I can only echo those commentators who have said 'bravo' to Shadow Home Secretary David Davis (above) for resigning over the 42 day detention without charge issue.
Probably the greatest service Davis has done by resigning over this issue is to expose the would-be totalitarians in our midst.
People like Kelvin Mackenzie, who says that The Sun (the paper which he used to edit) would 'frankly' be quite happy with 420 days detention without charge. The Sun sets itself up as a defender of 'British values' - well, if 'British values' means banging people up for 420 days without charge, my name's Cristiano Ronaldo.
On the blog of writer Melanie Phillips it states:
"Styled a conservative by her opponents, she prefers to think of herself as defending authentic liberal values against the attempt to destroy western culture from within".Clearly holding people for six weeks without charge is not included in Ms Phillips’definition of 'authentic liberal values'.
Then there's the ubiquitous neo-con slimeball and hypocrite Denis Matyjaszek (aka Denis MacShame)- signatory to the principles of the warmongering Henry Jackson Society. MacShame claims to support the spreading of 'democracy' and 'human rights' around the world yet sneers at Davis - saying his resignation was "like something out of an Italian opera". It will come as no surprise to readers to learn that MacShame also believes that the Irish people’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty means that "things haven’t changed so utterly after all": the man’s contempt for democracy really has no limits.
Davis has done us all a favour- he's exposed the would-be totalitarians in our midst. Isn't it revealing that those most in favour of spreading 'democracy' and 'human rights' abroad by an aggressive, militaristic foreign policy, seem to be much less keen on them here?
7 comments:
Neil,
It is now 4.30am and I have been up all night on this one...
Rumours are going around that Nu-Lab will try to entice Mark Smeaton to run, after having failed to get a 7/7 survivor named Rachel to step in. A Rachel is tearing a strip off Luke, and I think they are the same.
One Labour MP has said he will campaign for DD and rumours say more will follow.
More at my place - I'm off to bed.
Thanks very much for the info. Bob Marshall-Andrews is a star!
Nu Labour are in a real hole over this one- as RSM Williams would have said; "Oh dear, how sad, never mind"!
Let us hope they are in a hole. It is fascinating how many commentators are fleeing from the idea of actually practising democracy that David Davis has given us and attributing it to his own egotism. No doubt pride is mingled with principle but what of it: that is what makes it human.
I admire Bob Marshall Andrews. People like him, and also bizarrely Luke Akehurst, Mary Honeyball, Andy Burnham and Hazel Blears (the last four all very representative of the modern Labour Party) have inspired me to resign from the Labour Party after almost twenty years of membership.
Ah well. Bye lads. Jolies-couleurs, I liked your comment very much.
And now there is a rumour the anarchist NUM stalwart, Dave Douglass is going to stand. I don't know, anarchists standing in elections. A Labour member supporting a Tory. A right wing reactionary volunteering to the government's by-election dirty work for them ... strange times indeed!
DD has an interesting constituency mix. In 2005 only 6k voted NuLab and apart from a few eccentrics the rest split 22:17 between DD and Liberals.
Perhaps, if there is no Liberal, and the coalition behind David continues to grow, most of those will turn out for DD.
The "forces of conservatism" are still unitedly anti-fascist, and we must have faith in Yorkshiremen.
David Davis is a very unlikely "Heroic Defender of Civil Liberties", one wonders how he reconciles his purported liberality with his advocacy of the death penalty? Some mistakes can't be undone.
Post a Comment