But who, exactly, will he be arguing with? Himself?

As I have argued this morning (with nary a swearword!), he will be arguing with the British people, specifically the 69% who apparently back this illiberalism without even thinking about what they are signing away.

DK

Don’t neglect the unease felt at things like data breaches, either. Davis isn’t just campaigning on 42 days, he’s got a lot of ammunition along the lines of ‘the government want to know everything about you, which they’ll probably leave on the train’ which isn’t susceptible to negation by fearmongery (‘Vote PC Lockemup for a less incompetent Labour Government’ will not be the rallying cry).

Worth noting here that the Conservative party backwoods is split on the issue. If ConHome and Labour can find an independent to run, they could split Davis’s vote—sure he’ll pick up a lot of Lib Dems supporters, but not all are as strong on liberty as the actual members, and a lot of Tory (as opposed to Conservative, not the same thing) voters will favour banging them away forever.

A decent independent could be a serious threat to DD if the backwoods and LAbour work together. It’s not a fait accompli that he’s in.

I do suspect his frontbench career as a Conservative is over though.

Rob Knight thinks that there is a Davis/Cameron split, if there is then why would Davis be appointed to a position in the shadow cabinet while the Conservative leadership is intact?

Or we think we do: this is yet more evidence that British politics is mutating fast. It may be that people will see a by-election called as a referendum on a single issue as wholly appropriate. There are no landmarks in this territory.

Am I missing a trick? Assuming he is still running as a Tory what exactly is to stop him getting back into the front bench team in the future?

Davis is from a completely different background to Cameron and a large number of shadow cabinet members. It is a presumption with little foundation to suggest that he was destined for a role on the front bench of a Conservative government. He could have been reshuffled to a far less effective role at any time between this day and the next general election, which is widely expected to happen in two years time. If there really is a Davis/Cameron split then it is not the product of one decision and thus his ‘political suicide’ looks less humiliating than a political murder dealt to him from the Conservative leadership.

If you’ve spent years in politics building up your profile to the point where you’re considered by most political pundits to be the next Home Secretary (unless something happens to Jacqui Smith before the next election), would you throw that away for a publicity stunt, on the say-so of someone at Conservative HQ? Of course he’s going to be re-elected, but it’s hardly “no risk” given that he has already lost a lot just for doing it.

Rick: there does seem to be some reportage of the Davis/Cameron split coming through. It’s certainly going to run for some time, given their long-standing rivalry, and Cameron will presumably come under pressure to re-appoint Davis should he be re-elected. Might be a good opportunity to test Dave’s ‘liberal’ credentials – will he agree with Davis’ stance and promise to repeal the 42 days legislation?

I’ve just debated it on BBC Radio Wales with Kelvin Mackenzie, whose view is that Davies is wrong to do this, and that the attacks on our civil liberties are justified ‘cos there’s dangerous people out there. Apparently thanks to last night’s vote we can now all sleep safer in our beds…….

The question is whether civil society or party politics wins out at the end of the day.

It’s a by-election; obviously the minor parties will all turn up. Especially since, with only one serious candidate, they can pick up plenty of votes and media attention.

In fact, they could all do rather well. Say, the Greens picking up all the left-wing votes, and UKIP taking the ‘we want 42 days’ vote.

Won’t amount to anything, of course.

This is politics and it would only have happened if this was an attempt to coalign principle and partisan interests – it is a stunningly intelligent gambit, but it isn’t without risk because it can be defeated if it is understood for what it is.

By running as an independent with a promise of non-opposition from Clegg’s LibDems against a controversial and declining Labour government starting from a distant third Davis will sweep all before him unless an appropriate alternative independent can be found with the right profile to gain the support of serious ‘left-wingers’ who are untainted by any connections with Brown, but who can avoid alienating both voters and campaigners. This is of course a long shot, and any competent political figure will have spread their tentacles into every potential base of support to coerce and cajole any potential local figures into complicity to avoid just such an eventuality.

