Whatever else comes out of David Davis’s by-election, you have to admit he’s managed to achieve that which has eluded men and women for thousands of years: in a mere five days he’s come to symbolise all things for everybody.

Everyone with a cause seems to find an affirmation (not to mention an opportunity) in Davis’s actions. He should get in quick and start a religion. With these powers of persuasion and commanding of attention he could be running the planet by the end of the month.

(In other news, Darth Vader has announced he does not see the need to detain rebel suspects for longer than 28 days. Vanity or mid-life crisis? X-Wingers agonise over whether to support the Lord of the Sith… blah… blah…)

This is one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages. It’s just awesome…

The genesis of a “Sun versus the Tories” by-election was a 40th birthday party thrown for Rebekah Wade, the tabloid’s editor, on Thursday night. The Sun, the principal media cheerleader for Gordon Brown’s contentious 42-days detention proposals, was outraged by David Davis’s resignation. A characteristically unrestrained leader in the tabloid yesterday, headlined “Crazy Davis”, fulminated against the former shadow home secretary’s “shabby act of treachery” and “petty grandstanding”.

Ms Wade and her team had on Thursday afternoon already been discussing a cunning plan to convert this print attack into a full-blown campaign battle, by approaching Rachel North, one of the survivors of the July 7 bombings, to stand against Mr Davis.

Rachel North?

Now, I’m sure those at the Sun are under the greatest of pressure. Editor Rebekah Wade has to take orders from the singularly ruthless Rupert Murdoch after all. And those taking orders from Wade must be aware of her temper and what can happen when things go wrong.

So, with that in mind, how the hell did they come up with the monumentally wrong-headed idea that Rachel North would be an ideal pro-42 day candidate to go up against David Davis?

Did they not have ten minutes to peruse her blog?

Has not one of them caught her during her many television and radio appearances?

What about her appearance in the movie Taking Liberties?

Or her appearance before the Home Affairs Committee.

Or her article in a RUPERT BLOODY MURDOCH NEWSPAPER where she said…

I told the committee that I was against extending the 28-day detention period. No evidence had been put forward to show that it was necessary and while the police and security services said they thought it might be useful in future, I did not think that was sufficient grounds for shredding habeas corpus.

Rachel’s been one of the most vociferous and articulate (not to mention prominent) defenders of civil liberties in this country in the last few years. It’s hard to think of a worse suggestion for a candidate to go up against David Davis. My three year-old daughter’s free, I suppose.

A truly awesome piece of lateral thinking from ‘moderate’ New Labour mouthpiece, Luke Akehurst:

Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: “Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects”.

Really, it’s really just an extension of New Labour philosophy - we all have a role to play. We all have our rights and responsibilities. Terror victims, now is your moment. Ask not what the government can do for your pain, ask what your pain can do for the government.

Maybe New Labour could find a nicely disfigured one to front up. Not too disfigured mind, a photogenically disfigured one. One that Gordon Brown can put his arm around without looking too disturbed.

Or how about one still shaking with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Preferably a woman, who can be guaranteed to break down in tears at a debate. You know, to catch that easily manipulated vote. That’d show those cowardly Tories, I’d wager.

Keep an eye on Akehurst. With a easy way with suffering and misanthropy like that, and a child-like view of the terror debate, he’s got the makings of a future New Labour prime minister.

(Link via BlairWatch)

Update: Akehurst responds to being handed his arse by Rachel North:

I think Rachel’s position just goes to show that experiencing something first hand doesn’t necessarily lead you to come to the right conclusions about how to deal with it.

Those pesky terror victims and their first hand experience not necessarily leading them to the right conclusions, eh? If only we could refine terrorism as a brain-washing technique then no-one would be protesting against 42 days internment.

You see, Rachel is the wrong kind of victim, that is one who refuses to be used and, indeed, one who refuses to be a ‘victim’ full stop. In Akehurst’s universe we have to file her away with the wrong kind of snow and bad AIDS and find the ‘right’ kind of ‘victim’.

Still, the ability Akehurst shows in being able to hold two contradictory positions at once shows further Prime Ministerial credentials.

Update updated: More credentials. Akehurst is a …

Public Affairs consultant (specialising in advising defence and aerospace companies).

Jesus, was he grown in a New Labour laboratory or something? ‘Gentlemen, we have created the perfect candidate…’.

