Tory MP David Davis has been hailed by liberals and leftists for his apparently principled stand in defence of civil liberties. In the second of a two-part essay, Chris Marsden examines what he really stands for.

Tory MP David Davis has been hailed by liberals and leftists for his apparently principled stand in defence of civil liberties. In the first of a two-part essay, Chris Marsden examines what he really stands for.

“I am against the war in Iraq, I don’t like big business and I think David Davis is mobilising right-wing policies in Britain”. So says Angela Morkos, a resident of David Davis’s former constituency who plans to vote for the Socialist Equity Party at the forthcoming by-election. Reporters from the World Socialist Website interviewed Angela and other local people to gauge the mood of the electorate before polling day.

Chris Marsden reflects on how the Haltemprice and Howden by-election illustrates the mainstream, and supposedly ‘liberal’, media’s obsession with party politics above substantive issues such as civil liberties.