Commons Comment

Jun 17 2008 by Pete Wishart MP

THERE are some weeks you walk out of the House of Commons and just wonder what on earth is going on. And last week was definitely one of them.

On Wednesday we had that extraordinary vote on 42 days, which the Government won with the help of Ulster’s Democratic Unionist Party. The fact that they won it by nine votes (the exact number of DUP MPs) underlined just how hollow and pyrrhic the Government’s victory was.

I don’t know what the DUP secured for their support but they will have certainly burnt their bridges with any future Government of a non-Labour persuasion.

At the same time, Labour rebels were being threatened, cajoled and promised all manner of things if they changed their minds. Honours were dished out and future careers threatened. Remarkable stuff!

The debate about 42 days was also an extraordinary affair. Never in my seven years as an MP has a debate been so decidedly lost but the vote still won. The Government could not produce a shred of evidence as to why 42 days was required and was roundly out-debated by opponents of 42.

The result is we have a piece of legislation that compromises our long-cherished civil liberties and threatens our community relations. No one other than a few senior police officers believed that this was necessary and even Labour members who voted for this knew themselves it was over the top.

We had just digested this news when the second bombshell rocked the house. Conservative front-bencher David Davies announced he was standing down to force a by-election on the issue of 42 days: a decision borne out a moment of madness and one that he will most certainly regret.

All the other parties have said they will not contest him and he will be left to slug it out with the former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie and the Monster Raving Loony Party.

This will not be a political contest on the vital question of 42 days but a farce and non-contest and something that can only bring the political process into further disrepute.

At Westminster the word “courageous” has been use to describe David Davies’ behaviour, but students of the House of Commons will know that “courageous” in this context means reckless and foolhardy.

I just want to reassure my constituents in Perthshire that while I did not like the decision on 42 days I will stand down from my seat at the appropriate time – when a general election is called.