RIGHT cause, wrong candidate. The immediate reaction in Westminster last week to David Davis’ announcement that he would be resigning to fight his own House of Commons seat of Haltemprice and Howden was bafflement. Was it merely a bizarre vanity stunt or a brilliant tactical crunch on Gordon Brown’s already bruised and battered toes? The answer is not to look too closely to the closeted environs of Westminster for the answer.

Whatever the Machiavellian motives which lie behind the former Shadow Home Secretary’s move, the catalyst which propelled the idea from whim to reality is a feeling outside Westminster and across the country that the Government is presiding over the steady erosion of civil liberties in Britain. Mr Davis has grasped that and is attempting to seize the mood in order to mould it to his own personal and political ends. There can be no doubting his passion for the argument from this otherwise illiberal pro-hanging MP, even though it provides a convenient vehicle from which to campaign in the murky internecine war that is taking place within the Tory Party over its policies and direction. One spin-off from Mr Davis’ action is to shine a brighter light on the Conservatives’ stealthy but steady shift to the right.

But for the Labour leadership to dismiss the by-election as merely a bizarre stunt is to both miss the point and insult those voters – and Labour MPs – who empathise with the cause. The shameful way in which Mr Brown secured his hollow victory on 42-days detention last week only serves to underline the distance which an over-reacting Government and generally servile Parliamentary Labour Party are putting between themselves and the people whose liberty they claim to defend. It will be argued that the opinion polls show a majority of the people are in favour of locking up suspects without trial for 42 days. What the polls indicate is that a majority of those asked believe in tough action against terrorists. Once the small print in the accompanying questions is examined the public position becomes less stark and more selective. We find that the British people are actually quite protective of what they see as their inherent civil rights and liberties. In its incremental infringement of those rights the cocooned elite at Westminster have stored up a resentment which Mr Davis is determined to tap.

The cosy comfort zone of Westminster has also given rise to a rationale that it is wiser for the Labour Party not to stand a candidate in the by-election. It is, if the only calculation is based on the bald assumption that you are going to get hammered. What about the principle of defending a measure on which the Prime Minister staked his reputation (now more damaged), supposedly the surety of the nation (now more damaged) and the future of the Government (now about to be history)? The truth is that the Government cannot defend the indefensible.

Having failed to make a credible case for 42-days detention in Parliament, the Government shies from defending it on the streets when it is tested by a direct challenge because it does not stand up to scrutiny. It is tantamount to the political elite deciding that this is not an issue for the people. Labour MPs Ian Gibson and Bob Marshall-Andrews may in the minds of their peers have gone too far in declaring support for a Tory candidate. But they represent the tip of a Commons iceberg in terms of empathy with the issue. That’s why David Davis is the wrong man for a just cause.

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ANOTHER elite, this time in the European Union, is manouevering to ignore the wishes of the people by skirting round the wake-up call from the Irish over the Lisbon treaty. Since every one of the 27 member states has individually to agree the treaty before it can come into effect the treaty should, under the EU’s own rules, be dead. Back to the drawing board.

But EU leaders, tired of endless drafting and negotiations, have no intention of re-examining the treaty now that 26 of the other states have, or shortly will have, ratified the measure. Paradoxically, the Lisbon treaty made moves towards greater accountability to both European and national parliaments over EU matters. To ignore the Irish vote and fail to re-examine the treaty would make a mockery of avowed attempts to close the democratic deficit.