David Davis for Freedom

David at Conservative Party Conference

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:11:00 GMT

David will be speaking on Monday at two fringe events at Conservative Party Conference- "An Audience with Rt. Hon. David Davis MP", and at a Liberty fringe event, “Human Rights, Common Values: Discussing the future challenges for rights protection in the UK”.

Details of both of these events and where to attend are in the events section here.

David Davis Acceptance Speech, 11 July

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:16:00 GMT

David Davis Acceptance Speech, 11 July

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
First, may I thank the returning officer, his officials ad the police.
I would also like to take the opportunity to commend the other parties that contested this election.
One of the freedoms I defend is the right of anybody to stand in a democratic election.
By and large this has been a courteous and entertaining campaign.
I thank everyone for taking part.
…
Four weeks ago, I resigned my position as Shadow Home Secretary, and Member of Parliament.
Not for personal gain.
Not for political advantage.
But to defend a principle.

The doubters said it couldn’t be done.
You can’t win a by-election campaigning for freedom.
You can’t shift public support for 42 days.
You can’t spark a national debate, they said… people just don’t care about British liberty.
And yet, 3 weeks on, we’ve sent a shot across the bows of Gordon Brown’s arrogant, arbitrary and authoritarian government.
We’ve galvanised a new consensus … across the political spectrum … beyond the world of politics.
A new resolve.
A new spirit of freedom.
A fresh sense of purpose.

Today, the people of Haltemprice and Howden have delivered a stunning message to the government…as our campaign has reverberated across the country.
Four weeks ago as Gordon Brown stooped into the gutter to rig the vote on 42 days, Ministers crowed that 69% of people supported 42 days.
Today just 36% support it.
Four weeks ago, the government touted public support for a range of other draconian measures.
Today, 71% support my stand against the attacks on British liberty.
And in the House of Lords, the last Head of MI5 savaged the government’s 42 day proposal.
It now lies in tatters, robbed of any remaining credibility. Along with this government.
And that’s after just 3 weeks.

But today is not the end of this campaign.
It’s the beginning.
On Monday I return to the House of Commons, to take up my seat in those hallowed chambers.
I do so with a clear mandate to fight Gordon Brown’s vision of ‘Big Brother Britain’ tooth and nail.
To stop 42 days dead in its tracks.
To prevent the disaster of ID cards before it happens.
To protect our personal privacy from being ransacked by the ever-intrusive state.

But most of all for the thousands upon thousands who have written to me…
Supported me
…and voted for me….
I return to fight for those fundamental freedoms that define our way of life.
The freedoms that millions died defending.
The freedoms that make Britain Great.
Thank you.

Sky News Debate with Tony McNulty

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:32:00 GMT

This morning I had a debate on SKY news with Tony McNulty. Its a shame Labour have decided to insult the residents of Haltemprice and Howden by refusing to stand a candidate and have the debate in the by-election.

The article can be found here and the video of the debate can be found here

Bob Geldof

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:16:00 GMT

Yesterday returned from London, had a team meeting, canvassing and then straight to meet Bob Geldof at the Hull Guildhall.

We spoke to an audience of around 200 people.

Bob made an impassioned speech about freedom and liberty and how the loss of our liberty is a politically driven decision designed to make the government seem strong on terrorism and the opposition weak. He described detention without charge as constitutionally repulsive.

He reminded the audience of the some of the key international facts.

The US has an absolute limit of 2 days detention; in Ireland, even at the height of the IRA terror campaign the limit was 7 days; Australia, only 60 miles from the most populous Muslim nation and the victim of its own bomb horrors has a maximum of 12 days. Why? We are no more threatened than those nations mentioned.

There is little doubt that the audience was starstruck, but interestingly as much by the insight and intelligence of the speech as the celebrity status of its deliverer.

I then travelled with Bob to London. John Prescott and Pauline were on the train. JP was his normal affable self with me: he hates Tories but I seem to be an exception for some reason… On to Chertsey to take part in Radio 4’s Any Questions. Fellow panellists, Nigel Farage and Susan Kramer agreed with my stance and that is why their parties are not putting candidates up to fight in this by-election. However, stubborn old Labour – Ben Bradshaw to be precise – used the usual slurs against me, all completely untrue – on rape, CCTV, DNA etc. The minister came across as churlish. Pity, I always thought of him as a nice man.

Saturday. After canvassing this morning in Cottingham, greeting the Young Britons Foundation coachload and many more Conservative Future volunteers as well as MPs Patrick McCloughlin and Brooks Newmark.

I then travelled to Dewsbury to speak at a primarily Muslim gathering organised by my colleague, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.

Sayeeda was addressing 200 plus friends and family who came together to celebrate her becoming the first female Muslim peer.