Remember the widely reported last minute concession made to anti-42 day MPs that those suspects held longer than 28 days only to be released without charge would get three grand a day compensation? It’s news to Gordon Brown:

Asked if the compensation was going to be £3000 per day, the PMS said that the Home Office had been making clear that those were not numbers that the Government recognised.

Well, Home Office Minister Tony McNulty certainly ‘recognises’ the numbers:

McNulty told BBC television late Tuesday that suspects who are held for 42 days but eventually freed without charge could be paid compensation of 3,000 pounds.

We haven’t heard much mention of Gordon Brown’s fabled moral compass of late and one wonders where he’s mislaid it. I think it’s probably being used as a propeller on a light aircraft somewhere.

A land of ‘tolerance and inclusion’*:

The first Iraqi interpreters to be offered refuge in Britain are living in fear in squalid tower blocks in Glasgow, The Times has learnt.

They complained of living among drunks and drug addicts, being abused and spat at, and of feeling isolated and unable to work. One girl of 9 had had her hijab torn off by one of her new neighbours.

Abdul, 71, one of three Iraqis who risked their lives working for British troops in Basra and were resettled in April with 15 dependents, advised others in a similar position to stay in Iraq.

One can only hope that Abdul’s advice to others that they’re better off risking death squads in Basra rather than neds in Glasgow was hyperbole born of despair.

We wrecked your country, ruined your life and left you on a sink estate to rot. Don’t you find it all - what’s the word? - liberating?

* Copyright G. Brown.

I have to say I’m a bit non-plussed with David Davis’s resignation. Sure, it’s brilliant to finally see an MP give up his career on a point of principle and a very fine principle at that.

But the thought strikes me that he would very likely have been the Home Secretary within two years. In the intervening time he could have pushed his cause hard in the shadow cabinet and the wider party, and then dismantled all of New Labour’s half-cocked authoritarianism once he was in the big chair.

Now? Well, who knows? He’ll have to hope that some of his principles rub off on his successor(s). Can he now expect a big job in a Tory government?

And if Labour don’t field a candidate he risks looking a bit of a berk. In that event, would he get the debate he’s calling for? Or the all-important media coverage needed to broadcast that debate? You’d have to doubt it.

Update 13/6: A good spot by Matt T:

Did Davis support the 28 day extension?

…

Yes he did, and worse, he argued for it on the same grounds that Labour now argue for 42 days. This makes his whole position ludicrous in my view. I have no idea why 42 days destroys the Magna Carta, but 28 didn’t. It’s a stunt. The idea that David Davis wil protect your civil liberties is a fantasy. One might argue that’s he changed his mind, but to me the issue is this - we can talk about and once every 4/5 years have a 1/40m say about it, but he had a 1/600 odd say and chose an extension - worse he argued in favour of it.

Update updated: And then I read something like thing from gone-native New Labour megaphone Michael White, and I swing the other way:

Most politicians dislike the sort of behaviour Davis has displayed. It may please those voters who want their MP to stand up and be counted, but such unpredictability unsettles the trade.

The trade? I look at court gossips White or the BBC’s Nick Robinson and I wonder if they even remember why MPs are elected in the first place. They seem to think that Parliament exists solely as entertainment for the complacent time-rich middle-classes.

Update update updated: There’s more:

He has called for the return of the death penalty, backed section 28, and wants to scrap the Human Rights Act. What exactly is liberal about that? Magna Carta is all very well, but justice in this country depends on more modern protections, which do not all have his support.

What I want to know is, if the Democratic Unionist Party hates homosexuals so much, why was it so willing to grab its ankles for Gordon Brown yesterday? Was it mere experimentation or the symptoms of a deeper ‘abomination’?

In future, a minister will be able to interrupt an inquest to kick out the jury, dismiss the coroner and declare the proceedings secret. Why? One reason might be that the soldier, say, lacked body armour, bullets or boots and the coroner was expressing naive disapproval. You can’t have a jury hearing a case like that. They might talk. It wouldn’t be in the public interest for such matters to get out. Oh no, it would damage confidence in the Government.

Oh, and if the new coroner “misbehaves”, he or she can be “revoked” as well. “Misbehaviour” isn’t defined but we can assume it would be misbehaviour to criticise ministers or the ministry or suggest the death was somehow avoidable or unnecessary or possibly even undesirable.

Quite a change, that.

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‘Brown wins crunch vote on 42 days‘

Well, at least Brown will have two constituencies of cast iron support tonight - lazy coppers and al Qaeda. He’s made the former’s jobs much easier and he’s doing the latter’s for them. Good effort.

