A few years ago David Davis
looked a shoe-in to be chosen as leader of the British Conservative Party following the Tories third successive General Election defeat in 2005. Davis is about as far from the archetypal Tory that you can get. He grew up on a council estate the child of an unmarried mother, he left school at 16 and had no secondary education to speak of - he would have been the first every working class boy to lead the Conservative Party. But when it came to the crunch the Tories preferred the glib and privileged toff David Cameron to the perhaps less persuasive charms of the sincere and honourable Davis.
But whilst Cameron has been stealing the limelight with some of his Old Etonian friends Davis, it seems, has been quietly fuming on the front bench. And now his distress has boiled over into an eccentric and rather uncharacteristically barmy gesture. Davis has resigned his seat in Parliament and plans to stand again in a bye-election - ostensibly on the issue of the Government’s 42 Day detention proposal which, having passed narrowly through the Commons, should reasonably soon become law. In taking this bizarre stand Davis is actually in denial about democracy. He might not like the new law - he’s far from alone in that. And he is quite right as well that there are some threats to our freedoms in this and other actions of the Labour government. But in a parliamentary democracy we have freedom of speech and a forum, in Parliament, for debate. Then there is a vote. And that decides what will happen. To try and fight this new law in the way that he has Davis is actually bringing parliamentary democracy into disrepute.
By rather arrogantly saying that it will be the electors of his constituency who will send a message on this issue Davis makes himself look rather absurd. Quite why the good burgers of Haltemprice and Howden should be seen as representatives of public opinion on this matter I have no idea. The daft idea is unlikely to run anyway because the other major parties, understandably, look as if they won’t play ball.
I met David Davis around the time of the 2005 Election and although his politics are not my politics I liked him as a man and I respect his integrity. It is rather sad that he now seems to have lost his marbles and I trust that the men in white coats are not waiting around the corner for him.
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2 users commented in " Will The Men In White Coats Be Waiting For David Davis ? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI am not so sure that he isn’t getting his point across rather well with this stunt.
Firstly, although it was a “shock” announcement to the waiting media, it appears that he had consulted for a couple of weeks about this.
Secondly, there was never any doubt that he will return to the Commons re-elected by his constituents - either with, or without, opposition. The Conservatives’ standing in the opinion polls and the personal rating would have guaranteed it, so all he has lost is his Shadow Home Secretary cabinet role.
I do think, however, that he has called into question the Whips method of influencing democracy - apart from the fact that I am not convinced that 69% of people (YouGov poll) really do support 42 days detention, I imagine that a good many MPs ignored the thousands of letters, visits to constituency surgeries and e-petitions that they received from individual members of the electorate after offers of future promotions or fudging expenses or whatever they were offered - and as you well know Paddy - sports people are not immune from the ability to “throw” a game either under similar financial or celebrity duress.
It may well be that David Davies is suffering from an ego-manical belief that people care that he regards the commons voting as tantamount to corruption, but the opportunity to be trailed by reporters and paparazzi during the hustings will offer him a daily media access that he has not had since he stood for the leadership.
I think that 42 days (which is an outrageous amount of time for a person to be detained as an innocent citizen) is only of importance to David Davies because of his shadow role, I think he is simply fed up with the government rubber stamping of every ludicrous wheeze dressed up as democratic process.
But then I also endorse proportional representation!
Carole
Thanks for your thoughtful and articulate post. My worry really is that Davis may actually be going a bit bonkers! As I said that would be a shame - although having to sit too close to Cameron for too long might challenge anyone’s equilibrium!
Paddy
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