I was delighted to speak at this gathering of prominent Muslims and pay tribute to a lady that has brought enormous talent and energy to the Conservative front bench.

In essence my message was that we are all in the fight against terrorism together.

As we face the third anniversary of 7/7, this is a time for reflection and resolve. We will not beat the terrorists with legislation designed to undermine our freedom and liberty.

Tomorrow McNulty on Sky. At last a home Office Minister has come out of the woodwork.

David's Observer Debate: Now Available to Download

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:48:00 GMT

The recent Observer Comment is Free debate featuring David Davis in a panel including former Labour Minister Denis MacShane, Times columnist David Aaronovitch and pro-civil liberties Observer journalist Henry Porter is now online to listen to and download from the following link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/audio/2008/jul/04/liberty.in.peril?gusrc=rss&feed=politics

Bob Geldof: In support of David Davis’s Freedom campaign

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:21:00 GMT

Check against delivery

This is not a normal by-election but it is extraordinary. The people of this area are being asked to consider not the merits or otherwise of the government or opposition, much less the competing policies of the different parties. Not even the beauty parade of eager candidates, who looking at David and the motley assemblage of other candidates, once again reminds me of that great truth that politics is merely showbusiness for ugly people.

You are not even being asked to address the great financial issues and otherwise that are beginning to bite at this region and the country. Rising food, fuel, energy and inflation costs. House prices and manufacturing down. It doesn’t look or feel good out there. But that is not for this election. That is for another day.

This time you are being asked about something much more fundamental. More profound even than the momentary economic cycle and its impact on those who live here . This time you’re being asked to think about who we are. What we stand for and will we continue to live and be the country and people built by generations and institutions before. This is fight about the legal boundaries of the state and how much that state can and should remove of our liberties before it fundamentally changes the nature of who and what we are.

As a voting issue it may appear less immediate than the current financial downturn and therefore less compelling. Given the position of the other main parties the results may seem a foregone conclusion and the exercise of the vote tiresome, the sheer drag of having to go to the town, village or church hall or school to exercise your rights seems unnecessary. Perhaps then a vast apathy sets in at the seemingly huge vagueness of it all. This time there will be no debate about the standard of living but rather but rather standards we choose to live by Maybe you accept the official panicky newspaper and political establishment line that its all a nonsense, a hopelessly quixotic or principled or opportunistic waste of time. That would be a terrible mistake.

I will argue that this time you must come out in more numbers than ever because this time the issue is more vital than even our immediate food bills. This time uniquely you are being asked to decide about what kind of people we are and what kind of country we wish to live in. You’re being asked to vote about us and you may never get to vote on something so profoundly fundamental again.

Famous defenders of liberty have walked the streets of Hull before and many fine words have been spoken in this very room so…

Let us be grand for once then, for we talk of great subjects. Let us ask ‘what is the point of England “ now that Parliament, whose primary purpose is to defend the liberties of the people have so gratuitously, so wantonly, so casually betrayed that trust and taken from us that same liberty which above all else defines this country and its constitution, and that which has been its greatest gift to the world its freedom, its tolerances, its civilisation which William Wilberforce so forcefully argued from this town so many centuries ago.Melville claimed for America “that it bears the Ark of the liberties of the world.” It could be better said of that Britain which invented and codified those freedoms.

Are Magna Carta, and Habeas Corpus not to mention the Anti-Slavery laws, to be traduced in one brief sad moment of political expediency. When a 800 years ago Britons told the state in words that still ring true and through the ages

“To no man will we deny, To no man will we delay, Justice and Right”

42 days detention denies and delays Justice and Right. It is a clear breach of ancient right, of Magna Carta itself.

So what great existential threat does this country now face that did not face our forefathers of the past 1000 years. What is so grave the emergency now that neither civil war nor world war nor various terrorisms were considered so dangerous to our security that our oldest statutes -and few have lasted the 400 years relevance of habeas corpus - could be upended for such a ha’pnworth of momentary contemporary panic. If authority is to be respected it must be just. When it is not, then the greatest threat to that authority is its own instinct to authoritarianism.

These new security measures, these new limitations on our liberties are not the thin end of the wedge We’re way past that now. This is now, already, the bulkier mid way point of that authoritarian block. For we have in the past few years so mauled our ancient defended rights, rights for which bloody battles were fought and heroes lived and died for, as to seriously consider whether the constitution is today much more than a cartoon of its essential meaning. And what moral authority resides any longer in a lawmaking body that acts against the liberties of its own people? Is it not true that the willingness to use intolerable means to achieve impossible ends shows the political mind at its most deluded?