I was wondering if the government’s tactics to win the vote on 42 days internment might be applicable in other walks of life. After all, these people are exemplars who have risen to the highest stations in British life. Why would it be wrong to follow their example?

For those just coming in, the government, worried about losing the anti-terror legislation debate this evening, and having comprehensively lost the argument, have had to resort to buying votes. It’s called ‘making concessions’ by those in the trade who like to glamorise these transactions, but it’s really old fashioned pork-barrelling, bribery and whoring.

Everyone’s principles have a price, or at least that’s the government’s thinking. I suppose they jettisoned theirs so long ago and so cheaply they think everyone else is just like them. Unfortunately, it turns out they might be right.

Still, it’s useful to know just what price some MPs put on a thousand years of British liberty and common law. Could come in useful later down the line - maybe we could club together and buy an MP of our own.

DUP MPs are collectively worth around 200 million quid but there are bargains to be had apparently. According the BBC’s Nick Robinson one Labour MP has been offered money for a miner’s compensation fund. Why that MP isn’t asking why the money isn’t there already hasn’t been explained.

Another has been promised that Gordon Brown would oppose sanctions against Cuba. So much for the world statesman and champion of democracy. Who knew the major issues of geopolitics were so malleable, so reasonably priced? I’m just sorry there isn’t a Labour MP standing on a platform of free jetpacks for all.

It really doesn’t seem to have occurred to Gordon Brown in his scramble to look hard that if he had a rock solid, utterly convincing, based in evidence case for 42 days he’d have little opposition and none of this tawdry haggling and dragging politics through the shit once again would have been necessary.

Still, as I said, this is an approach that could help us all in our daily lives. Exam students, instead of making arguments and forming conclusions in essays, should merely staple a tenner to their answer papers. Or a note with ‘IOU One Blow Job’ written on it.

Job interviews. Bringing up children. Getting them into a good school. Negotiating a promotion at work. All that effort. All that stress. All that tiredness. All gone with the wave of a ‘concession’.

It would certainly take the bowel-shaking tension out of forming human relationships. Forget charm, wit, wooing, personality and the wonderful mix of emotions involved in finding a partner. Merely ascertain at what price your potential life-partner would consider putting out.

It comes close to soliciting prostitution, obviously, but all’s fair in the lofty matters of love and war (on terror) as any government minister would tell you. Whispering ‘Hulloo darlin’, how’d you fancy making concessions?’ in a sexy Gordon Brown voice will no doubt have the object of your desire weak at the knees.

No doubt the new mayor of London will employ every ounce of the patented Boris bluster when George Bush visits town this month.

As Beau Bo D’Or points out, he’s going to need it:

It’s admirable honesty from Johnson and he should be saluted for it. The thing is, it much harder to say things to people’s faces. Will Boris stand by his all-to-accurate precis of London’s guest?

(Don’t forget Operation Manticore.)

In Britain in recent years, the public has arguably been more interested and involved in major global and domestic political issues than ever before, but at the same time has never been more apathetic about and disillusioned by the political process. Something is clearly amiss; I would equate the political situation to a sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert, at which The Boss sings acoustic cover versions of the hits of Bananarama.

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Minister for Bread and Circuses, Andy Burnham has a new idea. He’s dipping his toes into populism to see if it’s warm enough:

England’s swimming pools could be free to use by the time of the London 2012 Olympics, the government has signalled.

Fair enough, I suppose, we all like something for nothing. Mind you, I bet the operative word in that sentence is the ‘could’. That this is an aspiration rather than a target is something I’d bet a kidney on.

The thing is, what about people who can’t swim, or like me, can’t stand it? To get into my local piss-pot of a swimming pool - which they’re demolishing, incidentally - costs the equivalent of a couple of pints.

(There is wildlife there as well which you can view for free but your enjoyment will vary depending on how much you actually like cockroaches.)

I’ve absolutely nothing against Mr Burnham’s and hope it makes a lot of people happier, but couldn’t I have the beers instead?

Part of the American Dream, or at least used to be before you needed millions and millions of dollars to do it, is that anybody can become President.

After watching Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s unbelievably poor appearance on Question Time last night, I wonder if we’re not importing the idea into Britain. You read and listen to the political gossips touting Miliband as a future Labour leader and Prime Minister and you realise: Yes! It’s perfectly apparent that literally anybody could become Prime Minister.

