making a “xenophobic” post on a website such as this!) which infringes no English or Scottish Law is far worse.

I hope UKIP stand against DD and make this point very strongly.

[Richard Edmuind]

James H:

Please stop repeating yourself - I read you the first time, it's very boring ...

[Graham Checker]

I support David Davis 5,000,000%

Yes. 5 Million Per-cent.

This is the DEFINITION of Conservatism.

Conserving historical Englishmans rights.

Conserving the freedom of the individual.

Conservinf protection against tyranny.

Fighting for Liberty and Justice.

Anyone who DOESNT support Davis is in the wrong party, IMO.

[YMT]

"A matter of national security, the age-old cry of the oppressor"

We must fight tooth and nail for reclaiming Britain from the Authoritarian Labour regime.
There is a battle at the moment between those who believe that all citizens should be guaranteed their liberty as the state cannot be trusted to wield immense power or those who believe the pursuit of security and threat from terrorists & criminals overrides the importance of hard fought liberty, freedoms and privacy.
The public are consistently barraged with threats of what might happen, using the menace of Islamic terrorists to construct a nation where the government knows what, when, who, how and where of each one of its subjects whenever it wants.

Its the creep of technology for tracking, the creep of data retention the erosion of liberties and privacy we have seen slowly come together over the last decade and if we don't stop Labour now its going to be increasingly hard to get what we lose back. People have to remember this isn't a temporary state of play to deal with the "current" threat, this is a fundamental change in the rights and freedoms for British people today, tomorrow and our future generations.

[david1]

He must be really pissed off with Dave!!

[Alexander Smith]

This is utter grandstanding. Will he resign over every Bill which he doesn't like getting passed? It will not take the debate into "every living room in the country", but only those in this, TORY, seat. I would abstain if I lived in that constituency.

[Andy Smith]

I'm astonished that David Davis has chosen to resign his seat 'on principle' to fight a by-election over the 42-day issue, rather than on the infinitely more significant and far-reaching issue of the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution, which will soon pass into law as the European Union (Amendment) Act. It is on this Treaty that the British people deserve (and demand) the right to vote. By contrast, extending detention of terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days seems far less a threat to British freedom than the power-grabbing, corrupt EU. Why can't the Conservatives get their priorities right?

[Oberon Houston]

What should be a Conservative Party going after Labour is now averted to make was for a distracting side-show. It perplexing to me why he has decided on this route, especially right now and in this manner. Bizarre.

[DavidNcl]

I'm so right wing most of you would cry if you met me - I once called Thatcher a pinko (I'm not joking, btw).

BUT!!!!

I strongly support DD's stand. Consevratives are meant to be about tradional english values such as libery and freedom. ID cards, long periods of detention without trial, police state powers (RIPA) etc ... every true blue tory should oppose these.

There's nothing more conservative than support for our nobel tradions such as magna carta.

These fascist pollicies have nothing to do with being tough on terror and every to do with extending the coercive apparatus of the police state.

[Brett]

I'm not a traditional "big-c" Conservative, but this rebellion (in the absurdist sense - I wouldn't call this grandstanding, although it is a dramatic gesture) by David Davis is incredibly enthusing, and enough to convince me to join the party.

A bigger question though, since he isn't being funded from central Conservative sources, is will there be a US style 'battle chest' accepting donations from the public, assuming Labour field a candidate?

[Lancs Tory]

42 days detention!?!? The current period of 28 days, one of the longest periods of pre–charge detention in any comparable legal system, is more than sufficient.

Remember that currently anyone can be arrested and detained for a 28 day period before they are even told the reason they are detained. Labour want to extend this to 42 days. There is simply no evidence to justify it.

How would Gordon Brown like it if he was arrested and kept in a cell for 6 weeks without being told why he was being detained?

The government are trying to legislate to restrict our liberty even further and David Davis can only be congratulated for taking a principled stance on this issue.

[John Ionides]

I thoroughly support opposing both the increase to 42 days and the way in which civil liberties have been steadily erroded over the last ten years. While DD could be accused of not actually taking much of a risk, he is "thinking outside the box" and doing his utmost to highlight a most important area; he should be thoroughly commended for his effort and supported in every way possible.

[Dontmakemelaugh]

Politician runs off with his ball and refuses to play after tiff. He says he will be back with another ball. This, he believes, shows that he has more balls than most, but if he and his colleagues really wish to prove that they have more balls than most, then they will make off with the Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty ball and resign en masse for a by elections all round to preserve our liberties (removed by the EU) which the Tories are so fond of (when it suits).

Perhaps Davis can tell us how much his civil rights have been compromised lately and how much he is suffering from being locked up.

[Pete]

Will his debate on 'freedom' include the handing over of our democracy to the EU by successive British governments? If yes, I'm with him. If no, he means nothing.

[Daniel Kawczynski MP]

Conservative Home needs to undertake a full and incisive examination of why the DUP did not support us in the lobbies on Wednesday evening. Questions need to be asked of the DUP leadership and of individual DUP MPs. I have tried to call Iris Robinson MP today as she is the one I know best and have left messages for her to call me but as yet no reply.

Although the media consensus is that the Prime Minister enticed them to vote for 42 days with inducements for Northern Ireland we cannot take that as an absolute certainty. They must know that we will be in Government in less than 2 years time and that they will need our support on many matters. So the question remains why did they abandon us to prop up this failing and unpopular government on such a draconian measure. If they genuinely believe in allowing people to be imprisoned for up to 42 days without charge then let them say so. I am disappointed with the total lack of scrutiny as to their motives and beliefs. The BBC and others should have been interviewing the leadership of the DUP today and broadcasting their responses.

We must ask the question of what they told the Conservative Party in the days running up to the debate and how their opinions changed if at all. Why did they finally decide their stance just hours before the vote??

Over the last 3 years I have had nothing but the greatest of respect for the DUP and have thought of them as our absolute allies and partners. Perhaps that was naive, I don't know. All I can say however is that their decision needs the greatest of scrutiny over the coming days by the media and by Conservative Home and others.

On Monday I will try to approach individual DUP MPs to ask them what has happened. Unfortunately so much of politics today and in the past is full of backroom negotiations under the radar of public scrutiny. I understand that this is a practical measure that exists. The need to probe these actions are however of vital importance in our democracy.

[David]

Here's a poster about Gordon Brown and 1984:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27592644@N02/

Enjoy! Please pass on the link and image to your friends.

[Bob B]

FWIW I regard DD's resignation from Parliament to stand for re-election in a byelection as histrionic nonsense which will largely serve only to distract attention from the many failings of Gordon Brown's government.

Albeit with regret, I go along with the public opinion majority in accepting the need to provide for the extension of pre-charge detention for up to 42 days for terrorist cases in exceptional circumstances.

This seems to me to be a prudent step in anticipation of possible contingencies where the security services might otherwise become inundated by the number or complexity of cases. The frequent argument made that there is no evidence to justify the extension is entirely irrelevant - the extension is intended as cover against conceivable contingencies which have not (thankfully) materialised so far.

The public debate IMO ought to focus on the Parliamentary procedures for invoking the intended extensions in each case, the essential periodic judicial checks during the course of detentions beyond 28 days and the compensation payable in cases when no charges are laid.

I found it instructive to compare provisions for detention in other western countries:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7084762.stm