In other words whatever the result, the outcome has already been stitched up from the inside so that there will only ever be one loser – Gordon Brown.

It is one more nail in the coffin of this government. Everything else is secondary.

What will be interesting is whether any of the Labour rebels take a similar stand.

Why would they? What stand is DD taking? It’s clear as day that he’ll walk it. It’s a no-risk strategy for him. Such safety couldn’t be guaranteed to Labour MP’s – many of which have families and mortgages.

Nope. Quite easy. Because he is being opportunistic and selfish. It’s a public foot-stamp because he couldn’t get his own way with Cameron. Since when have such internal party disagreements been the stuff of resigning from parliament? If he had been honest, he would just have returned to the back-benches.

It will be interestingly to see if the press report the obvious split with Cameron. Or do such things only get reported/speculated about when it happens with Labour?

But he was definitely in favour and was positive about the move to 2 days – he outlined his reasons in the debate:

We recognise the Government’s difficulties on this. It is of course a matter of judgment. We acknowledge that the world has changed since the IRA halted its terror campaign. New technology brings new security challenges. As the Home Secretary said in relation to the National Technical Assistance Centre, the police and security services need more time to scour CCTV footage and to crack encrypted messages. The international dimension of Islamist terrorism also brings new challenges. That is why my hon. Friends made it clear in Committee that we agree with the Government that the current 14-day limit is too brief and propose its extension to 28 days.

> the internal dynamics within Tory ranks are a much more interesting issue here

I don’t disagree that there are some shenanigans going on (just) out of sight. You’re right. But I really don’t think there’s any grounds for doubting that his resignation is a matter of principle. Trouble is, we so rarely see it anymore, we’ve forgotten what it looks like. There’s nothing in this for Davis, in the long run. Whatever happens to him, the Tories will win. It just looks like he’s chucked the chance to be Home Secretary away. There was a time, not so long ago when doing that on principle wouldn’t have looked quite so odd.

I find it a bit strange to resign on this issue when he happily voted for the original extension to 28 days.

I think it’s deceptive to characterise his vote as a happy one, and there was a genuine fear that if MPs hadn’t voted for 28 days they would have ended up with 60, such was the order of divisions.

Read the debate.

I expect that he will now join the ranks of Tory nearly men, wheeled out to demonstrate that not all Tories are neocon nutters and perhaps occasionally given a policy commission to chair or a report to write, in the style of Ken Clarke or Michael Heseltine. A shame, as this is not something I could imagine anyone aspiring to, leaving the only conclusion being that he’s genuinely doing this out of principle.

Not at all…

Lee’s right in saying that Labour have no chance of beating Davis in a by-election on his home turf because no matter how much effort Davis puts in to selling this is a single issue campaign that’s the last thing it will be.

Davis knows perfectly well that is he draws Labour into contesting the seat then he’s holding all the aces. Having held the seat since 1997 he’s had 11 years to build up his personal support amongst voters, he has his constituency office staff already in place and ready to roll. He’ll have no problems on the cash front – if Ashcroft doesn’t bankroll his campaign then the Midlands Industrial Council will and he’s starting out sitting on a 16,000 vote lead at the last election against an unpopular mid-term government.

Against that, where’s the incentive for Labour to run a candidate.

If the opinion polls are kosher and a majority of the public do support the 42 days extension then why on earth should Labour fight Davis on his terms.

Sorry folks, but their best tactical option is to, very quickly, decline to run a candidate against him and then pile into the Tories all guns blazing with the line that this is all just a cynical piece of tactical show-boating. What Labour needs to get after here and dismantle is that idea that this is a single-issue by-election by taking the painfully honest route of admitting that, given their own current lack of popularity and the dynamics of the constituency, there’s actually no possibility of this be fought on the one issue that Davis claims to want to fight the by-election on.

What will be interesting is whether any of the Labour rebels take a similar stand.

It has certainly made for more interesting news than Gordon’s planted ‘top secret’ documents- what a coincidence that was, eh?