DD 4 Freedom takes off

Today David Davis launched his website www.daviddavisforfreedom.com to help highlight the issues he will be campaigning on and the issues which he stands firm to. Many Members of Parliament would not have dared take the chance of stepping down from their seat to force a by-election, nevermind quit a senior post in the next Conservative Government. He has been hailed from all sides of the house and from all over Great Britain, Gordon Brown must contest this by-election, if not to win it, to prove he has the courage to defend his policies. If he believes so fervently in this legislation then the Prime Minister should field a candidate. If he cannot sum the political backbone to field a candidate he will leave Rupert Murdoch to do so. What sort of message would this send out to the general public? Nobody has asked the Prime Minister to step down as Member of Parliament on a point of principle and nobody really expects Labour to take the seat off David Davis, this is not the issue, he must defend his policy because they propose to force it through Parliament and for this same Government not to stand for the self same legislation, we must ask the question, what will this Government stand for?

Davis lays his case before the Tory grassroots

David Davis has today written an article on ConservativeHome, seeking to explain his reasons behind his resignation from his job as Shadow Home Secretary and as Member of Parliament for Haltemprice and Howden, in order to force a by-election. I have simply cut and pasted the article into this post:

The Austrian Chancellor Metternich was once told of the death of a rival. “I wonder what did he mean by that?” was his response.

If Metternich were alive today he might have enjoyed a second career as a Westminster commentator. He would certainly have been able to give full rein to his thirst for the conspiracy theory, rumour, gossip and wild speculation. No story need be constrained by the dreary recitation of the facts. Instead, it can be spiced up spectacularly by all manner of guesses, intrigues and sinister motives. Welcome to the Westminster Village circa 2008.

Now I haven’t died. I have simply resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and as an MP to fight a by-election on what I regard as the most important issue facing the country: as I put it in my resignation statement, the “slow strangulation” by this Labour Government of British fundamental freedoms and liberties, stretching back 800 years.

My conduct may seem eccentric in the eyes of some – but my motive is plain and simple. I have deliberately embarked upon an unorthodox course of action to dramatise the damage being done to the country I love, the mother of democracies, by the Government’s cavalier disregard for the liberties we have fought for down the centuries.

Plans to lock up terrorist suspects for up to 42 days without charge are but the latest in a long line of repressive and intrusive measures visited on this country by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. To take one example, there are now 266 state powers allowing officials to force their way into your home. Six hundred public bodies have the authority to bug phones and emails and intercept the post. And God help you if you put out the wrong kind of rubbish or attempt to get you child into one of the few schools not ruined by a decade of Labour government. Gordon’s neighbourhood spies are watching.

My hostility to the Government’s bloated and unworkable £19 billion ID card scheme and my dismay at its creation of the largest DNA database on earth stuffed with the details of a million innocent people are well known.

But this is not how some of Metternich’s latter-day disciples in the parliamentary lobby have generally chosen to report my words and deeds. Some have even called it a “moment of madness”. Well I think it is madness that, when someone takes a principled stance on a matter of vital national interest, it sparks such a bewildered response from certain quarters of the Westminster village. In truth, I thought carefully about my decision to force a by-election on a national issue.

Fortunately, the Westminster Village does not have a monopoly on political comment and reporting. In marked contrast to some rumour-mongering in the media, the blogosphere rapidly is becoming the real forum of popular debate and it offered a very different take. Frankly, I was surprised and humbled to find that this this site’s survey of Conservatives found that 65 per cent were inspired by my decision.

Meanwhile, I was conducting my own admittedly unscientific survey – my postbag, email traffic and telephone calls. I was astonished and overwhelmed by the public’s response. I have had literally thousands of messages of support.

These individual messages of support appear to be reflected in wider opinion. An ICM poll for the Mail on Sunday in my constituency found that 69 per cent of people believed I was acting out of principle and 57 per cent thought that I was right to resign over 42 days and put my anxieties about Brown’s database state and surveillance society to the test of the ballot box. Far from damaging the Tory cause, our massive poll lead over Labour has jumped again – by two points.

So what happens next and how can readers of ConservativeHome support my campaign? By the end of this week, I will have resigned from Parliament and by early next week I will have launched my by-election campaign in Haltemprice and Howden on the single and vital issue of this government’s assault on British freedom.

Tomorrow, I launch my website www.daviddavisforfreedom.com to act as a sounding board for the debate I am determined to generate about the threat to our liberties. You can follow the debate there and put your views forward by emailing me at dd@daviddavisforfreedom.com).

Gordon Brown’s cowardly refusal to field a candidate against me is all too predictable. This after all, is a man who schemed for a decade to become the unelected leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, who ducked a general election last autumn, who still refuses a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and who long ago nicknamed McCavity for his tendency to slip away into the shadows at the first hint of trouble.

But we don’t need Gordon Brown for a campaign or for a debate across the country about our slide towards an authoritarianism that is both petty and alarming at the same time. Outside speakers, both for and against my views, will be given a platform to lead that debate. Colonel Tim Collins, the hero of the Iraq war, has promised to campaign with me and talk about the right way to combat terror. From the world of music, Nigel Kennedy has kindly offered to come up to show his support. And this is just the start.

