The 10th July is an anniversary I forgot to mark here on Lib Dem Voice. For it was two years ago, on that day, that David Davis won the Haltemprice and Howden by-election he had himself forced as a self-declared referendum on civil liberties.
At the time, I was fairly sympathetic to the impact of Mr Davis’s stance, arguing “it would be churlish to deny that a significant number of folk chose to have their say”, and that this afforded the former Tory shadow home secretary “a commanding personal mandate”.
In truth, I was over-generous to Mr Davis: Jonathan Calder, at Liberal England, judged it more astutely:
… what has David Davis achieved by his resignation? If you care about liberty, then shadow home secretary looks quite a useful job to have. His action looks more and more like an outbreak of the male menopause. He should have bought himself a sports car instead.
It’s against that background that I’m reflecting on Mr Davis’s careless words criticising the ‘Brokeback Coalition’.
Here is a politician who could be the Conservative Home Secretary; who could be be repealing Labour’s surveillance state; who could be the heir apparent to Mr Cameron if the Coalition fails. Instead he’s reduced to mouthing off within earshot of the Financial Times in a well-known journalists’ haunt. That’s some comedown.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Disneyfication of Haley Mills
Survation now put Andy Burnham 10 points ahead in Makerfield
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Ruth Bright
BigTallTim
Daniel Walker
Richard Good
Matt (Bristol)
21 Comments
A bit harsh. He made big deal out of something he strongly believed it. Nothing wrong with that. He shouldn’t regret it.
Constantly biting your lip or selling your principles so you can get to the top of the power chain (in the illusion you can make a big difference) isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Although of course, that’s politics. See New Labour.
Personally, I think Brokeback Coalition sums it up brilliantly. It will hurt Clegg + Cameron more than they’ll ever admit.
“Here is a politician who could be the Conservative Home Secretary; who could be be repealing Labour’s surveillance state; who could be the heir apparent to Mr Cameron if the Coalition fails.”
Actually, I get the impression that most of David Davis’s activities since the election have been intended to position him as Cameron’s successor if the Coalition fails. I think he is very much trying to project himself as the leader of the Tory opposition to Cameron.
Personally, I found this the most interesting part of his reported remarks:
Mr Davis said it “would not hurt” the Tories if the Liberal Democrats split. Most of the liberal right of the party held “seats that should be Tory”. He suggested that the Tories could agree not to run against “20 or 25” such Liberal Democrats as part of an electoral pact. Given the weakness of Mr Clegg’s party, this would be “an offer you can’t refuse” for a “guaranteed seat for life”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-davis-criticises-brokeback-coalition-2034318.html
Those are interesting remarks from Davies, not least because I seem to remember a virtually identical comment, right down to the “offer you can’t refuse” line, posted on Lib Dem Voice not long ago. I wonder if he contributes anonymously?
Of course, it goes without saying (but I will, for the benefit of the trolls) that no such offer is likely to be made, and certainly never accepted.
I think David Davis would like to be the alternative leader to Cameron. But I am doubt he can be.
While I felt some admiration for his decision to stand in a by-election on an issue of principle. It puzzled me.
The mutterings I read in the press from Tories, that he was a maverick, that it was because he didn’t like to work with Cameron, seemed to make more sense than that this was a serious strategy for rolling back the authoritarian state.
I suspect a lot of Tories will remember that decision, and wonder whether, rather than being the kind of man capable of holding the party together, he might be the kind to split it.
If the leader after Cameron is from the right wing, it’ll be someone other than Davis.
“Those are interesting remarks from Davies, not least because I seem to remember a virtually identical comment, right down to the “offer you can’t refuse” line, posted on Lib Dem Voice not long ago. I wonder if he contributes anonymously?”
Well, when “Rob Sheffield” suggested that the Tories might offer such a pact, I said I thought it “might be a very difficult offer for much of the Lib Dem parliamentary party to refuse” – thinking of a situation in which the party was still very unpopular by the end of the five years, that is.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/ldv-meme-those-liberal-democrat-worries-according-to-the-independent-20238.html
Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not David Davis, and I’m pretty sure “Rob Sheffield” isn’t, either.
Nor am I Michael Portillo, who has just suggested something similar:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/07/23/could-the-coalition-fight-as-the-coalition/
And why, pray tell, would the Liberals not accept such an offer?
On principle?
You may notice people sniggering at you if you keep insisting that the Liberals have any principle left. Especially if the Coalition lasts even another 3 months…
Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise that was you. Anyway, my tongue was in my cheek. (Is there an emoticon for that?) But seriously, it is worrying that these senior Tories have such a weak grasp on reality.
Cuse (et al), I have been a Lib Dem activist for almost 20 years. During that time, scarcely a day has gone by without someone such as yourself predicting the imminent demise of my party, and ridiculing my belief in it. So I hope you’ll understand when I yawn.
Electoral pacts have been the death-knell of every previous incarnation of the Liberals, starting with the infamous “coupon election” of 1918. The Liberal Democrats should be prepared to fight the election of 2015 precisely as if they were in the opposition.
Nice side-step Paul.
I’ve walked the streets on behalf of the Lib Dems too. Not quite 20 years, but for the last 2 GE’s definitely. I’ve posted leaflets, I’ve knocked on doors, I’ve made phone calls, I’ve been there for the party and stood up for what I believe in – and what I thought the Liberals believed in. I live in a constituency so strongly Conservative, that our only strategy was to present a fair, left-leaning counter view if we were to get any interest at all. Now that we’ve jumped so strongly to the right – we look like hypocrites and will certainly see our already low vote fall exponentially.