Meanwhile our supine press gulled by political complicity, lull the population to apathy by banging on with their trivial irrelevancies while the constitution is quietly turned aside. Shame on them. Alas they are shameless.

What terrorizes the terrorists is our civilization. What those unthinking fools of fundamentalism fear most are the very freedoms our representatives strip from us. Essentially this ‘war on terror’is a conflict waged against Islamist forces that claim to reject the Enlightenment. If that is so, then how can we ever succeed if we side with our opponents in rejecting those same ideals? Every moment we are spied on by the invisible watchers. Every time that we are recorded and monitored at every turn, on every purchase. Every time we are mandatorially logged, noted, tagged and followed on databanks and files because “it is in our best interest” They win. And every time we accept it, we lose. We must not hold this attitude of passive acceptance to these restraints on justice, rights and liberties that ultimately amounts to nothing more than complicity with intolerance.

Why should I carry an ID card? I own my identity – not them. Why should I have to identify myself to the state? How dare they demand I identify myself? To whom am I identifying myself and for what? Spain, France and Germany have had identity cards for decades and have more or less the same levels of crime as us. So why insist on them. The war on terror is no answer. Indeed there will soon be a brisk business in false British cards and more seriously they didn’t stop the bombers in Germany or Spain.

It is of course almost comically Orwellian to trot out that comprehensively stupid, complacent and absurd excuse of the natural authoritarian The classic “Only the guilty need be afraid” line. And how sickening to hear it in England. “Only the guilty need be afraid”. Really? This repulsive expression beloved of tabloid and home secretary alike has at least got the virtue that it is demonstrably false.

Shall we say it to the innocent men of Forest Gate, already shot then banged up and subsequently released without charge.

Shall we say it to the demonstrators going about their legally permitted democratic business who are roughed up, abused and put away.

Say it to me that when you are lifted from the street, incarcerated for 42 days without knowing why, while your boss considers his and your position, your family cower in fear and dismay and your friends and community shun you.

Tell them that when you are released, as innocent as when you went in and try vainly to return to the life stripped from you.

Tell that to the Gestapo-like anonymous, faceless accuser whom you well never have to encounter or challenge.

Tell that to the judge, for that other ancient right of been judged by your peers in jury is gradually removed

No ladies and gentlemen in this world of spies, snitches, cameras, files and databanks the state knows all our sad, shameful little private secrets. Like threatening gangsters they know who we are and they know where we live. Not Big Brother, this is Big Britain. It is not simply about the big issues. This is also about the liberty of the ordinary person to have an ordinary life and not feel oppressed - the everyday small liberties that affect us all. When RIPA, the law that allows councils to authorise surveillance and to get hold of your phone records, e-mails and website usage was enacted 8 years ago, 9 organisations including the police, security and revenue services were allowed to use it. Today there are 786 more agencies added - including all local authorities, police forces and bodies, the Financial Services Authority and the Ambulance service. In 2006 these bodies made 1000 applications A DAY to use these powers! They will say “If you don’t do anything wrong why worry?” Rather you should worry precisely because you do nothing wrong. They must have no right to spy on your ability to live a good life. And when we finally become afraid to say what we think, it is one step nearer to that most awful condition of all – being afraid of what TO think!. “Only the guilty need be afraid” Afraid not. In this world it is only the innocent need be afraid. For the state has assumed our guilt already. We have all become suspects. We have become guilty till proven innocent.

What lies behind all of this, this perversion of the British idea?

From 2000 to today, incarceration without charge and without recourse to justice has gone from 5 days to 7 to 28 to 42. Foreigners may be imprisoned indefinitely on national sercurity grounds. Detention is based on secret intelligence and suspicion. There is no criminal charge and no trial. Our very own Guantanamo. Terrorism stop and search powers are used widely and routinely including against that elderly man who had the temerity to heckle Jack Straw. Local councils snoop and spy and threaten old people and others over litter and wheelie bins. Why? It is true that most people want security rather than liberty. But then as that unlikely sage Dick Cheney (and he should know) said “It is easy to take Liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you”.

It is our complacency that let’s them get away with it. It is our apathy that we must fear.

But are we really so threatened in the UK, that we must uniquely introduce the most swingeing and illiberal precautions.

The United States, which unlike us, genuinely feels itself at war, under siege and attack has an absolute limit of 2 days before detainess are brought before a judge and that judge being presented with evidence. Last week the supreme court held the government to be in contempt for suspending the rights of the Guantanamo. residents to fair justice.

In Ireland even at the height of the IRA terror campaign the limit was 7 days

Australia only 60 miles from the most populous Muslim nation and the victim of its own bomb horrors has a maximum of 12 days.

