Who’s laughing now?

June 15, 2008 at 11:00 pm (Civil liberties, democracy, elections, Human rights, labour party, perversity, political groups, politics, strange situations, voltairespriest)

David Davis’ decision to resign his seat in Haltemprice and Howden in order to force a by-election over the 42 day detention issue has predictably caused an absolute furore in the media. Initially it was felt that Davis had overstepped the mark, that David Cameron was furious as a consequence, that the Tories were in disarray and that therefore Gordon Brown was off the hook. Government advisors were swarming around journalists crowing that the Conservative Party had once again shown that it was unfit for office, and that therefore There Is No Alternative to Gordon. None of the other parties planned to stand against Davis.

Except that three days later it doesn’t all look quite so rosy, does it? Davis has effectively kept the 42 day issue in the public press, has constantly come back to the issue on which he is wanting to fight the election, and now appears to have a growing base of support, including cross-party backing from Medway MP Bob Marshall-Andrews. His staff claim to have been flooded with endorsements from ordinary members of the public across the political spectrum. And finally it looks like he will have some kind of pro-42 days, high profile opponent, possibly in the form of gurning circus side-show Kelvin MacKenzie, who is being backed by the Australian-American Rupert Murdoch. Further, if rumours of Downing Street involvement in MacKenzie’s candidacy are true, then No 10 staffers will effectively have been complicit in putting up a candidate in Haltemprice and Howden who is to Davis’ right, thus enabling him to come at a government backed candidate from the left. Lest we forget, trying to attack the Tories from the right did Tamsin Dunwoody no good in Crewe and Nantwich, and Davis’ constituency sure ain’t as Labour-friendly as Crewe. Either way I think it’s possible to be sure that Davis has at least a reasonable chance of beating the creator of News Bunny.

What are the implications of all this? Davis has certainly set the cat among the pigeons, both stealing the limelight spectacularly from Cameron and (although they didn’t realise it at first) really putting the scews on the Government. But does the situation also not raise the issue of a wider realignment in politics between on the one hand those who believe in freedom within the law and in the law as a guarantor of freedom, and on the other hand those who believe that the law should be a kind of giant behaviour regulator which directs our life choices towards those which a (presumably benevolent, at least in intent) powerful state knows to be right for us? I know which one ofthose beliefs brought me on to the left in the first place: I have always been a social libertarian who believes that state non-interference in private beliefs and practices is the best way of ensuring that people of all lifestyles and beliefs may live in equality under the law. I could never understand why anyone would want to use the law as a tool of oppression, and for me that belief has never wavered.

We are faced with a situation whereby a Tory candidate is standing for election on a platform as fundamental as “save Magna Carta”, and whereby also it is entirely probable that a Labour candidate (or a surrogate candidate taking the government’s view) will stand to abolish it. Not an easy call for a left that means what it says by freedom under the law.

I have never voted Tory in my life. But I can’t simply put my hand on my heart and say I hope Davis loses.