We now await the move in the Commons of the writ for the bye-election. I assume that this will be done soon in order to seek to enable the polling day to fall on 17 July. All that remains to see is that when the writ is moved will some MPs seek to run a filibuster against the proposal and/or call for a division to seek to stop it? If the writ isn’t issued soon, then it can’t be obtained until after Parliament’s Summer Recess and the bye-election will not be possible until November. By then circumstances could arise which could lead to David Davis losing. But I expect that 17 July will be accepted by the powers that be.

You’re on to something there Graham.

All it needs is Davis to be a bit more anti-war.

There are a number of contraditions in Davis’s position but I don’t see this as one of them. I have spoken out as strongly as anyone here in defence of civil liberties but my position is a liberal, not a libertarian one and I’m not neccessarily in favour of the legalisation of all recreational drugs. It’s a subject on which I’m genuinely undecided.

Well, maybe it SOUNDS that way.

But paradoxically, it isn’t, is it? In fact it is the opposite of pro-totalitarian.

For example: Look exactly at which countries, during the “time of troubles” after WWI fell into the hands of (or enthuisastically welcomed the coming of) dictatorships – welcoming in the new, the modern, the contemporary, that of their time.

Generally speaking, those with (constitutional) monarchies were incubated against the fanatacism of these times. Far better to have a head of state appointed by God than by popular vote. There is no greater protection against tyranny. Tradition is the democracy of the dead.