Last Straw

It’s the unrep­res­ent­at­ive nature of single-winner elect­oral sys­tems, like Britain’s first past the post, that leads one into some­times sup­port­ing people you wouldn’t oth­er­wise support.

And it’s with this in mind that I find myself sup­port­ing con­ser­vat­ive MP David Davis, who has embarked on a cam­paign against the “relent­less erosion of civil liber­ties in Britain”.

Check out Gaby Hinsliff’s take on events to date.

I can at least take solace in the fact that I don’t also find myself sup­port­ing Murdoch’s author­it­arian tabloid, The Sun, which mer­rily sup­ports New Labour in its pro­ject to turn Bri­tain in a police state. The Sun is even said to be look­ing to mount a can­did­ate against Davis. Hinsliff writes:

The Sun is also said to have con­sidered approach­ing Rachel North, a sur­vivor of the 7/7 bomb­ings, who has cam­paigned for justice for the vic­tims, but North said she admired Davis’s stand: ‘I am a big fan of civil liber­ties and free­dom and demo­cracy, all things that ter­ror­ists are not keen on, and I’m pleased that a senior politi­cian has cam­paigned about this.’

I’m still try­ing to work out how I can donate online to Davis’ campaign.

External links

• A mag­ni­fi­cent ges­ture that we must sup­port | 15 June 2008

Update, 27 June 2008: Davis’ cam­paign web­site is up and running.