Spain with its huge north African Muslim population and the victim of the worst European bombing outrage is 5 days maximum. Yet all the bombers were cught and tried or killed themselves.

Italy with its 1970’s red brigade terror and its large African population has a maximum of 4 days.

Germany with its giant millions strong Turkish population and during its murderous Baader Meinhof rampage has 2 days.

Russia with its Islamic Chechnyan rebels, its war and outrages has 5 days maximum.

It goes on. What is wrong with us. Have we lost our confidence, our stoicism, our bravery and dignity, sang-froid and upper lip. No, I don’t think so, not if the great awful dignity of the victims families are anything to go by. Or the magnificent and traditional response of the capitol with that very British attribute of “getting on with it’. Not us then. Is Parliament afraid? Apparently not. MI5? They say not. So why imprison people on suspicion, without charge, without evidence or trial for 42 days? How very, very unBritish.

Let me be clear. I am not complacent by the threat or the scale of it facing us. But the government has presented no case that is even remotely convincing for the consequent and growing loss of civil liberty. As Burke said ‘The people never give up their liberty but under some delusion” These measures are simply political and designed to make the government seem strong on terrorism and the opposition weak. But even their most senior members have spoken out against this law. The Home Affairs committee came out against the proposal in December. The former Attorney General and the former Lord Chancellor are against it. John Major is against it. Even Jacqui Smith has had to admit that MI bloody5 didn’t ask for it!

Detention without trial is constitutionally repulsive. It is almost an oxymoron. A legal illegality. A form of legal bullying. It is to view justice through the wrong end of the telescope. It is portrayed as a necessary weapon in the states anti-terror armoury but in what new capacity? Perhaps they believe it has some merit in being an ill-conceived, criminally stupid and clumsily inept attempt to cow or scare the fantastically deluded and unreasonable who are therefore, by definition, incapable of that sort of fear anyway. If you are intent on blowing yourself up, a spell at her majesty’s pleasure probably constitutes an irritating delay in the inevitable, rather than a panicked repudiation of jihadist ambition.

What it most definitely is however is counterproductive. Because it is unjust the law simply becomes more grist to the terrorist mill. Indeed it becomes their success, for they have succeeded in taking from us part of the very freedom they so despise. Add to that the rather alarming fact that the experts have already told us these measures can never prevent another 9/11, 7/11, Spanish train or Bali disco bombing. If anything it will simply fuel the flames of resentment.

What the terrorists are bewildered by and truly frightened of is the very thing this law rejects – reason, values, logic, liberty and law that enshrines, encapsulates and articulates our freedom. That is the Britishness that John Major, Gordon Brown and others find so hard to define. It is the coherent idea that constitutes itself into an inchoate feeling and sense of pride in place. It is what that great defender of Justice Rumpole of the Bailey called the Golden Thread that runs through British justice.This war on terror is a conflict waged against Islamist forces that claim to reject the Enlightenment. If that is so then how can we ever succeed if we side with our opponents in rejecting those same ideals.

Let us be clear then. This is not security we are being offered, this is government demanding freedom from the constraints that have developed over many centuries to curb the exercise of power. This is a type of illiberal democracy where elections take place against a background of diminished freedom. Ben Franklin said that “they who can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

I was told that David Davis was out on a limb on this one. Shamefully that is true. But it is the right limb to be out on. And it is a limb I am proud to join him on. It is also the limb that William Wilberforce climbed out and perched himself upon in this very town. When I think of this area therefore I think of this mans and this areas struggle against injustice, the rights of the unlawfully chained and those denied their liberty. This is not the grotesquerie of slavery and it would be wrong to conflate the two. But it is about justice, it is about liberty, it is about your rights. It is about Magna Carta, and what Britain is, was and must continue to be. It is against the whole flabby, conforming, brainwashed, gullible, witless crap of it all.

This is the only place that uniquely in this election has been given the chance and honour to speak out again for all of us. To speak out on behalf of justice versus intolerance. To whistleblow. To firewatch against unthinking power .To speak about an idea of right and liberty under the law. To vote for an idea of life itself. THE idea of Britain. Tory, Lib Dem, Labour who cares - clamber out on this limb with us, for its where we all belong. Turn out hugely and thank God that you are in a country that is still free to do so.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

Bob Geldof backs the Campaign

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:06:00 GMT

Constituency team meeting and then out canvassing.

Travelled to London to take part in the Observer’s debate with David Aaronovitch, MP Denis MacShane and journalist Henry Porter.

Quite an amusing debate, albeit with the same old Labour lines. Nevertheless good of both MacShane and Aaronovitch to engage in the debate when Gordon Brown is trying his utmost to suppress the whole discussion.