Just what qualities mark Miliband as a leader, I’m not sure. Maybe he’s saving them for a rainy day, or at least for when it rains harder than it is right now. What does mark him as special though is his example. You watch him and it gives hope for us all. Who couldn’t be that feckless and inarticulate and evasive and mealy-mouthed and weaselly?

It’s a relief to see that the Israel-Palestine problem attracting the intellect of someone like Tony Blair. Yesterday he gave an update to Parliament of his progress in saving the Middle East single-handed. The Independent’s Simon Carr reports on Blair’s Occam’s Razor-sharp insight:

“Until we get a period of calm, we won’t get a chance for sensible dialogue.” Patience, then. “We need to show what the benefits are if people have a different attitude.” He’s put his finger on it there. “Israel could do more to help.” We’d all agree with that, or mostly agree. But then again, “Hamas is using the situation to provoke the Israeli government.” And many of the rest of us would agree with that. What to do?

Who couldn’t love a job requiring so little grasp of the details, so little finesse? The beauty of it is that, on this showing, should Blair get bored or fall ill or simply get a better offer, just about anybody could step in and fill the vacancy.

I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t know anybody less knowledgeable sounding about the Middle East as it stands than Blair. And even if they were, fifteen minutes with Wikipedia would allow them to blag it.

I wonder if that’s how Blair does it. I bet he used to do his homework on the bus to school as well. Who knew the whole damn shooting match was this simple? Surely he’s told the Israelis and Palestinians?

Mmmmmm. Is there a daintier dish than jerked right-wing knee? The Bishop of Stafford writes an article about climate change and rather unwisely uses Joseph Fritzl as an example of human selfishness. Watch the right-wingers hitch up their skirts and squeal like the housekeeper in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

It could be argued what the Bishop said took the argument to the acceptable limits of taste. So. without further ado, let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

Here’s Andrew Ian Dodge getting high and mighty. Is it only a year since Andrew was calling supporters of the EU ‘federasts’? You know I rather think it is.

Here’s poor widdle Wonko, he of measured and tasteful Labour = Nazis logo fame, parading his bruised sensibilities exhorting us to join his letter writing campaign of complaint.

Here’s the never knowingly out-outraged Iain Dale, past master of the mass murder and Dachau jokes, getting uppity.

Here’s Devil’s Kitchen momentarily setting aside his not-at-all-disproportionate ’socialists are evil/Nazis/cunts’ schtick to direct his Anglo-Saxon bludgeon at the Bishop. Poor Devil, whatever happened to ‘it is always fun being offensive to deeply unpleasant, vicious people’? It’s only fun if you’re not on the receiving end, that’s what.

The fact is they all think beyond-the-pale insults are fun for all the family until they’re turned on their own apparently delicate and so very easily bruised sensibilities. What’s the matter, lads? Cat got your swastika, death camp and federast/pederast jokes? Tell us another one about how us lefties are just like those blokes who murdered the Jews. Go on.

(Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy)

Shyness, as a great man once said, is nice. However, shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you’d like to.

Take the Home Secretary, previously something of a wallflower, for instance. According to state-funded gossip-monger Nick Robinson, Jacqui Smith put in a stunning performance at the National (security) Theatre - in her play 42 Days - last night that was acclaimed by everyone who saw it:

Shares in Smith soared last night. As Labour MP’s and peers poured out of the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting all were agreed that Jacqui the home secretary had put in the performance of her life. Some went further and claimed that this was the best ministerial performance in the past year or two.

Jacqui got talent! An gushing account like that makes even this bitter cynic want to hurl roses in Smith’s direction. The question must be asked, however: who would have thought it? This is a Smith previously unheard and unseen by the public. Persuasiveness? Passion? Where the hell did they come from?

Previously of the talentless, plodding, deeply unimpressive, vague, and the imperiously ‘because I said so’ and ‘will this do?’ school of politics, it seems Jacqui is blossoming. Why has she not displayed it before? Why has this talent, this amazing performing ability, been kept from her public all these years? She usually phones in her performance, as they say, and now she pulls it out of the bag.

We always thought she was a Keira Knightley when it turns out she’s a Katherine Hepburn. Yesterday she was simply maaarvellous daahling! It must be true - it’s all in Nick Robinson’s account of a private meeting he wasn’t at relayed to him by members of parliament not-at-all-worried about their job prospects and expenses.

