Footage of Cameron’s response
For those who missed it, here’s footage of Cameron’s response to Davis’ resignation, as discussed by James here.
Peter Hoskin
Friday
David Davis: the morning view
A flick through the papers this morning just confirms the spilt between the political commentariat and the public over David Davis. Most of the headlines are of the negative – or, at least, mitigated – variety: “David Davis turns Labour tragedy into Labour farce” and “From from bruiser to loser”, for instance. Although Quentin Letts
Thursday
Labour to decline challenging Davis?
Over at Three Line Whip, it’s being reported that Labour think it “highly unlikely” that they’ll put forward a candidate in David Davis’ constituency of Haltemprice & Howden. As James said earlier, victory in an effectively uncontested by-election could leave Davis with egg on his face.
Grieve: Tories will repeal 42-day detention
According to Conservative Home, Dominic Grieve has announced that the Tories will repeal 42-days detention legislation if elected into government. This certainly shines a new light on Davis’ actions…
Will David Davis achieve anything?
I find it hard to be cynical about Davis’ actions today. Rather than being a “publicity stunt”, I suspect they may demonstrate that rarest of things – a politician acting on principle. But, whatever you think on that front, there’s a separate question: what will Davis achieve? I’m not sure it will be all that much. Some thoughts on
Davis announces his resignation – now with added video
Again, courtesy of the indispensable Politics Home:
Davis announces his resignation
So that’s it then. Here are Davis’ own words: “This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason I feel it incumbent on me to make a stand. I will be resigning from this House and will force a by-election. I am just a piece in this great chess game. I will argue
Clegg confirms the Davis story
Nick Clegg takes a principled stance, and confirms what we’ve been hearing about Davis: “David Davis’s decision to resign his seat and fight a by-election over the issue of 42 days is a dramatic move. I am grateful to him for having informed me following the vote of his intention to take this step.
Breaking: David Davis resigns
According to Politics Home, David Davis has resigned as an MP. As of yet, it’s uncertain why. We’ll have more shortly. Stay tuned. UPDATE: Nick Robinson’s reporting a row between Davis and Cameron. Apparently, though, Davis’ friends are denying that he’s resigned. UPDATE 2: Here’s the BBC story. They’re running with the resignation line.
Can we blame the DUP?
The DUP’s actions over the 42-day detention vote yesterday have provoked quite a lot of anger. CoffeeHouser ‘cuffleyburgers’ provides a good example of that: “…the DUP worms who sold their principles down the river in exchange for some as-yet-unclarified bribe.” And then there are posts from Daniel Hannan and Iain Dale, among others. But is it
A waste of time
Plenty of reaction to the 42-day vote in this morning’s papers. A summary of the consensus: enjoy this success while you can Brown, because it won’t last long. But of the all the angry column pieces, Steve Richards’ is perhaps the most incisive. His thesis is that Brown has wasted Government time in the effort
Wednesday
The Government wins the 42-day detention vote
For: 315 Against: 306 So that’s a majority of nine for the Government. Incidentally, that’s the exact number of DUP MPs, who did side with Brown in the end.
MPs’ pettiness over expenses doesn’t help
Thanks to the High Court, we’ll be seeing full details of MPs’ expenses in October. That’s a good thing. But, as Three Line Whip is reporting, some MPs are still waging personal campaigns against the decision. The culprit this time is the Tory MP Julian Lewis. In response to the High Court judgment that the addresses of
Is the 42-day vote still too close to call?
As a partial counterpoint to Fraser’s post, Ben Brogan writes on his blog: “Mr Brown’s spokesman a short while ago said if the vote were held now “the Government would not have enough votes to win”. We are also told there is no deal with the DUP. And someone else on the Government side has just
PMQs footage | 11 June 2008
Courtesy of Politics Home, here’s footage of Cameron’s exchanges with Brown in PMQs:
Is Ed Balls trying to kill off grammar schools?
Janet Daley writes on Ed Balls’ latest initiative: So what Mr Balls is proposing is effectively merging local secondary moderns with grammars. And what do you call a grammar school that is merged with a secondary modern? Why, a “comprehensive school” of course. It was precisely that sort of “take-over” (or merger) that produced the
Political insiders think 42-day detention will scrape through
According to their latest poll, some 66 percent of Politics Home’s group of insiders think that the Government’s 42-day detention proposal will get through Parliament today. All things considered, a two-thirds chance of Government success sounds about right.
MPs to vote on 42-day detention
After all the talk, exhortations and hand-wringing, today’s the day that MPs finally vote on the Government’s 42-day detention plan. That will happen at 7pm, and we can expect a result shortly afterwards. So what to look out for? Obviously, the key question is whether there are enough rebels for the Government to be defeated.
Tuesday
What’s the reason behind Miliband’s Israel snub?
So why has David Miliband cut his trip to the Middle East short? The plan was for him to be in Israel today, meeting with luminaries including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, before hopping on a plane tonight to be back in time for tomorrow’s 42-day detention vote. Ben Brogan charts what
The Government fails the poor
The Government’s latest poverty statistics were meant to be released back in April. But they’ve been delayed and delayed, such that they’ve only come out today. Now we know why. They record yet more failure from this multi-talentless government. The amount of children living in poverty rose by 100,000 in 2006-07. Whilst pensioner poverty shot up by 300,000 –