Announced that Bob Geldof is supporting the campaign. I am delighted to have Bob coming to Hull to debate the issue in Wilberforce’s city.

Despite the government’s shameful refusal to engage, at last I may get my debate with a government minister. SKY seems to have shamed Tony McNulty into debating the erosions of our freedoms and liberties on Boulton this coming Sunday morning. This has come about after SKY publicly declared that they could not stage a public debate as all government ministers had been advised not to debate with me.

A new report out shows that mismatched or unclear fingerprints could cripple the effectiveness of the government’s expensive ID card scheme.

The Biometric Assurance Group says officials may struggle to cope with the number of false matches, which could turn into tens of thousands.

Any false matches – which could result in the wrong person being arrested or prevented from entering the country – will be dealt with manually. It states that dealing with mistakes will be a large part of the National Identity Scheme’s work.

It also raises concerns about getting clear fingerprints from the four million over 75’s and other people with “challenging biometrics” such as “mute, non-English speaking, blind or visually impaired people”.

Why are we subjecting our vulnerable over 75’s to this humiliation?

The government has also admitted that in handling the security issues regarding the collection and safe storage of our data – our national identity – “the technical details of the access control solutions which will be used have yet to be resolved”. Wonderful, they lose our child benefit details; they lose laptops and military information on trains: and they propose to create a huge centralised database as an easy target for hackers and fraudsters. Hackers have penetrated the Pentagon and Microsoft: what chance has the Home Office got? When will this government learn that they cannot carry on regardless, ignoring expert opinion on its miserable record for keeping our records safe?

The Mirror - Geldof Backs Tory Davis in Poll Battle

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:01:00 GMT

BOB Geldof is backing Tory David Davis in his by-election campaign against erosion of civil liberties. He will speak at a rally in Hull as the former Shadow Home Secretary, who quit over holding terror suspects without charge, fights to regain his Haltemprice and Howden seat. Geldof said last night: "What is the point of Britain without its freedoms? What terrorises the terrorists is our civilisation." Mr Davis said: "I am delighted Bob Geldof is supporting our campaign, which is vital to the freedom of our country."

Published in The Mirror (Star Edition) July 4th 2008

The Independent - Bob Geldof to back David Davis

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:00:00 GMT

Bob Geldof is to endorse David Davis's protest against the Government's erosion of civil liberties. Geldof is a close ally of Gordon Brown on tackling poverty and repression in Africa, but he will join the former Tory frontbencher on the campaign trail in the Haltemprice and Howden by- election. He said: "What is the point of Britain without its freedoms? What terrorises the terrorists is our civilisation."

Published in The Independent Friday July 4th 2008

Birmingham Post - Brown ally Geldof to support Davis election

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:58:00 GMT

Bob Geldof is to endorse former Tory frontbencher David Davis' protest against the Government's erosion of civil liberties, it was revealed last night.
The rock star - a close ally of Gordon Brown on tackling poverty and repression in Africa - will join Mr Davis on the campaign trail.
He said: "What is the point of Britain without its freedoms? What terrorises the terrorists is our civilisation. I am delighted to support this campaign and I will be speaking on it in Hull tomorrow."
The backing, from someone he so regularly shares a platform with on development issues, could prove embarrassing for the Prime Minister.
Mr Davis quit as MP for Haltemprice and Howden last month so he could fight a by-election on the issue, accusing the Government of "trampling" on essential freedoms.
However, Labour has refused to field a candidate, and ministers have been doing their best to ignore the contest, which culminates on July 10.

Published in Birmingham Post Friday July 4th 2008

Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:42:00 GMT

As shadow home secretary for five years, it became an office joke that, faced with difficult policy questions, I would demand ‘get me the evidence!’ I am a scientist by training and, while 69 per cent of the public believe I took a principled stance in resigning from Parliament, that decision was also based on a rigorous empirical assessment of the evidence. The reality is that the relentless stream of repressive measures taken by this government over the last eleven years — whether 42 days pre-charge detention or any other — has not made us any safer. In many cases, they have jeopardised our security. In other cases, they are an irrelevant distraction — of time, resources and energy — from the real job at hand, namely protecting the public.

Terrified of the electorate, Gordon Brown decided that Labour would not contest the by-election occasioned by my resignation, even gagging ministers from debating the government’s record. Yet he could not resist responding to my resignation in a speech he gave on 17 June in the cosy confines of his favourite think-tank. That speech made two things crystal clear. First, he stands behind the sustained assault on British liberty, so expect more to come. Second, he has no idea about the effectiveness of his security policies.

