Danny Marten, Labour’s candidate for Haltemprice and Howden last year, is the chair of East Yorkshire Young Labour and by all accounts firends and foes say he is a likeable and committed activist. They also say he is opposed to 42 days detention without trial…

Locally David Prescott, son of John, is urging Danny to run. He argues that if Labour don’t run “we would be complicit in turning this stunt into a greater farce and show that we’re too scared or embarrassed to stand. That’ll allow the BNP to have the oxygen of publicity. Would we really want that?”

Well? Do Labour actually have a candidate and activists willing to campaign for locking up muslim lads without evidence for 42 days? Perhaps not…

The UK Libertarian Party has invited David Davis to join them, after he resigned as an MP over the 42 day detention law.

Patrick Vessey, party leader says:

David Davis plans to stand in a by-election where he wants to makes this a referendum on liberty – the Liberal Democrats have already said they will not stand against him.

UPDATE : Sky reports that David Davis told Nick Clegg of his intentions last night. Clegg’s statement:

“David Davis’s decision to resign his seat and fight a by-election over the issue of 42 days is a dramatic move. I am grateful to him for having informed me following the vote of his intention to take this step.

“The Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed this unnecessary and illiberal proposal which poses a threat so serious to British liberties that it transcends party politics.

“I have therefore decided, after consultation with the Party nationally and locally, that we will not stand a candidate at the forthcoming by-election which will be contested by David Davis solely on this issue.

“The Liberal Democrats will of course fight the Haltemprice and Howden seat as vigorously as ever at the next General Election.”

Cameron says “we wish David Davis well”. Told the BBC he would campaign for David Davis in the by-election. Local Tories say they were in the know, Duncan Gilmour, chairman of Haltemprice and Howden Conservative Association, has told the Telegraph that Davis discussed the plan with him “earlier this week” and that “a number of conversations” has taken place between Davis and his local party officers during the course of this week. “I’m absolutely sure the local association here will fully support and vindicate his stance” he says.

Guido hasn’t found the body, but there is circumstantial evidence that yet another David Davis staff member has bitten the dust. Does anyone have an explanation for this puzzling phenomenon?

Basher Davis is advertising for a new staff member. He has a high-turnover of staff. The job specification requires that candidates are “calm under pressure”. An understatement…

David Davis has written to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, giving formal notice that an incoming Conservative administration will scrap ID Cards. He has also written to all the major contractors* warning them of the same.

Guido said, at the time Basher negotiated the delay in the political decision-making watershed on ID-cards until after the election, that is was clever tactics. ID-cards may be popular in some quarters, but one section of the population is 101% opposed to ID-cards. LibDem activists.

Come election time the LibDems will be shoulder-to-shoulder with the Tories on an issue that emphasises their shared ideological belief in the fundamental primacy of individual liberty against state power. New Labour’s authoritarians will be the common enemy.

The end is nigh, if you haven’t voted yet, you are too late. The bookies have stopped taking bets on Cameron, the campaigns have drawn to a halt and Guido for one is relieved that the marathon is over.

Basher’s campaign team have their CVs out, Davis himself is reading Jane’s Defence Weekly, even Wat Tyler accepts that an Elvis comeback is more likely than a Davis victory.

Michael Howard, by design or a stroke of luck, has revived the Tories for his own chosen sucessor. The Tories have benefitted massively from the campaign amongst the chattering / political classes and the media. When the Indy devotes a six page supplement to Cameron, you know that Hampstead is once again contemplating voting Tory. How will he play out with the wider public? My hunch is that he will do better than the polls currently suggest. Gordon Brown will lose to Cameron, because given a choice between dour, tired and old, versus young, fresh and optimistic, Britain will vote for change. But only if Cameron really changes the Tories as promised. The fizzy water is on ice in Notting Hill and invites are out for a we-can’t-call-it a-victory-party-yet party on Tuesday afternoon. A smiling Cameron is on the way to 10 Downing Street, and power is a head-rush better than any other he has experienced…