“When Gordon Brown called on the British Library to stage an exhibition about Britishness he perhaps envisaged a patriotic celebration of the national identity. ” begins the story in The Telegraph.

It continues to tell of the new exhibition called ‘Taking Liberties‘ - which is a very British response to such a request from a Prime Minister seeking a publicity tool. It’s an exhibition looking at Civil Liberties in the UK, and how they’ve been slowly but steadily eroded since 1997.

David Davis, the former shadow Home Secretary who recently stepped down from the Parliament to force a by election on the issue of civil liberties, said: “It is an astonishingly good idea but is clearly a snub to the Prime Minister and must be accurately embarrassing for him. Gordon Brown likes to talk about Britishness a lot without understanding that liberty is at the core of Britishness. It is our institutional DNA. Our history and tradition of freedom run longer and deeper than any other country.”

(snip)

Iconic objects such as the Magna Carta, the death certificate of Charles I and Cromwell’s Oath of Loyalty from 1857 will be on display among less well known items some of which have never been on display before.

The exhibition will open on the 31st October and end on the 1st March 2009. Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.

The British Library is at St. Pancras - very convenient for tube and rail connections.

Number 10 has modified their site to use wordpress, and it does look good.

At first.

Unfortunately, they’re not using the full power of wordpress - I note in particular that comments are switched off for everything at the same time that they’re talking about ‘dialogue’.

What I find particularly amusing is that the first, most obvious link on their homepage, which promises us "Number10TV" and the ability to "watch the PM’s introductory film." gives this result:

I think the phrase they need is ‘Whoops’.

Epic Fail. Says it all really.

Original heads-up from ocaoimh.ie

When starting from scratch (as opposed to migrating a site over from another URL or software system), there is really little excuse for broken links in wordpress, especially when you’re paying developers to manage it for you. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, manage it quite comfortably…. and there is especially no excuse for a broken link on something that takes up half the screen on the homepage - the first thing people see.

Update: The 404 has been fixed.

Gordon Brown recently wrote to David Davis to say this:

Dear David

As you know, Prime Ministers are available once a week at Question Time to debate all the issues of the day, and I was disappointed that you chose to step down as a Member of Parliament in advance of Question Time on Wednesday, 11 June rather than coming to the House to debate with me the issues around the use of CCTV and DNA evidence, and the measures we have taken to protect our national security.

Nevertheless, the leader of your party has the opportunity each week to ask six questions on those issues that caused you to leave his Shadow Cabinet. He has had two such opportunities to date, but he has yet to ask any such question. He has two further opportunities to raise these issues before the ‘by-election’ on July 10th, and I am sure that if he shares your strong feelings about them, he will not duck those opportunities.

Gordon Brown

David Davis has replied, with a masterful letter:

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your letter of 26 June. This is the second time you have responded to me directly, since my resignation from the House of Commons in protest at your relentless assault on British liberty.

First, you gave a speech on 17 June at the IPPR, a favoured Labour think-tank, hardly an environment that allows for the vigorous and open debate we so sorely need. Now, you insist that any questions I wish to ask on this vital national issue be raised within the narrow confines of Prime Ministers Questions, where you have developed the novel practice of asking - rather than answering- the questions.

I note from your speech on 17 June that you genuinely believe in the positions you have taken and stand behind the sustained erosion on British liberty, which regrettably means that the country must expect more to come in the future. Equally, it is deeply disturbing how ill-informed you are about the basic effectiveness of your security policies - from 42 days, ID cards and the DNA database, through to the ineffectual deployment of CCTV at immense cost to the taxpayer.

We need a proper national debate on these important matters - not just set piece speeches to carefully choreographed audiences or the weekly one-liners you deploy at PMQs. If you were serious about debating these important issues, you should have put up a candidate or at the very least allowed your Ministers to debate publicly with me. Having cowered from both options, it is a bit rich to snipe from the sidelines in a serious debate that will proceed with or without you. Even at this late stage, I would be only too willing to adjust my schedule to debate you or any Cabinet Minister in public, if you feel able to relax the restrictions currently in place.

Yours sincerely,

David Davis

In short, Brown has said “You lost an opportunity to ‘debate’, but you should have got more support, nah nah ne nah nah.” and Davis is saying “Anytime, Any place, Anywhere - bring it on”.

David Davis has resigned from the commons to force a by-election in which he’ll stand. He will fight the campaign based on his opposition to the 42 days detention without charge and the slow erosion of civil liberties seen under this government.

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said it was an extraordinary move which was almost without precedent in British politics.

True, it’s an MP taking a stand on principle (cynical, moi?)

Labour MP Denis MacShane said he was sure Mr Davis would win the by-election but added “I think this will be seen as a stunt” which showed the Conservatives were “utterly unfit” for government.

Thus spake a man who is avoiding the argument on the issue.

In his resignation statement, he said he feared 42 days was just the beginning and next “we’ll next see 56 days, 70 days, 90 days.”

But, he added: “In truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms.”

He listed the growth of the “database state,” government “snooping” ID cards, the erosion of jury trials and other issues.

“This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason today I feel it is incumbent on me to make a stand,” said Mr Davis.

“At least my electorate and the nation as a whole will have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day - the ever intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom and the steady attrition undermining the rule of law,” he said

Hear, Hear!

Good luck DD - I do hope that it’s a landslide (and can’t be argued that it’s just the core vote of a safe seat).

This could only be more dramatic if it had been Cameron.

Update: The speech is online (it’s a great speech).

Related:

• Iain Dale
• Labour@Home (who seem be arguing on the party lines, not the issue)
• It might be a publicity stunt, hopisen, but it’s one that we need with this nasty government.
• e8voice (Davis has balls and they’re in the air)

The BBC has a list of the Labour MPs who rebelled in the recent vote to allow people to be locked up without the evidence to charge them for 42 days.

• Diane Abbott
• Richard Burden
• Katy Clark
• Harry Cohen
• Frank Cook
• Jeremy Corbyn
• Jim Cousins
• Andrew Dismore
• Frank Dobson
• David Drew
• Paul Farrelly
• Mark Fisher
• Paul Flynn
• Neil Gerrard
• Ian Gibson
• Roger Godsiff
• John Grogan
• Dai Havard
• Kate Hoey
• Kelvin Hopkins
• Glenda Jackson
• Lynne Jones
• Peter Kilfoyle
• Andrew MacKinlay
• Bob Marshall-Andrews
• John McDonnell
• Michael Meacher
• Julie Morgan
• Chris Mullin
• Douglas Naysmith
• Gordon Prentice
• Linda Riordan
• Alan Simpson
• Emily Thornberry
• David Winnick
• Mike Wood

Ann Widdecombe voted for the government bill, as did the DUP.

If I were in a labour held constituency, the only way I’d vote for them is if one of those people were the MP. The reverse goes for Ann Widdecombe (although she is quite popular in her constituency, and I can appreciate that she went out on a limb here as a matter of conscience - she’s wrong though).