Davis pitches for Labour vote

Mr Davis is in uncharted territory

Thursday, 19, Jun 2008 12:00

Davis pitches for Labour vote

David Davis has made an open bid for Labour voters in his unique by-election campaign over civil liberties.

Making his pitch in a video interview on Labour members' website Labourhome, Mr Davis assured a vote for him – while still a vote for the Conservative party – would not be a vote on Labour's general record.

"I said I wasn’t going to fight on a general Labour record," he said.

"I'm not going to fight on my record, actually, because I'm an irrelevance to this in a way. I'm just a cipher. I was going to fight on the issue simply of the erosion of our freedoms.

"There's a whole series of things, many of which have an acute resonance with Labour members of parliament, because they told me so."

Asked how he could possibly ask Labour voters to vote for him when he spent most of the last week encouraging a Labour candidate to stand against him, Mr Davis replied: "I'm asking everybody and we've had support from Tories, of course, Liberal activists, people who say 'I've voted Labour all my life' and - most interestingly of all - people who said I've never taken an interest in politics all my life but this has galvanised my interest."

Mr Davis said the Labour decision not to field a candidate exposed the weakness of Gordon Brown.

"If he [Mr Brown] wants to defend that [42 days] he should put someone up against me and on the basis of the opinion polls he should at least be able to dent my majority if not defeat me," Mr Davis argued.

"If he doesn't do it, I'm afraid the public at large will come to the conclusion he's running away from the fight."