Daring Davis

Fine balance
Dr Bob Spink, UKIP's latest acquisition, voted in favour of the 42 day detention plan. Thus he voted with Nulabour and against his old party the Tories. His explanation for this was that -

"he had to consider his 8,000 constituents who work in London, the front line of the terrorist threat".

But when Spink left the Tories for UKIP it would seem this group of his constituents were not the main reason for the move. In fact it is hard to see how any of his constituents played a part in the process, as he was expelled from the Tory Party. Also Dr Spink said that, along with many other MPs of all parties, he would be -

"seeking to remove the reserve measure when the terrorist threat abated".

Now you would have thought that Spink would be aware of the principle of 'acquis communautaire'. Surely a man who has been in politics as long as he has can see that the chances are that the 42 day detention legislation once passed, remains on the statute book. Dr Spink also spoke of a "fine balance" between the views for and against.

But Bob Spink is not the only elected UKIP member with an opinion, there is also Godfrey Bloom. And Mr Bloom said: -

"As Yorkshire's UKIP MEP and as his constituent, I applaud David Davis's stand in defence of our fundamental British rights and freedoms. I hope, of course, that this includes the Treaty of Lisbon, which represents a much larger threat than any laws being debated in Westminster. In this case, I would be happy to campaign for David Davis in this by-election."

The Liberal Democrats are for the Treaty of Lisbon but against the 42 day detention plan and as a party seem to be consistent here. By contrast it would seem that UKIP is against the Lisbon Treaty but for AND against the 42 day detention plan. Also the Liberal Democrats will not stand against David Davis in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election.

However, Kelvin Mackenzie ex-editor of the Sun has been instructed by his old boss Rupert Murdoch to stand against Davis. In an interview with Mackenzie he suggested to the BBC that he did not care if 'people' were locked up for 420 days. Mind you the man from the Sun seems keen on a whole range of things defined by David Davis as being anti-libertarian.

The Sun is also anti-EU, but for all we know might just be anti-foreigner. Kelvin Mackenzie also claimed that 10 million people buy the Sun, this is wrong as the sales figures are much lower. When corrected Mackenzie seemed not care about the difference between sales and readership numbers, so Mackenzie versus Davis, tabloid versus liberty, this will be, despite the Westminster bubble's cursory dismissal of the Davis stand a very interesting turn in UK politics.
Locked up
The last time UKIP turned out was the Crewe and Nantwich by-election and they got less than 1000 votes. For all we know small groups of UKIP supporters, it is always small with UKIP now, are planning to campaign for David Davis and Kelvin Mackenzie at one and the same time. The ex-treasurer recently led a move to oust the current UKIP Leader Nigel Farage, he also pointed out that the income from donations had fallen to around 6% from its peak of £1.7 million a year, so anything from UKIP is set to get smaller still. Bob Spink may speak of a 'fine balance' but without a bank balance UKIP will shift from the political to the entertainment end of the spectrum, and not be missed.

What is clear is that the entire political establishment is at odds with the voter. Much of the Westminster bubble and the Mainstream Media are still in shock that David Davis should have made this move, he is the man of the moment, yes it is going to be very interesting.