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By-Election: Cameron is Getting Handbagged in Newlyn
Live on television. The guy is oblivious to national events I'd wager. Cameron eventually gets rid. he is putting on a show of being bessie mates with the tiresome former shadow Home Secretary. Dominic Grieve is promoted.
13:45: Dennis MacShane suggest the whole resignation thing is pants. Like something that continentals do. "Like something from an Italian comedy opera". And even that Labour shouldn't bother to put up a candidate. He calls it a stunt.
10 comments:
Regardless of the politicking, I don't think Denis McShane's response was adequate.
What david davis has done is to put his money where his mouth is. he has broken the rules of all the student-union hacks who run politics and the media, and will no doubt shortly be called 'mad' for his trouble. He will then attract the votes of huge numbers of people who are sick of being pushed about by local government crooks masquerading as democrats on a tiny percentage of the vote, all those who think their bins should be emptied in return for their extortionate taxes, all those who can see the ID card disaster coming and all those who resent losing their liberties because a large but not majority portion of the muslim community has apparently gon mad.
What are Labour members going to be left with? Abortion, anticatholic sexual lifestyle politics, israel-bashing, mad puritanical regulations of most spheres of life, a collapsing educational system, and statism.
And I say that as a member who wishes that one of ours was actually either authentic enough or possessed of enough bottle to do what Davis, who strikes me as a working-class Tory, has actually done.
I don't think that Davis has been very clever over this. Yes there has been a lot of grandstanding on this issue by both sides - but it is usually the last person who does the grandstanding (and boy has he granstanded) who looks the most stupid.
My guess is that the Goverment understood that they had no chance of getting this through the House of Lords, but at least now they are in a position to negotiate a compromise that will deal with the problem of allowing the authorities more time to investigate terrorist activities while at the same time stopping the possibility of those suspected undertaking terrorism.
The idea suggested by Helena Kennedy this morning of questioning the suspects on bail which they are subject to control supervision orders appears eminently sensible.
Yes Helena, take their driving licences off them and lock them up at home like Guido.
McShane is a stand up comic Evan. But it is a very strange thing don't you think. It is a stunt really. As Denis said it is unusual for our particular parliamentary democracy. Others do this sort of thing at the drop of a hat.
McNulty was just on. Spreading dissent and querying whether DD would even be the Tory candidate in any proper sense.
PS Martin ... I think most of the local government in DD's constituency is run by Tories ...
TBNGU - But you don't need bail or even a charge to obtain a control order ...
Chris - Yes the method is startling; and the risks rather large; but not just for DD.
And no, having watched the statement, I don't think it is a 'stunt' - he really means it.
Oh, he really means it alright.
But that doesn't mean it isn't a stunt to trigger a by-election in this way.
Resigning his post would have been enough to get the same level of attention. Or he could have worked collegially with his party.
It's clearly a stunt but in my view the only problem is it's a mis-timed one.
Brown was about to come under serious scrutiny as to how he got the DUP on board last night and whatever the follies of Davis this morning last nights event's are far more serious and deserve far more criticism.
Labour supporters will enjoy ribbing Davis and the Tories over this but if they turn a blind eye to what their own governmen did last night it will be shameful tribalism.
In the longer term I can't see this harming the Tories....
I take your point Chris but this is in a sense a 'national gesture'. I think the constant stream of stories coming out of local government, and the economic problems that aren't (mostly) the government's fault have been incredibly corrosive for the Labour Party. Davis will now be able to go up and down and abroad in the land connecting all of them, on the basis of a by-election he is highly likely to win that is focussed on only one issue. In response, hammering on issues that mean nothing except to middle-class dinner party types in London (or which even turn people off) and lacing them with poison that appeals to some in the Labour Party reinforces all the damage.
I was really depressed to see Labour people just coming out and saying things like 'mid life crisis' or 'mad'--truly appalling, student-union type gossip that makes one wonder what the point of parties and political networks actually is. Play the argument, not the man, or look very small.
Thanks for the response though. I do generally like your blog
Martin
Thanks all
This could and should turn into a non-event. It is corrosive for the Tories IMO because it suggests a split in the SMT of the party and the feral back bench cliques are nattering to the feral lobby and so damaging things are coming out.
Yes, it is Davis' own colleagues who seem to be coming out with the e.g. mid life crisis lines. Nick Robinson put some of this direct to him in the R5L, now BBC24 interview.
The only alternative to the non-event, no-stand for the LP is to put up a really big beast and try to bury Davis. But too far-fetched I think.
It was a good speech. And I've changed my view of the man politically. But his chosen action is simultaneously endearing and bizarre.
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