Culture Secretary Andy Burnham calls for regulation of the Internet to protect the “vulnerable, the poor, and the weak.” From the title of the article, “In a Lawless zone, we must protect the vulnerable” one would think he is talking about paedophiles in chat-rooms, or the 180% rise in phishing, but in fact he is talking about copyright theft.

It is also contentious that the poor are being disadvantaged by the ‘lawless’ internet - One great advantage of the medium is that it reduces the financial barriers of entry into any given business. Putting online regulation in place will surely restore those barriers. Indeed, the proposals to introduce some kind of licence fee to download music looks like a revenue generator for record companies, rather than a measure to help young and creative people who are just starting out, and giving away their music free on MySpace.

But for entirely different reasons, it was the following quote hat caught my eye:

Nothing can be accepted as inevitable. Though technology moves quickly, we can’t abandon basic principles that have stood society in good stead for centuries.

Wasn’t this the precise argument against 42 days detention!?

David Davis has won the by-election, according to Sky News, with a total of 17,113 votes. The Green Party’s Shan Oakes came second with 1,758 votes, which is also great news.

A BBC News article says turnout was at 35%, much higher than expected and very high for a single-issue election.

Worth noting:
The turnout was comparable to most by-elections.
This was a single issue by-election;
It faced a lot of hostility from the media
It was a very safe seat and Davis had no opponents who could unseat him.

That makes a 35% turnout much higher than expected.
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Gordon Brown is on shakier ground than he thinks on 42 days pre-charge detention for people suspected of terrorist offences.

On the eve of the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, a new ICM poll conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust shows most people (60%) think terrorist suspects should be held without charge for no more than the current limit - 4 weeks, or 28 days.

The poll questions on which he relies for his populist gesture politics with our civil liberties ask people whether terrorist suspects should be held for up to 42 days, questions that by their very nature do not fully reflect the possible innocence of those held nor the length of time that they may be held in custody.
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Sorry to butt in here, team, but thought I would take a moment to appraise you of an exchange we’ve had with our nobody Labour MP Joan Ruddock on the 42 days’ detention vote. Thought I might as well share this correspondence, so that you also could kill a few moments on a Friday savouring the kind of limp response former Labour voters get when they approach their local Brownite buttkissing MP on issues of real significance…

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The Green party has put forward a candidate in the by-election against David Davis. Left of David Davis? Check. A left / progressive candidate? Check. Wants to push for even more civil liberties? Check. So the Labour and lefty bloggers must be rising up in support? Erm… well, there’s Neil Harding… and a lot of tumbleweed rolling by.

[update: non-Greens support also from: peezedtee, Dave Cole, Stuart Jefferey, Socialist Unity, Unbeliever, Pamphlet Labour]

Yes, it really does look like many lefties really will cut off their noses to spite their face on this issue. Well, I’m not sitting here praying David Davis fails miserably because the outcome would a vindicated Gordon Brown willing to push it through with the Parliament Act if the Lords reject the 42 days bill as expected.
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It’s time to stop the bullshit, we’ve now been sitting around for about a week and a half doing little more than bicker about the integrity of a single person while standing around gawking.

The question now should be: what can we do, and can we do it, in a way that can unite those that support and loathe David Davis’ stance?

I’ll be heading on the journey over to London today for the Liberal Conspiracy gathering and hope that this subject can be explored in more depth by those that attend.
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Word reaches me that the New Statesman editors have been looking for a candidate to run against David Davis in the by-election.

You may already be aware that today New Labour announced they wouldn’t stand anyone against Davis. Part of the problem apparently was that the Labour PPC for the area himself was against the 42 days.

Yesterday I was told that New Statesman magazine has been actively looking for someone to stand to the left of David Davis on a platform of even more civil and social liberty.

Its not clear whether they’ve found someone yet. The current edition will go to print today or tomorrow and we’ll know when it hits the news stands.
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What David Davis did today was not unprecedented, but it was something quite rare. However, I would urge caution on rushing headlong to leap into bed with him and give him our support.
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It’s difficult to say anything new about Gordon Brown’s attempts to extend pre-detention charge to 42 days, though if you want to read two accounts made recently, Anthony Barnett at OurKingdom and Martin O’Neill at New Statesman are a great start.

There are those who see the-Muslim-terrorist-threat-that-may-wipe-out-western-civilisation as so big that locking up British (Muslim) citizens for 90 days without charging them is not far enough. I’m not going to bother repudiating them. I’m not even going to bother answering those apparently on the left who are strenuously defending this stupid piece of legislation that, for once, has the entire left-wing and right-wing press united in opposition. Oh, apart from The Sun and the Daily Express, just so you know.

So why is Gordon Brown still stubbornly going ahead with it?
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Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review. As always, please feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments.

Brad Hicks and Meral Ece have two contrasting reactions to Hillary’s concession of the Democrat candidacy. Brad is full of righteous anger, Meral was more inspired.

The BBC reports that some MPs have realised that ID Cards could threaten privacy. In other news, the sky is blue, and the pope shits in the woods.

Over at my blog, a reminder of what we are actually talking about with the 42 days detention plan. Especially depressing in the light of the ICM poll that we reported here yesterday.

Jonathan Calder has tactical suggestions for Lib Dems on how to deal with David Cameron - we should hug him, and stroke him, and cuddle him, and sing to him, and call him Dave; PeeZedTee, meanwhile, has advice for Gordon Brown.

Lynne Featherstone, the relentless reformer, wanted to lower the voting age to 16; the Tories had other ideas.

And finally, Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman are both getting involved with a campaign to say no to age banding on children’s books.

A Sunday Telegraph poll last night showed the public firmly behind plans for 42-day detention. Gordon Brown will refuse to offer any new concessions to Labour MPs.

The government’s concessions on 42-day pre-charge detention for terrorism suspects have left the legislation in breach of human rights law, the joint select committee on human rights will say today.

The government is preparing to offer Labour MPs a major concession to avoid losing a vote on terror detentions, the BBC has learned. It is to suggest halving the period during which police can enact these extra powers from 60 to 30 days.

Gordon Brown faces yet more pressure as rebel Labour MPs warned they will not give ground in their battle to prevent an extension of anti-terror laws. Next month’s Commons debates on the Counter Terrorism Bill will be a severe test of the Prime Minister’s embattled leadership, says the Independent.

I have a strong feeling that the government’s plans to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days, which we’ve been running a campaign against, is dead in the water.

There are two reasons for my optimism.
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Ministers have paved the way for further concessions on plans to hold terrorist suspects for up to 42 days without charge in an attempt to avert another rebellion by Labour MPs, reports The Times.

Gordon Brown today vowed to press ahead with plans to extend detention without trial beyond 28 days.

The liberty director has written a comment piece for the Times newspaper on why Gordon Brown needs to do a U-turn on terror

The government’s controversial anti-terror plans were last night roundly attacked by former attorney general Lord Goldsmith QC. “The case has not been made out for that extension and I can’t personally support it,” he said.

Now that it has backed down over the 10p tax band, we need the government to lose over the 42 days legislation too. Labour loyalists might balk at this but not only would it be good for our democracy, but its an incredibly bad piece of legislation.

On Monday Jackie Ashley faithfully asked loyalists to hold their nose:

For after the 10p vote will be plenty more possible crises, not least the vote over the 42-day detention proposal. On both, I am 100% against the official government view and, with every instinct, on the side of the Labour rebels. But disaster is looming and the real parliamentarians have carefully to weigh in the balance what they now do, and ask how much likelier it will make a Tory landslide a year hence.

This sort of thinking is appalling. It is the road of good intentions to hell.
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