Not really. Most reporting has been along the lines of “Labour Minister revealed as an utter prat, has to apologise”.

It all adds up. People are beginning to see through the spin. Just watch people when they are told of an official announcement about just how great things really are. Watch the eyebrows… no-one believes a word from NuLab any more.

Except, it wasn’t. The story was ‘Phworh! Tory & Liberty Girl round the back of the bike sheds!”

It’s first and foremost a distraction technique – who’s talking about the issues like 42 days now? The salacious media are on the trail of the ‘Shami hot & heavy with Dave’ story. So they aren’t talking about Davis’s points at all.

It also got the rumours out into the mass media – no-one outside the media circle was talking about this, now they all are..’

“Julia M, perhaps you could regale us all with your views on civil liberties?”

What does it have to do with this topic? I’m pointing out how Labour have gor round the idea that there needs to be a discussion of civil liberties, and all because Shami blew a gasket.

Julia, I simply don’t understand how you can say that “it worked”. What worked? If Burnham had kept his trap shut, Davis would be struggling to get the media attention he needs. Now that Burnham has slurred his opponents, it merely highlights how hesitant Labour are to defend their actions and how they must now resort to personal attacks instead of attacking the civil liberties arguments.

Yeh, right, due to the smear, Labour will win the bye-election – hang on, no they can’t, they don’t have a candidate. Maybe they’ve given the case for their police-state-by-stealth wider coverage and won popular support ? Actually, no, the wider coverage was for a cabinet minister making repellent remarks about a leading member of the new establishment.

It strikes me the effect of this teacupstorm is to highlight labour’s failure to stand up and justify its legislation – I’d call that an ‘own goal’.

But it worked. And all because of the weakness of their opponent…

Decry it as ‘not cricket’, but these days, that matters naught.

But he has scored here. I liked the bit where he said that Labour are simply unable to concieve of S. Chakrabati being independent. In their world, there’s something wrong who disagrees with them. This government isn’t deviating from its principles in following the Daily Mail, it’s doing what comes naturally to it, using the state for social engineering like the socialists they have never truly stopped being.

They have developed a schoolgirl crush on big business, without becoming economically liberal in a proper sense, or dveloping awareness of the world of small enterprises. You know that they are not liberal in any respect.

I believe that much of what Peter Hitchens wrote in “The Abolition Of Liberty” is correct, & I have no hesitation in saying that as a liberal I’ve always respected him & agreed with many of his opinions (more than Lawson’s).

If you held a gun to my head & made me choose, I really would take Cameron over Brown.

As Lawson has identified, this is classic NuLab behaviour. It epitomises why they need & deserve to lose.

This is a classic example. Davis has highlighted an issue of great importance; one that potentially affects us all. It goes to the heart of the type of country that we are. And what is the response of a Minister of the Crown to this? “Oooh … look, they’re in luurrrvvvee eeuughh!”

I’ve whinged about this before – see http://thepatentlyblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/five-minutes-or-full-half-hour.html

As it is, the only ones who seem to have picked up on this are the Westminster insiders and Shami. By going to Defcon 4 on it, she’s now broadcast the rumours herself, as everyone is at pains to point out the supposed ’slur’.

I always thought she was smarter than that (for all I don’t much care for her politics). Guess I was wrong…

“If he wants to fight her arguments then let him get on with it…”

But he can’t. So he does the next best thing – insinuates something that would go over the head of pretty much everyone in the real world (who might see it as a patronising comment but that’s all), and she stumbles right in.

Now, the story isn’t 42 days, is it…?