The Freedom By-Election
Not all that much of a surprise was the re-election of David Davis as MP for Haltemprice and Howden in the by-election held on Thursday.
As had been predicted, Mr Davis comfortably won the poll by some fifteen thousand votes against an assortment of twenty seven candidates that conspicuously lacked any representation from the Labour party.
During the early hours and days of his resignation, Mr Davis stirred up quite a media and public storm. Across the country Conservative Associations received phone calls from members of the public telling of their support for David Davis and the issues of freedom despite never having voted Conservative.
However, come the day of the vote and result, the ever fickle media’s interest had worn away and very little was made of the result – which I suppose in part is unsurprising given that Mr Davis received no challenge from a Labour party candidate over the issues of freedom surrounding detention without charge.
As I commented previously, I suspect that David Cameron would have rather preferred to back the Government’s plans on detention without charge if he’d had the opportunity. However, I think it was very much down to David Davis’ actions that the Conservative party has now publicly pledged to do away with the legislation if it forms the next Westminster administration.