Take 42 days. Mr Brown said it was difficult to claim that the change in the terrorist threat was not ‘serious enough to justify change in our laws’. Yet he offered no evidence to justify yet another extension — the limit quadrupled between 2003 and 2005 — which explains why the Director of Public Prosecutions concluded that the 42 days proposal was ‘unnecessary’ and ‘irrelevant’. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner conceded there was no evidence. Others who support 42 days, like Ken Jones (president of ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers), quietly confessed they had not scrutinised the evidence. Nor had ministers. Jacqui Smith pointed to the alleged Heathrow 2006 plot to blow ten airliners out of the sky. Five cases had gone to 28 days, so surely Ken Jones was right to say police were ‘up against the buffers’? In fact, the evidence showed that all the main players in the conspiracy were charged within 21 days. Of the five held for 28 days, three were innocent (released without any further suspicion). The other two were charged with less serious offences based on evidence obtained after 4 and 12 days, not up against the wire. They were both subsequently bailed — hardly high risk cases. So, the DPP was right. They had coped ‘comfortably’ within the 28-day limit.

If 42 days is unnecessary, it will also jeopardise security. Colonel Tim Collins, the hero from Iraq who has fought terrorists from the IRA to Al-Qa’eda, is the latest to warn that 42 days is a draconian response that plays straight into the hands of the terrorists. It will also harm intelligence. The government’s own impact assessment points out that 42 days risks cutting off local community intelligence. Mr Brown lectures that 42 days ‘ensures both our tradition of liberty and our need for security’. But the evidence roundly refutes him on both counts.

Next up, ID cards. Mr Brown claimed that biometric technology offers ‘one of the best examples of how we can confront the modern criminal while respecting liberties’. Experts say just the reverse. By clustering masses of personal data on one vulnerable database, ID cards create what Microsoft’s national technology officer calls a ‘honeypot’ for hackers and terrorists — not least since the biometric technology can be cloned with a gadget costing £100.

On to the DNA database, which Mr Brown rambunctiously claims has ‘revolutionised the way the police protect the public’. Bit odd, given that less than 0.4 per cent of crimes are detected using DNA. He added that, if the database had not been widened to retain 1 million innocent people’s DNA, criminals guilty of 114 murders and 116 rapes ‘would in all probability have got away’. This is just nonsense. But don’t take my word for it. GeneWatch, an independent not-for-profit organisation, roundly rubbished Mr Brown’s figures as deliberately misleading (the ten-page rebuttal is available at www.genewatch.org). For the record, I have never proposed the abolition of the database. I just think it would better serve law enforcement and personal privacy if Mr Brown replaced the 1 million innocent people currently on the database with the many thousand serious criminals he has left off.

Next, CCTV. Mr Brown made fewer claims, which is not surprising since Home Office reports say that 80 per cent of CCTV footage is unusable. Instead, he issued a party briefing entitled ‘Challenge the Tories on CCTV’, calling on Labour minions to spread the lie that I am ‘in opposition to CCTV cameras’. In the document Tony McNulty, the Home Office minister of state for security, says, ‘CCTV is a powerful crime-fighting tool... CCTV makes our streets safer.’ He clearly has not read the Home Office’s 2005 evaluation report, which found that CCTV ‘had little overall effect on crime levels’ — cutting crime in only 7 per cent of deployments. CCTV ‘played no part in reducing fear of crime’ and ‘public support for CCTV decreased after implementation by as much as 20 per cent’. I am not opposed to CCTV. But I have consistently called for more effective deployment, coupled with stronger sanctions for abuse of innocent people’s privacy.

Then there is surveillance. At this point, Mr Brown has run out of bogus statistics. The fact is there are 1,000 bugging operations in Britain every day. Councils bug local residents, but there is still a ban on using intercept evidence to prosecute terrorists. Neighbourhood spies follow our children home from school, and investigate a range of trivial misdemeanours. Is that really how we want our soaring council tax rates spent? Wouldn’t precious local resources be better spent on putting more police on the street, given the doubling of violent crime and rising anti-social behaviour?

Finally, there is the attack on free speech. On the one hand, we have seen the arrest or prosecution of peaceful protesters — like Walter Wolfgang or the anti-war protesters reciting the names of Iraq war dead outside the cenotaph in Whitehall. On the other, Abu Hamza and the Danish cartoon protesters are left to preach hatred and incite violence on our streets — driving the growing radicalisation of young British Muslims that is now thrown back as a justification for 42 days.

Mr Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds — draconian, expensive and ineffective. This contortion of British security and liberty is the result of pervasive ministerial amateurism, driven by a desperate thirst for headlines. Policy-making for the news cycle cannot be properly assessed, checked and tested. That is why I am fighting this by-election. We need a national debate on the erosion of British liberty in the name of security — based on a thorough, rigorous and critical assessment of all the evidence, not a stream of simplistic soundbites.