This is the most perilous period for the future of the Lib Dems I can remember. We have based our party’s future on the success or otherwise of strongly Tory policies. Our argument is that we are softening the impact of these. When the cuts hit the pockets of the middle + lower classes – it will be us they target.
That you respond to this threat by claiming that contributors with alternate views are somehow ‘Trolls’ shows what damage the Coalition has done to our once truly liberal party.
Cuse, are the Liberal Democrats “we” or “you”? Please pick one, because watching you switch back and forth is making me nauseous.
Oh dear – did he have to say that the coalition was about him and Cameron “coming together” in the national interest?
Paul – you prove my point. Rather than address policy, or hypocrisy, or inconsistency, or lack of engagement, all you see trolling. However, because I’m a fair man, I’ll answer your rather immature question.
It used to be ‘we’. Now, sadly, it’s ‘you’.
Fine. For me, it’s still “we”. At least we both know where we stand.
“Here is a politician who could be the Conservative Home Secretary”.
How true! Not the coalition Home Secretary. Just as we have a Conservative Prime Minister, a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Conservative Foreign Secretary, a Conservative Health Secretary and a Conservative Education Secretary – all of the posts that really matter and make a difference have been filled by Conservatives.
Call me a troll if you must, but when will the Liberal Democrats realise that you have been stitched up, that you have let the rabid right out of their cages, and that you have given the Tories the confidence to be more extreme and more vicious than Thatcher? When will you realise that you have given the Tories the cover of a so-called “coalition” to hide behind, while they carry out policies which are mostly the opposite to those which the Liberal Democrats offered to the electorate in May?
David Davis is perplexing. He is clearly a right-wing Tory of a muscular working-class-boy-made-good bent. Norman Tebbit with a university education. BUT, and this is a very big “but”. The experiences of his adopted parents during the Second World War have led him to value civil liberties and reject the control agenda being imposed on us by the US elite.
When Michael Howard resigned, Davis was the runaway favourite to succeed. But he didn’t succeed. Why? Basically, because the US elite was determined that he wouldn’t. And how did they go about stopping him? They arranged for the Republican pollster and psychological manipulator, Frank Luntz, to stage a phoney focus group on “Newsnight” where he tutored a collection of ingenues into favouring the suave and slick Cameron over the rather more abrasive Davis. And the rest is history, as they say.
So, I have explained in one short paragraph how the US elite got its marionette into No 10. No, not quite. I’ve missed out the bits about the North American owned media spewing out relentless propaganda, and the US money pumped into the Tory campaign through the conduit of Lord Ashcroft.
Now, here’s a thought to cheer us all up. The other day, Nick Clegg uttered words that would be unthinkable coming from the mouth of Cameron. He stated the fact that the Iraq war was illegal. Clearly, the strings attached to Mr Clegg, if there are any at all, and wherever they may lead, are not pulled in Washington. Watch your back, Nick.
Sesenco’s conspiracy theories are fun, the US/Bilderberg conspiracy etc. Of course according to the right-wing press its Brussels that pulls Nick Clegg’s strings!
So who do the ‘US Elite’ want as Labour Leader – David or Ed Milliband? (I don’t care for either of them myself, but their older brother Steve wrote a few good tunes!)
“Sesenco’s conspiracy theories are fun …”
The first few dozen times one hears them, maybe.
Steve Comer:
The answer to your question is “ask Frank Luntz”. I say this, because Luntz was in fact engaged by “Newsnight” to do one of his “focus groups” to find a successor to Tony Blair. And who did the ingenues choose? Wait for it (and take a stiff drink if you have to)… Dr John Reid! But it didn’t matter in the end, because the leadership was uncontested.
The US elite doesn’t always get its own way. It wanted Nelson Rockefeller, but couldn’t persuade the Republican Party to nominate him, and it wanted Mitt Romney, but ended up with Barack Obama. I well recall a bungled attempt to put up Gerald Ford against Ronald Reagan in 1980. There was Ford, flanked by Henry Kissinger and some fellow reprobate. The BBC reporter said something like “the oil companies and the Rockefeller banking organisation will be behind this”. Absolutely! In those days, intrepid BBC journos occasionally told the truth! Though I bet he got a rocket for it.
I am keeping a book on the length of time it takes Anthony Aloysius Street to respond to my posts with some crass playground quip. Come on Anthony, you were slow off the mark this time!
Steve Comer:
What “conspiracy” have I ever alleged that involves the Bilberberg Group? I have pointed out that the Group holds international summits in semi-secrecy, and have called for transparency. Where is the conspiracy? I think you are erecting a straw man.
I believe that David Davis is a very intelligent man, but he does not appear now to be party leadership material, nor a team player. If he wants to be the successor to Cameron, his timing is suspect and no will will thank him for breaking ranks at this stage in the parliament.
I would class David Davis with Enoch Powell. I met Enoch and he was too sure of himself for his own (and the Conservative Party’s) good! At best, David Davis could be another Michael Heseltine. But please note that neither Heseltine nor Powell ever got within spitting distance of the leadership.
No, some of what Davis says makes sense, but much of what he says is ludicrous. It is easy to pontificate from the backbenches. He has probably resigned himself to staying there
Peter Jackson