James Avery’s blog

When I first saw the news headline about David Davis resigning, my first thought was to wonder what sort of scandal he had been caught up in.  Then it turns out that he had resigned entirely voluntarily, and that he was going to stand in a by-election of his own making.  This move has clearly stunned the Westminster insiders, and put Tory leader David Cameron in a difficult position. So, what the hell is David Davis playing at?

To a cynic like myself, the 42 day terror laws need to be opposed simply because they look like an obvious way for Gordon Brown to appear macho and appease the tabloid press, and there seems to be little legal merit in them. Does anyone really think that, in his heart of hearts, Mr Brown even believes his own rhetoric about “standing on principle” over this issue?

Until Wednesday evening, the Conservative party were appearing virtually united on this issue, with only one MP, Ann Widdecombe, voting with the government. If ever there was a battleaxe to defy all attempts to whip her into submission, then it was Ms Widdecombe! Reading through Friday’s papers, it looks like David Davis had already done a remarkable job in persuading both his shadow cabinet colleagues, and the rest of the party, that there was no case to support the government on its will to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge.  Notwithstanding this unity in the Conservative party, the government had also had to go through the humiliation of relying on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party, and bribe or no bribe, Gordon Brown was still looking on very unstable ground by the time he came to his press conference on Thursday morning.

Clearly, the fact that this Bill has been passed, by whatever means, has sent David Davis to boiling point.  Right now, with the Liberal Democrats saying that they will support him, and Labour suggesting that they will not play along with what they see as a political stunt, it looks like he has scored a remarkable political own goal.  For someone who used to be a reservist in the SAS, this looks much more like a nose dive than a skydive, but he clearly feels passionate about this issue, and it is far too early to predict how this will play out.  Ultimately though, I have to applaud what he has done, perhaps because I can empathise so much with many of the character traits which he has displayed — recklessness, adrenalin seeking, being ego driven, getting heated up on a single point, but ultimately standing on principle.  I don’t mind how foolish may look right now, he has injected a great deal of sparkle into a debate which desperately needs it.

Last Friday, I got on an early evening train to London, at a time when services are often pretty busy, but I managed to get a seat fairly easily in the back of the train, and noticed that there was still a fair few other spaces available.  If there’s one thing I really try to avoid as much as possible when travelling by train, it is having to stand.  Unless I really do have to be someone at a specific time, I will always rather be on a late train than an overcrowded one.  Friday’s train was typical for this time of the day, and the senior conductors often make announcements advising passengers who were seated in the vestibule areas to move further back, where they can get a seat inside the carriage.  On this occasion, the senior conductor made an announcement that one of the first class carriages would be ‘ declassified ‘, meaning that any passenger in a standard class could go and sit there, without having to pay for any upgrade.  I’ll always go first class when possible, but I was already recently comfortable in my seat, until a screaming baby started disturbing the peace.  Other didn’t have my noise cancelling headphones with me, I decided it was time to move forward, even if all first class seats might have been taken.

When I got to the first class section, I found that the opposite was true — out of 47 seats, just 13 had been taken, 14 including myself — less than one third of the available seats.  Meanwhile, as I move through the train, I noted that virtually all the vestibule areas were crammed by people sitting next to the doors, some with heavy luggage, but many would not think other than a small rucksack.  Dad often says that the nation will only get the politicians it deserves, and I would have to concur that the kind of apathy displayed on Friday evening, and that I regularly see on the trains, will also do little to improve the standard of service passengers will get.  What was the point of a senior conductor offering this extra space if passengers do not take advantage of it?  This might have only been a very small part of the overcrowding problem — and I have still never heard a good explanation about why InterCity trains have as many first-class coaches are they do, and I’ve yet to hear anyone observing the first class section being full without it being declassified.  However, I’ve also been on trains on numerous occasions when the overcrowding has been dire, but the senior conductor has not declassified any first class carriages.  Sometimes, they just need to be asked, but in my experience, few passengers could be bothered to do this.  It certainly helps to speak their lingo — ‘ this train is to overcrowded, can I sit in first class ‘ is never done get the same result as ‘ are you going to be de-classifying first-class this evening.’

Having a seat reservation is always a useful advantage on a crowded train, but most people would feel pretty squeamish at the prospect of asking an elderly passenger, or a mother with children to move from the seat they had booked (hint hint — in this scenario, the chances of getting one of the moved to first-class increases dramatically).  Failing that, I would personally rather get off and wait for the next train, as there can often be huge differences in occupancy levels between one service and the next.  This can be especially true if the train you on is the first train outside the peak restrictions, or if it’s travelling through somewhere that is likely to generate large amounts of traffic at a specific time (e.g. a football match).  I can’t speak the early morning commuters into London, but between the different measures mentioned above, I virtually always managed to get a seat, even on the very busiest of trains.

Unfortunately, it looks like the government will narrowly scrape through their new 42 days terror suspect legislation, as there don’t seem to be quite enough backbenchers with the backbone to put a stop to it.

This new law will do little to improve the safety of the travelling public.  Transport systems have long been a target of ambitious terror groups, but the statistical chances of any passenger being caught in a terrorist atrocity remain extremely small, as they are for accidents on public transport.  We were told on the BBC’s Question Time last week by Foreign Secretary David Miliband that the extension of questioning to 42 days instead of the current 28 would act as an “insurance policy” for potential future trials, but a much better insurance plan must surely be to prevent the radicalisation of young Muslims from happening in the first place.  Once somebody is hellbent on committing such acts (and we really are only talking about a very small handful of extremists each year), it won’t make a scrap of difference to them whether they are likely to be held for 28 days or 42, but holding any innocent person for up to six weeks is a total affront to the fundamental principles of habeas corpus, for which so many other countries look so admirably on the British legal system.

Instead, all we will see a further erosion of our civil liberties in the name of public protection, when the real objective of this legislation is to try and secure some desperately needed tabloid support for our blundering loser of a Prime Minister.  This whole debacle reminds me of a quote which is popularly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but which is actually believed to have originated from his fellow diplomat Richard Jackson:

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”

The travelling public now have the double whammy of needlessly heightened security measures and having to pay through the nose for the oil price bubble, both which can be attributed to the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Weren’t we told that this too would be an insurance policy against terrorism?

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