Originally published in the Spectator

The free vote

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:39:00 GMT

THE exigencies of the war on terror seem a long way from Haltemprice and Howden, one of the more bucolic parliamentary constituencies. There are few obvious targets to strike in this collection of Yorkshire villages, nor much scope for a clash of cultures (the non-white population is under 2%). Islamist recruiters hoping to exploit deprivation should also look elsewhere: five years ago the private-wealth division of Barclays, a bank, rated it the tenth-richest place in the country, once living costs were taken into account.

Yet thanks to its MP, David Davis, the seat has become a forum for the vexed debate on the trade-off between liberty and security that has gripped Westminster. On June 12th, the day after Parliament voted to extend maximum detention without charge for terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days, Mr Davis resigned as the Conservative home-affairs spokesman and announced that he would quit his seat. He said he would campaign in the resulting by-election, which takes place on July 10th, on the issue of defending civil liberties from 42 days, identity cards, CCTV cameras, DNA databases and other incursions.

It was a quixotic gesture—for Mr Davis’s party had backed his desire to oppose 42 days, after all—but those hoping for his campaign to flop completely are being disappointed. True, neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats have put up candidates, so Mr Davis (whose rivals include a member of the Church of the Militant Elvis Party) cannot claim much of a mandate for civil libertarianism if, as expected, he wins. But his resignation has prompted a response from the government: Gordon Brown, the prime minister, gave a speech on liberty and security five days afterwards, and has more recently exchanged tetchy letters with Mr Davis.

As for the Tories, some senior figures deplored Mr Davis’s “self indulgence” and fretted that the loss of one of their big-hitters would create the party’s first bad-news story for months. The party has suffered no dip in the polls, however. Others speculate that Mr Davis is trying to undermine David Cameron (who defeated him for the Tory leadership in 2005), and could be a thorn in his side from the backbenches. But the candidate has ruled out ever leading his party; Mr Cameron campaigned for him on July 2nd and may yet bring him back into the shadow cabinet.

There is, however, a criticism that is harder for Mr Davis to rebut—that he would have served the liberal cause better by sticking around to be home secretary in the next Tory government. Repealing 42 days, to which the Tories (with a caveat or two) are committed, would be an obvious early move. He insists graciously that this could be done just as well by Dominic Grieve, his replacement, but some doubt that. Civil liberties is a tricky issue for the Conservatives, who have both a libertarian wing and an authoritarian one. On the “Nixon in China” principle, Mr Davis’s background (he grew up on a council estate and is no bleeding heart on crime) gives him the cover to take an enlightened line on civil liberties; Mr Grieve, a privately-schooled QC, lacks this advantage.

Instead, Mr Davis envisages his role after the by-election as that of one-man pressure group. Public opinion can seem an insurmountable barrier for civil libertarians (there was a clear majority in favour of 42 days). But Mr Davis notes that popular support for ID cards has slipped as voters have been made aware of their drawbacks. “Maybe something similar can be achieved on detention without charge,” he says, brandishing letters of support from the likes of Tim Collins, once an army colonel, and Terry Waite, a former hostage.

If Mr Davis sounds as if he is in this for the long haul, it is because he fears that the threat to Britain’s liberties comes from gradual erosion over time rather than a frenzied assault by a particular government. “Drop a frog into boiling water and it will jump straight out,” says Mr Davis. “Put it into lukewarm water, slowly turn up the heat, and it will die.”

Article from The Economist

Geldof backs David Davis

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:26:00 GMT

Leading anti-poverty campaigner and former Boomtown Rat Sir Bob Geldof will join David Davis in Hull on Friday, 4th July. Sir Bob will back David's stance on civil liberties.

Speaking in support of David, Sir Bob said: "What is the point of Britain without its freedoms? What terrorises the terrorists is our civilisation? I am delighted to support this campaign and I will be speaking on it in Hull tomorrow".

David responded: "I am delighted that Bob Geldof is supporting our campaign, which stretches across all parties and is vital to the freedom of our country".

David Cameron offers his support

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:58:00 GMT

Started the day with the usual constituency team meeting and went canvassing.

Came back to the house to greet Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail and Andrew Gimson from the Telegraph who had been in the area to sketch write the by-election and a pack of TV and radio reporters.

Somebody saw the BBC interview of me, as they thought “by a river”. Actually, it was just my little pond. Who says the picture never lies?

Left to greet David Cameron. We arranged for David to meet a number of sixth formers from around the constituency at South Hunsley school in Melton. We had a very well informed discussion with the youngsters who knew an awful lot about civil liberties, 42 days and why I was standing in the by-election. The questions were so sharp that one or two of the sketch writers thought we had "primed" them. Not true. They were just very, very bright youngsters.

