UK:SHADOW HOME secretary David Davis caused consternation in the Conservative high command yesterday with his decision to quit parliament and fight a byelection in protest against the new 42-day limit for pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects.
Mr Davis's shock announcement prompted inevitable questions about party leader David Cameron's authority - while diverting attention from damaging headlines for prime minister Gordon Brown amid continuing questions about the price he may have paid for the support of the DUP's nine MPs in Wednesday's dramatic Commons vote.
Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs reacted furiously when they realised the DUP had literally saved Mr Brown from defeat as a 36-strong Labour rebellion shredded the government's natural majority and the House divided by 315 votes to 306.
Mr Cameron's plan had been for the spotlight to turn to the battle in the House of Lords, and the question of whether Mr Brown would eventually have to use the Parliament Act to force through the anti-terror measure. Instead, Mr Davis left him facing a byelection in which the Tories would have to campaign on a security issue on which opinion polls say the government enjoys overwhelming popular support.
Mr Cameron praised Mr Davis for his "very courageous" and "very brave" decision, while making clear that "this was not a decision by the Conservative Party" and promptly appointing Dominic Grieve to replace Mr Davis in the shadow cabinet.
Amid inevitable speculation about a rift with Mr Cameron - against whom he contested the last leadership election - Mr Davis claimed one victory yesterday, when Mr Grieve confirmed that a future Conservative government would reverse the 42-day detention provision. To Mr Cameron's relief, however, there was also a growing doubt about what further purpose might be served by the byelection in Mr Davis's Yorkshire constituency of Howden and Haltemprice should Labour decide not to field a candidate.
In his dramatic lunchtime announcement, Mr Davis characterised his decision as a "noble endeavour" to stop the "insidious" erosion of civil liberties and to protest "the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms" by the Labour government.
After speaking to him, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg announced that his party - the second placed challenger in Howden and Haltemprice - would be giving Mr Davis a free run.
Outraged by the suspected deal with the DUP on Wednesday, Mr Clegg said: "The Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed this unnecessary and illiberal proposal which poses a threat so serious to British liberties that it transcends party politics. I have therefore decided, after consultation with the party nationally and locally, that we will not stand a candidate at the forthcoming byelection which will be contested by David Davis solely on this issue."
With that seeming to guarantee Mr Davis's return to Westminster, however, former home secretary David Blunkett was among a number of former ministers dismissing the move as "a stunt" and urging the Labour Party not to contest the byelection. "It is my view that neither the Labour Party nor the Liberal Democrats should give him the egotistical satisfaction of a contest in which he costs the public purse, as well as political parties, substantial sums of money to make exactly the same point that he's already been putting very strongly as shadow home secretary," said Mr Blunkett.
He said that resigning "in order to stand again in the middle of a Parliament is not the action of a mature politician, but merely a way of seeking exaggerated publicity".