MAIL COMMENT: A gamble in the name of freedom

It was, by any yardstick, one of the more extraordinary moments in recent British political history.

A shadow home secretary, with a solid majority, announcing out of the blue he was quitting Parliament to force a by-election which he would then contest on the grounds he wanted to highlight the 'insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms'.

The final straw, said David Davis, had been the shameful way in which Parliament had been abused to enable Gordon Brown to secure support for his anti-terrorist 42-day detention legislation.

Arms had been twisted, deals brokered and millions of pounds of taxpayers' money squandered to get nine DUP votes onside.

Mr Davis said he wanted to speak up for a British people tired of the 'inflated, arbitrary and arrogant power' accumulated by both central and local Government.

He had acted because he wanted to focus attention on the slow strangulation of British freedoms, and thereby halt it in its tracks.

He painted a picture of an Orwellian world of CCTV cameras on every street corner, a DNA database containing the details of one million innocent people, the introduction of ID cards, and council snoopers routinely using anti-terror powers.

Let it be said immediately the Mail applauds everything Mr Davis says. We have campaigned against all of the causes he has highlighted, and he deserves great credit for the consistency with which he has argued his case over the past two years.

But what of the wisdom of his decision to force such a by-election, rather than continue his admirable fight against Big Brother from the Opposition benches?

At the very least, it deprives the Conservatives of a recognised big-hitter, capable of bringing down Cabinet ministers, and whose ordinary background chimes with vast swathes of the electorate.

More worryingly, Mr Davis leaves his party leader – whose greatest achievement has been to instill unity and discipline – exposed to accusations of internal division.

For his part David Cameron did not appear impressed by Mr Davis's behaviour yesterday.

Certainly, there is the very real danger that Mr Davis's gambit could backfire.

Voters loathe unnecessary by-elections. The Lib Dems and even the BNP say they will not stand a candidate.

If Labour follows suit, Mr Davis's victory could seem Pyrrhic indeed. So, while we applaud everything Mr Davis is campaigning for, and wish him all the luck in his battle to protect British freedoms, we worry – as a friend – that, in this instance, his courage may have been greater than his judgment.

A lesson in truth

Britain's education inspectors today unveil the answer to turning around failing schools: discipline, a traditional uniform and the introduction of a public school style house system.

Schools in special measures which have tried this approach made such dramatic improvements that some were later rated 'outstanding', Ofsted reports. Eureka!

But what a pity that, 11 years after Labour took a wrecking ball to such basic principles, we are having to seek answers to appalling classroom behaviour in a past that should never have been abolished in the first place.

Meanwhile, the respected Sutton Trust exposes another Labour lie: After extensive research, it concludes 60,000 bright comprehensive pupils are missing out on degree course places each year because they are let down by poor education in their schools, not bias against them by top universities.

What a tragedy, then, that the Government has spent so long attacking our supposedly elitist higher education institutions, rather than raising standards