So, don’t keep it behind closed doors, Jacqui. Let the paying public have a gander. New Labour want to make the arts more accessible and here’s an ideal opportunity. Don’t be shy, Home Secretary. Make us believe. If there’s something you’d like to try, ask me I wont say no, how could I?

UPDATE: A theatre critic writes…

‘Ms Smith’s attempt this morning to publicly repeat her reportedly bravura private performance of last night was bound to be something of a disappointment. A clearly tired and lacklustre Ms Smith failed to reproduce the moving and inspirational act that was reported in such glowing terms by the BBC’s Nick Robinson and members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

‘Indeed, with her public appearances continuing to be drowned out by the boos of her harsher critics, it remains to be seen if Ms Smith’s private performance for her fans was a one-off or hyped by over-emotional lovers of political theatre.’

Other people get invited to swanky parties or offered freebies. Me? I get sent a copy of the speech Michael Gove is giving at the Reform Mathematics Seminar today.

Why am I being sent this and what happens if I break the embargo?

A flash of shocking insight from new government research:

According to government figures, the number of 11- to 15-year-olds drinking regularly fell from more than a quarter in 2001 to about a fifth in 2006. However, a third said they drank to get drunk.

However, a third said they drank to get drunk. Which makes me wonder if the government were entertaining the vain hope that there was another reason as to why 11- to 15-year-olds drink.

Did Whitehall boffins examine just what it is that 11- to 15-year-olds drink? Were they surprised to find that Britain’s kids aren’t savouring Mouton Rothschild ‘55? Did they have their fingers crossed that these children drink merely to savour the malty undertones of Stella Artois?

Anyone who claims they drink stuff like Stella for the taste is a liar anyway. God knows I’ve never made the claim - I’m not a completely tasteless idiot. Stella might be advertised as ‘reassuringly expensive’ but the 2-for-1 deals you can get in Tesco and Sainsbury’s make even a hardened old soak like me fall to my knees and weep joyous tears of thanks.

Look at the way it and beers like it are packaged. It’s a delivery system. It’s artillery designed for an assault on the grey lowlands that is modern living. You ride it like Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove to get where you want to be as fast as you can.

To look for any other reason as to why and how children drink is like expecting an unexploded cluster bomb to double up as a nursery. Sometimes things have only one reason, one purpose, to exist.

The government plans to give parents guidance on how much their children should drink is at least an admission that you can’t and won’t stop kids drinking overnight. A change of mindset is needed but just how you do that when 11- to 15-year-olds look to their elders see a large number of us also rolling around out of our skulls is a tough one. Take Michael Rock, Chairman of Conservative Future, the Tories’ youth wing, for example. He spent last Saturday having a drinking competition.

That the government doesn’t have the imagination or ideas to suggest or provide alternatives to getting pissed at age 12 is the depressing part. But then I’ve come to realise that modern government is much like being at the centre of a herd of wildebeest trying to cross the African savannah. You expect those on the fringes to get picked off by predators or fatigue or or disease or just sheer bad luck. And, of course, we can’t discuss individual cases.

Those at the centre of things will be fine and the tragedies are too far away to have any real emotional impact on them. I’m not condemning them - we all have to hide from something to get by day after day after all. We’re all in denial about something - it’s the emotional armour that allows us to get out of bed in a morning whether you’re the Prime Minister or a parent losing their son to boredom and cheap beer.

It’s just a question of keeping moving forward and hoping that nothing too serious threatens the herd as a whole. The rest of us just need to keep jostling to make sure we don’t find ourselves on the edge, whether that be jobless, homeless or legless. Rescues are rare and not guaranteed.

So what to do? Wine appreciation on the National Curriculum, anybody? Tupac Shakur as the new face of Vimto?

I love this kind of stuff (via Eugenides) - I’m something of a collector of empty, witless hyperbole masquerading as political commentary. This one sits next to the tosser-pretending-to-be-intellectual wankerdom that can’t talk about socialism without mentioning the Nazis in the same breath and calls people who are pro-EU ‘federasts‘:

“The Guardian is far to the Left of not just the Tories but also of New Labour, the paper’s constituency seemingly that of the “Londonistan” of mullahs and minarets. The Guardian used to be called the Manchester Guardian; today it might well be called, by fans and foes alike, the Madrassa Guardian.”

The Spectator are no doubt highlighting it to try and get a rise out of ‘lefties’ but just come across as crass, sniggering playground dicks. Is there really a serious point being made here?