I want a serious debate on these issues. But I also want the campaign to be fun – to engage and reach people who have grown weary of conventional politics. I want you to come to Haltemprice and Howden and join my campaign – if only for a day or two – irrespective of party allegiances. David Cameron, members of the Shadow Cabinet and numerous other Tory MPs will be up in East Yorkshire on the campaign trail. But, as Bob Marshall-Andrews, Ian Gibson and Nick Clegg have also reminded us, MPs across the political spectrum are appalled by the slow erosion of those freedoms our forebears fought to defend over centuries.

Our British freedoms are precious – far more precious than the career of any single politician.

Find the original post with comments here at ConservativeHome.

A wise man once said…

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States of America.

I’m in the Y.P.

I opened today’s Yorkshire Post to find my letter has been published. I wrote to the paper to defend the actions of David Davis. I am it seems one of few who wrote a letter supporting him, the majority castigate his intentions and his beliefs. I never thought Briton’s would be so quick to give up their fundamental rights of Liberty.

Perhaps a reminder from our cousins across the pond might help.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

In passing the repressive legislation which this Government has in past days and does continually seek to achieve, our nation is being led to a situation where our population is becoming increasingly injured, persecuted and oppressed. This can sustain for only so long, there will come a time where the illegal actions of this Government will come to bear and we will relive the dark days of Civil War. If you believe for a moment I am exaggerating, think to the causes of the greatest conflicts in our history; The English Civil Wars, The American War of Independence, the wars against France under Revolutionary Government and the subsequent wars against Napoleon Bonaparte. The Second World War, the Cold War. All wars against oppression and tyranny.

We should have learnt a lot from the disaster that was Internment in Ireland and we should not be repeating our mistakes. We are and it appears that few are willing to stand up for Liberty. David Davis is and his doing so transcends politics, it is an issue of man’s humanity to man. Why are the British people so willing to throw off the Liberty’s afforded them through war, torture and rebellion just to feel safe. Democracy is not safe, that is the price we pay to Govern ourselves. Would we prefer a Tyrant to provide total safety to a proportion of us, or would we prefer a limited security for all by electing our representatives and affording our citizens the rights which are set out in a 800 year old document?

Post-work

Tonight I have had to clear up vomit, some absolute c*nt threw up all over the carpet, I have dealt with beggars trying to get money off customers and I have helped train a lovely girl from Eastern Europe how to run a bar. Fun enough for one night!

Having stayed behind and had a good number of pints I missed the last train and ended up sharing a taxi back with a friend who often drinks at our bar. On the journey back we agreed on a number of things, despite him being a pinko, David Davis is an honourable and principled man who believes what he says. Drugs should be decimalised, the current legislation is ridiculous, and Yorkshire is one of the best, most friendly and wonderful places in the world.

Oh yes, and he would vote for a Conservative party under my leadership. Now there’s something to brighten the day, a socialist voting for me!

The Irish say no, non, nein

It’s looking ever increasingly like the Irish have come through for all of us who support Democracy and independence in throwing the Lisbon treaty out.

What will Gordon do now. Doubtless he will try to push ahead with forcing it upon the British people. I will be interested to see how the EU try to carry on with the project and how they intend to override the Irish “No” vote. Perhaps they will simply send them back to vote again and again until they have the answer the EU wants. Don’t discount this possibility, they did it with the treaty of Nice.

Diane Abbott defends David Davis

I’m just watching “This Week” on which Diane Abbott defended David Davis’ decision to resign over the Civil Liberties issue.

Also, Kelvin MacKenzie stated that if Labour did not field a pro-42 days candidate he would, with the financial backing of Rupert Murdoch, do so himself.

One final thing, Diane Abbott made a spectacular speech in the lower house on 42 days which was highlighted on “This Week”. I recommend that you watch it.

Interesting stuff….

Wow indeed

Niall Paterson has summed it up nicely… “WOW”.

David Davis has today as, has already been blooged and you will undoubtedly otherwise know, resigned from, not only the job of Shadow Home Secretary, but also as a Member of Parliament. He has done so to challenge the Government in it’s decision of passing the 42 days detention bill and many other curtailments on British Civil Liberties which Mr. Davis has long objected to. As can be seen above his decision has completely blacked out most other political news today and has, to be frank, shocked both Westminster and the lobby in doing so.

It’s D.D. for me

A man of principle

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, has just resigned his seat in Parliament in order to fight the by-election on the issue of Civil Liberties. Davis is a good man, I voted for him in the 2005 leadership contest and I am pleased to see that he is willing to stand up and say a categorical no to the stance which the Government is taking on Civil Liberties.

The only issue is whether Davis cleared this with D.C. prior to his resignation. I didn’t see the start of the statement so I don’t know whether he did or did not. If he did not. as Nick Robinson said, it could lead to souring of relations between the two. This would be something which nobody in the party would want.