Yesterday we had by-election to cost 200k ( nicely timed to depress turnout and give David Davis problems), but no corresponding analysis of Hazel Blears plans for multiple local referendums ( which would cost far more ). More do they explore the cost of "the people's referendums.Today it what makes an English Eccentric - with David Davis presented as a prime example.The DT is being to pick up the...

Conservative MP David Davis said today that he believed his decision to resign his Commons seat and fight a by-election over plans to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge helped to defeat the proposals.

Conservative MP David Davis said today that he believed his decision to resign his Commons seat and fight a by-election over plans to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge helped to defeat the proposals.

Responding to David Davis’s by-election victory, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has challenged the Conservative party on their commitment to civil liberties. Nick Clegg said: "David Davis has done well in keeping the issue of 42 days detention without trial in the spotlight. However, the challenge for his party is to stop being piecemeal protectors of liberty and realise that freedom is ...

David Davis was always going to win this by-election; the question was always going to be by how much. The voters in Haltemprice and Howden were well informed about the issues. They would have had to have their heads in the sand if they still thought yesterday this election was just about 42 days. Although DD has been returned with a large majority, we all know it an artificial one. Almost 66% of ...

I seldom find myself in agreement with Norman Tebbit, the so called Chingford Skinhead, but the views on 42-days and yesterday's bizarre by-election he expressed tonight on Radio 4's Any Questions are right on the button.First, he said it would be difficult to agree with David Davis that yesterday's by-election was a victory for civil liberties.Then the former Tory Cabinet Minister who famously ad...

newstatesman.com's running commentary on the by-election triggered then won by David Davis over 42 days detention. Simon Hooper reports from Yorkshire plus Martin Bright gives his take1030BST So David Davis now has a majority of 15,355 votes. And to think he was a candidate for "decapitation" in the last election, writes Martin Bright. With a turnout of 34 per cent, it would be tempting to agree w...

There's an interesting interview with David Davis in this week's New Statesman, in which he reveals that it was George Osborne, rather than David Cameron, who he clashed with over 42 days. At the time of his departure from the shadow cabinet, most commentators assumed that he had been involved in a dust up with his former leadership rival. The theory was that Davis' civil libertaria...

The government's attempt to increase the terror detention limit to 42 days will be killed off in the House of Lords, former shadow home secretary David Davis has predicted.

The government's plans to extend the terror detention plans to 42 days will be defeated by the House of Lords, according to David Davis.