What does the constitution say about the nomination in general? Who has the final word? Can the national or the regional party override a local party? At least in constituencies without an active local party I’d think the national or the regional party makes the decision?

If the constitution is silent on it, that must mean that the leader _doesn’t_ have the power to forbid the local party from nominating a candidate.

The constitution on a quick read seems pretty silent on this – there doesn’t seem to be a comparable provision to the duty on local parties to contest all local authority elections

Surely someone knows the answer to this question?

whilst I believe that many Tories are instinctive liberals, they’re not LDs and, in this case, David Davies isn’t liberal either. It happens that his ideas stemming, it seems, from reverence for tradition happen to collide with our views on this one issue. It makes no sense not to fight this by-election and if, due a tabloid frenzy and on the basis of a low turn-out we DO get Kelvin McKenzie MP then we’ll have no business complaining about it.

Is the party going to apply the same logic to all by-elections?

Does the party leader have the constitutional right to decide that the party will not field a candidate in a parliamentary by election?

What else can we do? If we stand a candidate it can only be on the same platform. We cannot win and any votes we may take will only help assist Labour in defending the 42 days.

We must remain focused on the issue at stake and hold our nerve and come across as the only party that is genuinely united during this time, whilst Labour and the Conservatives fall into disarray.

During the coming weeks this issue will be in the forefront of the media and it is important that it is. In our responses, whilst we should distance ourselves from Davis and his campaign we have the opportunity to support the issue and the issue alone. It is the issue that is important here.

I recommend you look at tomorrow’s papers before deciding that this will be a win for Cameron or the Conservatives as a whole. I think Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems will come out of it a lot better than David Cameron.

It may be a stunt from Davis but there seems little doubt it is a principled stunt, and one his leader disagrees with. It seems pretty clear that behind this there is a pretty substantial Tory split on whether they should make a strong stand against 42 days detention without trial. A split on which Davis, for all his faults, is on the side of the angels.

And in answer to your qustion two, yes, I really do think this by-election will be pretty much entirely about 42 days. This is not going to be a typical by-election.

People I’ve spoken to today, most of them not party members, overwhelmingly think we’ve done the right thing. Quite a few of them are bemused at Cameron’s lack of support for Davis.

George

By agreeing not to stand against David Davis, we are indulging a Tory in spending taxpayers money on a pointless exercise. It will achieve nothing on 42 days or anything else we stand for as Liberal Democrats.

David Davis has chosen to trigger a byelection so we should use the opportunity to offer the voters of Haltemprice and Howden a better representative.

This is one of the worse decisions I can remember from a Liberal Democrat leader and I can only see us losing out from it.

James

There was no need to say anything today. We should at least have taken stock of the situation. The reason we didn’t do so is because Nick seems to have been party to a stitch-up here.

In terms of historical precedent, when have we stood aside in favour of an official Conservative Party candidate (not an independent)?

By not standing in response to this curious, egocentric decision, the spotlight is turned on the turmoil in the Tory party. Having their best known name do this without the agreement of his party leader is truly wierd.

If we had stood, the Tories would have rallied round to see us off. Now their internal problems will unwind with the attention of a grateful media. We will have nothing to lose.

There’s nothing wrong with losing. You can achieve a lot through losing. We should expect to lose – Davis is in the driving seat after all.

But if we can clearly articulate everything that is wrong with Davis and his party, then we would be in with a chance. Certainly a better chance than either Crewe or Henley.

Should we give up on Henley too?