Anybody seen David Davis?
There’s a disgraceful policy idea doing the rounds about putting people under house arrest for up to a month on nothing more than a policeman’s say so. It’s a bit Apartheid-era South Africa.
So where’s David Davis, that doughty defender of civil liberties, when you need him? Didn’t he once accuse the government of ‘casually disregarding our civil liberties in the face of problems to which it has no adequate solutions’?
Why isn’t he resigning his seat and calling a by-election in protest against yet another revolting assault on the criminal justice system? Why isn’t he manning the barricades? Or rallying cross-party opposition?
Chris Grayling: Labour is soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime
Our police should have powers to go straight to a magistrate and get an order against that troublemaker confining them to their homes for up to a month – except for during school hours. And if they break that curfew order they should expect to find themselves in the cells.
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The Conservatives are the party of law and order – law and order based on common sense, strong families and communities and a system which places the victim above the criminal.
Ah. That’ll be why.
Posted on February 24th, 2009 at 11:09am under Civil liberties, Eye Catching Initiatives, Tories
Where is David Davis? Presumably in the same place as those right-wing libertarian bloggers who pop-up occasionally in various places (like the “Our Kingdom” blog) to sound off about “liberties” and “rolling-back the State” and how the Left just can’t stop interfering in people’s lives. They often go quiet when international law is being broken or people are being banged-up without trial or tortured, but then get very worked up about having to put their recycled rubbish into the right bin.
So is it on a ‘policeman’s say-so’ or a magistrate’s ’say-so’?.
You are so good at contradicting yourself that you’ve saved me the bother.
I read that as being rather more like the process of obtaining a search warrant from the magistrate than as any kind of process where the child who is about to be confined to his home is able to speak in his defence.
Now, I would agree with Chris Grayling that to be effective, the court process has to happen quickly, not several weeks after the offence in question, but the child needs to have the opportunity to present a defence before his liberties are restricted.
Mostly the usual yada yada but this bit seemed more un-thought-through than the rest
“I will expect someone who is picked up by police for being drunk and disorderly in the town centre on a Friday night to spend a night in the cells, not a night in the A&E department”
Does that mean refusing hospital treatment to alleged criminals is part of his plans?
I think the relevant answer, rather than the one you might be looking for, is contained here:
http://www.chickyog.net/2009/02/24/post-office-privatisation-lets-go-round-again/#respond
I think the passage…….
“MPs sign up, think ‘job done’ and then go back to doing what they’re told. And the government can get on with ignoring them. Like us.
Hell, even MPs who sign the things ignore them. Look, for example, at the number of MPs who signed the Early Day Motion against a third runway at Heathrow Airport and then dutifully voted for a third runway at Heathrow Airport. “
Sums it up quite nicely.
I don’t like Conservatives or Neo-cons – whatever political party they belong to. However, the sad fact remains, as things stand, Davis is currently 1-0 up on the rest of the supine bunch in Parliament having at least put his money where his mouth is even if it was only on one occasion. It’s one more than anyone else. The fact that it came from a single bloody Tory just about sums up the state of not just the Official opposition but, more tellingly, the current Party of government, you know, the one that’s supposed to stand up for the workers.
It’s all very well having a go at Davis, and any tory deserves all they get. But the bottom line is that it just provides a smokescreen for the lack of any credible opposition to the Executive and the undemocratic nature of what they do. The Tory Party are not the one’s making the decisions because they are not in Government. They don’t actually need to be because all their wet dreams are being pursued by the Party that’s supposed to be the antithesis to them.
Harping on as though there’s any kind of significant difference between them is like baying at the moon. If only the lobby fodder in what calls itself the Labour Party (which should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act for fraud) would resign their seats on such points we might make some progress. Sadly, they’ve allowed themselves to be shown up by Official Enemy and I suspect that’s the real reason foe all this fluff about Davis – to divert attention away from that fact