David spoke about our parliament and how it doesn’t often do the right thing and is constrained by the whips to vote along party lines. He also made an impassioned speech against 42 days and how he will repeal this law when he gets into government.

David and I then left to go canvassing in Elloughton. I was very suspicious that my team had “primed” the canvass because we had 14 straight positives and 3 Labour conversions! They insist it was just a normal canvass, albeit in a strong Tory area.

Had dinner with the journalist Rod Liddle in my local Chinese restaurant. He was opining that because of the absence of an opponent that there was a risk of a very low turnout. I told him that I thought that that was not the key issue; the real measure of this is that we have kept this in the newspapers already for nearly 3 weeks, and very few people can be unaware of it.

Later we were joined by a number of old friends from my TA days. Interestingly, or contrary to what you might expect, the soldiers with service ranging from the 2nd world war right up to the present day seem to be vehemently on side on the issue of draconian and illiberal legislation nominally designed to defeat terror. A good example of this is Tim Collins’s article in today’s Daily Telegraph.

Good coverage in today’s press from David’s visit last night and on Labour’s bribe of its backbenchers to vote for 42 days. Labour’s chief whip, Geoff Hoon, wrote to Keith Vaz who eventually voted with the government to force through this disastrous legislation. In a handwritten letter, sent to Vaz on the day after the vote on June 11, Hoon wrote: “Thank you for all your help during the period leading up to last Wednesday’s votes. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated all of your help. I trust that it will be appropriately awarded!”

This is disgraceful and shameful behaviour and against our liberty and freedoms and undermines the reasons why most of us went into politics.

Quote of the day, Quentin Letts’ sketch in the Daily Mail referring to the various candidates standing against me: “Westminster’s know-all’s declared, almost as one, that he (David) was ‘mad’ to take such a risk. Mad? They won’t know the meaning of the word until they come up here. No sooner had they declared him insane than the Great British public let rip a great cheer of encouragement for the man …. he may have set off the biggest race of mad March hares since Lewis Carroll, but he might just have done something surprising and daring enough to earn the public’s respect.”

Come and Debate

info@daviddavisforfreedom.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:22:00 GMT

Welcomed my former colleagues, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling and Jeremy Hunt yesterday.

After a reception of tea and cakes with local pensioners we did the media round-up and then went canvassing.

The letters and emails continue to pour in, media support is good and looking forward to welcoming David Cameron today.

Tomorrow I will be preparing to leave for London for the Observer debate with David Aaronovitch, MP Denis MacShane and journalist Henry Porter.

In the meantime we will have former colleagues Michael Gove, Patrick Mercer, Oliver Letwin and Peter Ainsworth coming up to canvass.

The Independent reports that a study ordered by Gordon Brown in 2003 when he was Chancellor, uncovered security flaws in the way that child benefit records were handled, well before they went missing in November 2007. Recommendations to tighten security were not implemented and “woefully inadequate” data handling was implicated. Well, Mr Brown, what say you about the security of our DNA database and for your planned ID card scheme?

Sadly, it is left to the European Court of human rights to hold our government to account on how they hold phone-tapping evidence. The Court says that procedures covering the use and storage of intercepted material should be open to public scrutiny as it is “virtually unfettered” at the moment. I am afraid that I think that this is a matter that the British Parliament should sort out, not a European Court. Hence this by-election.

Labour won’t put up a candidate to fight the by-election but continues to swipe frm behind the scenes:

Labour's Home Office minister Tony McNulty said: "As David Cameron today joins David Davis's campaign against our policies on terrorism, CCTV and DNA evidence, I challenge him to explain to the victims of crime why he wants to make it harder for the police to put criminals behind bars.
"Without our policies on DNA and CCTV the police would find it harder to catch rapists and murderers."
He keeps repeating the mantra that I am making it harder for the police to do their job. Nothing could be further from the truth. I repeat, now are you listening Mr McNulty? I want CCTV cameras to be more effective, but subject to very tight controls against misuse. You should know – you are the police Minister- that 80% of CCTV is not admissible in court. So you con the public into a false sense of security whilst invading their privacy. That is why one of your senior CCTV officers in the Met described your policy as a “fiasco”.

As for DNA – why do you keep one million innocent people on the database at a cost of £1m per year; why do you keep 100,000 children’s DNA on it and yet do nothing to record DNA from the convicted criminals that preceded your laws?

Now can you guarantee us that the information is safe following the above mentioned report that damns Gordon Brown for not implementing the changes to security before our children’s details were lost?

Better still, come and debate these issues rather than hiding behind press releases.