Granted it’s the method by which most of the popular right-wing blogs made their ‘reputations’ and why most of them are the most awful, repetitive bumwater. But really, it’s the equivalent of pointing at a cock and balls drawn on a toilet wall and expecting everyone to agree it’s the funniest thing since Oscar Wilde turned up his toes. It’s dire stuff.

Anyway, I must get back to my project for when Margaret Thatcher dies. It’s a photoshopped picture of her being graphically sexually violated by Augusto Pinochet and Milton Friedman. In Auschwitz. No doubt everyone will laugh like hyenas when they see it. If not, I’ll want to know why not.

When we do it, it’s a social menace. When they do it, it’s fund raising.

Welcome to the Conservative Future.

Yes, yes, well done, Tories. Well done, well done. The thing is, I can beat my seven year-old daughter at chess with ease but to jump around the room in victory looks, well, a bit graceless. You know what I mean?

Any Tory who thinks they are winning rather than Labour losing needs to stop jumping around and take a bit of breather. The fact that so many people were so readily willing to switch their votes shows once again the molecule-thick divide between the political parties in this country.

This isn’t some massive ideological swing behind the ideas of the Tory party. It’s the political equivalent of the electorate switching to a new washing powder. The new brand isn’t much different from the old one, it’s just that All New Cameron smells a little fresher and produces a bit more froth.

Anti-abortion campaigners of Nadine Dorries‘ kind should look elsewhere this morning if they’re after a little magnanimity in the face of their defeat. Their campaign to lower the 24 week limit on abortion was based on little more than tawdry emotional blackmail, smears and downright demonstrable lies.

I joked all along that Dorries’ plan of attack was so cack-handed, transparently dishonest and easily disassembled that I thought she was a plant for the other side. She probably did more to rally pro-abortion sentiment than any other figure. Her final humiliation was her being called all but a liar on the floor of the House of Commons last night*.

You have to wonder, now that the abortion issue is out of the way for a while, just how much further influence Nadine Dorries and her Islam-hating Christian fundamentalist friends will have in wider politics. Having seen them up close we’re now innoculated. We’re now immune.

The next time Dorries pops up on any issue, people will Google her name and be met with chapter and verse of how she operates when it comes to matters of substance. A cooler, much more honest and less shrill head might have got closer to her aim. I hope that’s just one of the aftertastes of the sour grapes she’s no doubt chewing this morning.

For me, one of the most galling parts of this whole debate has been the fact that the anti-abortion argument as put by the likes of Dorries was, almost entirely, beneath her opponents. Anti-scientific, untruthful and ever-shifting, these were arguments that we shouldn’t have had to deal with. And yet there we were.

I get enough whining petulance from people who can’t see reason when I tell my daughters to turn off Doctor Who and send them to bed of an evening. To see it during a debate on such an important matter as women’s access to abortion was, frankly, demeaning.

(Much of the blogging during all this has been fantastic. Go and hunt through the blogs of Tim Ireland, Ministry of Truth, Liberal Conspiracy, Bookdrunk…)

* Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said: “She has asserted many things as fact which are not this evening.”

Watch it live here. The Guardian are liveblogging.

19:30 - I was going to liveblog snippets of the debate but when you’ve got an MP comparing abortions to vasectomies, I think you can be sure you’re not going to witness a classic parliamentary exchange. It’s tempting to ask why they’re even having the debate.

19:40 - Lots of mentions of ‘babies’ and ‘children’ from Claire Curtis Thomas but none yet of how we look after unwanted babies or severely disabled children…

19:50 - How would an MP know if three-quarters of women in his constituency are against late term abortions? Did he put a poll in the field or is he less scientifically counting the letter he receives?

19:53 - Tim Ireland’s chipping in…

19:55 - And with the lazy, unthinking trotting out of 4D images and the old horseshit about abortion increasing the risk of breast cancer by Mark Pritchard, I’m leaving it. What a bloody circus.

22:45 - Reduction to 16 weeks defeated. (Bookdrunk live blogging and doing a bang up job.)

22:50 - Nadine Dorries’ reduction to 20 weeks defeated. Shame.

23:05 - 22 week vote due any minute…

23:15 - There we have it - 22 weeks defeated! As you were everybody. Until next time. Night all.

Yes, I worry about what the Tories might do if they get in. I also worry about what Labour might do if it wins another term. Why should anyone on the left seek the re-election of the most rightwing government Britain has had since the second world war?

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