Which way the wind blows

Civil liberties campaigning Observer columnist Henry Porter comes out for Davis, as does the redoubtable Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti in the Mail on Sunday. And so does Labour peer Helena Kennedy in the Independent.

Belatedly, media are catching up with the public mood...
The Spectator gets it. The Mail on Sunday headlines with 'Poll reveals huge public support for Davis' decision to force by-election over Government anti-terror laws'

The Observer's Gaby Hinsliff writes that 'suddenly Labour is not laughing at David Davis', as the paper strongly backs the principle of what Davis is doing in an editorial. Simon Hefffer in the Telegraph thinks he is setting a powerful example. Davis himself writes in the Telegraph of how he is fighting to defend basic freedoms, and readers come out in support in droves in the comments. The letters page is keen too.

In fact, support for having a proper debate on civil liberties is now rife across the political spectrum. Blogs and readers' comments, pretty well everywhere, are in support of DD, from the Guardian to the Telegraph and Times and BBC. Meanwhile, Kelvin McKenzie is rumoured to be pulling out , and there is speculation that Mr Murdoch is considering fielding baggage handler John Smeaton, who shot to motivational speaking fame after 'setting aboot' an inept extremist at Glasgow airport, though the Sunday Mirror says this is not the case.

The debate has ignited, and the Tories now have to hold the line on liberty, and not back-track, and Labour really need to field a candidate. A proper one who can answer questions in detail about the government's anti-terror laws and policies. A Labour politician, then, not a symbolic cut-out. Only snag is, the Labour candidate where Davis is standing doesn't, apparently, support 42 days. Bob Marshall Andrews, a Labour MP critical of the anti-terror line, has gone further and said that he will campaign with Davis.

If Labour are so confident of their anti-terror position, and the poll that says the public broadly support Brown's anti-terror laws, then they should have no problem meeting principle with principle, point with point, political argument with political argument, matching a politician against a politician, should they?

The country deserves nothing less. I wonder if the government will have the courage of its convictions or continue to smear and sneer from the sidelines, ever more out-of-touch with the public who recognise a genuinely principled stand and applaud it, even if they don't agree with Davis on 42 days? Calling it a 'farce' looks cheap, and worse, cowardly - and simply makes Brown look like an unelected ditherer who won't put his policies to the real test - a public vote.

Tsk.

Update: oh dear, about that poll....