The Liberal Democratic Party won't contest Davies' seat - the Lib Dems, arguably even more so than the Tories, have fought for Britain's civil liberties, and are right behind Davies here.

Labour may well not - it's not a constituency in which they have much support, and they can't afford another embarrassing bi-election defeat.

So up steps Kelvin Mackenzie...

One of Rupert Murdoch's flunkies, the former editor of The Sun. And his opening pitch to the electorate?

"I have been associated with The Sun for 30 years. The Sun is very, very hostile to David Davis because of his 28 day stance and The Sun has always been very up for 42 days and perhaps even 420 days."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7452264.stm

I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Relax Glenn, The British Conservative Party is no Paragon of Civil Liberties

I didn't say anything about "paragons," but compare to Gordon Brown to John Major (or David Davis') views and let me know which you think is the more respectful of civil liberties and limitations on government power.

To be fair to Major, he played an heroic and under-recognized role in bringing the Troubles to an end, but let's not hold up British conservatives as anything other than what they are: politicians angling to get back into power. It might be better to see them as we see our own politicians who take position A when their guy is in power and position B when the other guy is. I have no faith whatsoever that if the Tories were in power, they wouldn't have done the same thing if they thought they could make political hay out of it.

I personally don't care what motives drive a politician to say the right things or take the right positions -- in part because I don't think you can really divine motives and in part because I don't think it matters.

If Conservatives are only opposing these detention powers as a means of undermining Brown, that's fine with me. That's exactly the kind of adversarial check on the ruling party that has been so tragically missing in our country. That's how it should be -- the opposition party should be a check on efforts by the ruling party to seize more power. Whether they're doing it out of base political motive or principle doesn't much matter.

For us lefty types in Britain, the world's been stood on its head.

We've got a Labour government - a LABOUR government - that's the most authoritarian in living memory, has presided over a huge erosion of civil liberties, and colluded with a far-right US government to start an illegal war that includes imprisonment without trial and torture.

And, meanwhile, the Conservatives, the natural party of authoritarianism you might think, are doing the right thing in opposing the further erosion of our liberties.

OK, if the Tories were in power rather than opposition, they might not be so principled, but I'll give John Major and David Davis the benefit of the doubt. Good for them and shame on Labour.

I couldn't agree more, but you had the U.S. right figured out months (years?) ago with your post on authoritarian cultists, Glenn.

It would be great for you to post a review of the minority opinion in the latest SCOTUS ruling. How can the Fascist Four ignore the precedent of habeas corpus so easily?

U.S. Republicans will sound just like John Major again. Remember how worried they were about executive over-reaching when Clinton was President? Nothing they do is principled and they see no reason to be consistent from one interview to the next (look at McCain -- he can't even remember what he said from one interview to the next) let alone one administration to the next.

Their only principle is raw power. If they are in the majority they are in favor of majority power and against minority prerogatives. If they are in the minority they use every trick in the book and then some to thwart the majority. If they control the executive they are in favor of executive power; if they don't, all of a sudden executive power is dangerous and must be severely limited.

Mark my words: as soon as Obama is elected the same Republicans who have been yelling and screaming about the need for a strong, unitary (dictatorial) executive will be the biggest supporters of the need for checks and balances, and in particular the need to give congressional minority parties the right to stop anything they want to any time without any consequences to them.

And they won't even realize they are being inconsistent. To them it is entirely consistent because, as I've said, their only principle is power.

USA999said, "We have urgent need of a national debate on how we have permitted a political class so opposed to American principles and values to rise to positions of power in the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court."

Hear, hear! The first step? The pathetically weak Democratic "leadership" need to get off their careerist asses and start standing up for basic American values unambiguously.

Obama? I'm still watching you and I still haven't seen much.

You make an excellent point about the unscrupulousness of most politicians: that they'll say or do anything to get back into power.

However, I don't think politicians' hypocrisy diminishes the principles articulated in the Tories' recent statements; rather, it gives the public and the press ammunition in case those Tories get elected and then try and backtrack.

I think you'd see a similar movement on the right here in the U.S. should Obama be elected. That is, they'll immediately start complaining about the evils of the imperial presidency, and contradict most or all of the arguments they were making when Bush was in office. Moreover, I doubt the Democrats will want to give up the extravagant powers Bush has garnered for the office.

The only solution I see to preventing civil liberties from being used in such a cynical way by all politicians is to develop a robust constituency for the rule of law in the U.S. You'd think, given our nation's history, that this would be a no-brainer, but as the last several years have taught us, citizenship courses are in dire need of revitalization.

A telling anecdote: just recently I had a conversation with a smart young woman who is almost finished with her B.A. When the conversation turned to civil liberties, she didn't even understand that warrants are normally required for the government to eavesdrop. Scary.