Basher for Liberty news

Given the dreadful state of Basher Davis's campaign website, I thought I might do a bit of a roundup of the goings-on of the day on the civil liberties front.

David Davis for Liberty

Basher's campaign website went live. Geeks noticed that it wasn't very interactive. And that it didn't mention the Conservatives or David Cameron. Technology poor, content good then.

The masthead picture attracted attention too. Some people noticed that it didn't include any brown people, although others detected some oriental features among the crowd. I didn't spot any gays/lesbians/transexuals either. The man is clearly a Nazi.

Gay basher Basher

Iain Dale accused Stonewall of briefing against Basher.  Stonewall denied everything. They seem to be of the opinion that gay "rights" should trump civil rights.

Illiberal Basher

Debate continued to rage on the blogs as to DD's credentials as a liberal. Stephen Tall said that anyone who supported the death penalty wasn't a liberal. Yours truly pointed out that Locke and Mill said otherwise.

Final word probably went to James Graham:

I’ve lost count of the number of blog posts and facebook groups I’ve skimmed past denouncing Davis for being a hypocrite on the issue of civil liberties. That may be so, but what is more hypocritical? A hang ‘em, flog ‘em politician standing up for fundamental civil liberties or a smart arse who claims to care about the drip-drip erosion of our rights while sitting on the fence because the one person taking a stand doesn’t pass a “purity” test.

Stuntman basher

Nearly everyone has stopped saying that it's a stunt. Only Steve Richards at the Independent is still singing that particular refrain. The commenters on his piece aren't impressed.

Sparring partners

Somebody with a book to promote announced that he would stand against Basher in the by-election. Brave man. Somewhat less endowed with cojones was Kelvin MacKenzie who indicated that maybe he'd stay at home and write an article or two.  Similarly, the government has still not said if it will put a candidate up against DD. Gordon Brown demonstrated his fearlessness by giving a speech on civil liberties and not mentioning Davis at all. Go Tiger! Gordy's thesis is that security is the most important liberty of all, thus neatly proving that North Korea is a free country.

Cheering him on

Nigel Kennedy, the violinist, outed himself as a Basher supporter. Meanwhile, an opinion poll showed levels of public support for the civil liberties agenda which surprised some commentators. Iraq war hero Colonel Tim Collins and Labour's Bob Marshall-Andrews and Tony Benn are already on board.

Davis said that he had been overwhelmed by the support he is getting. 

What do we want?

Spiked started to outline a programme of restoration of civil liberties: 42 days becomes 24 hours, bring back the right to silence and double jeopardy, get rid of hate speech offences and so on.