David Blunkett
David Davis, the real star of the Tory conference?
Civil liberties, found only at the fringe
David Davis MP
David Davis - if you mention his name in some quarters the reaction is extreme. There's a person I'd describe as 'traditional Tory', who goes into a tizzy and talks of a "toys out of pram moment"; this refers to Davis resigning from his parliamentary seat on a point of principle. It's like a man thing that is, real men don't do this. However, Davis and his principles are also misunderstood in more leftward leaning circles, look no further than the Guardian and dog-in-the-manger Michael White, here it would seem it's simply traditional leftie tribalism. It's tempting to assume that, as Davis upsets such a broad spectrum of people, he must be doing something right!
What happens next?
New politics, some get it, some don't
First one to go
So the Nucoalition has come of age, it's lost, with the resignation of David Laws, its first member; so what happens next? Well first we must remind ourselves this is all a bit new. The oft overlooked voter weighed up the options on polling day and went radical by giving mixed signals, hence the coalition. This we may assume came as a bit of a shock to some; indeed the LibDems were still kidding themselves till very late in the day that they could form an alliance with Nulabour, before realising the voters wouldn't like this and going with the Tories. It would seem Laws was privately kidding himself too. If he's so clever, as we are frequently told he is, then why didn't he prepare himself and his private affairs for government?
Nulabour sinks our liberty
Never had it so bad?
There goes our liberty
The rightly respected Henry Porter has set out his thoughts on why in terms of civil liberties we've never had it so bad, see HERE. It was Harold Macmillan who used the phrase “you've never had it so good” in 1957. At that time the UK was still recovering from the effects of WW2. Many people had suffered in the depression of the pre-war years and by the mid-1950s were desperate for a better life. Now 50 years later it is formally recognised that the good years, fought for and worked towards by so many ordinary people, have been replaced with a sustained period of decline of liberty.
