Davis v Smeaton?

Love and Garbage has an excellent response to Luke Akehurst's suggestion that Labour:

should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: "Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects"."

Bomb victim Rachel from North London also puts Akehurst in his place:

This is not about being soft on terrorism. It is about being tough about standing up for the things terrorists attack. Democracy. Freedom. The right to walk about without fear.

People have died to protect our freedoms. You should think on what you throw away so lightly.

But it looks possible that Labour may take up Akehurst's idea:

An intriguing new name has emerged as a possible candidate against David Davis in the Haltemprice and Howden byelection, expected on July 10.

It's John Smeaton, the baggage handler hero who won the Queen's Gallantry Medal for helping police foil a terrorist attack at Glasgow Airport last summer.

I'm told that the Labour Party - despite signalling so far that it will not field a candidate in the byelection - is trying to persuade Smeaton to stand as an anti-terrorist candidate.

Apart from the sheer cynicism of such a move, I wonder if Labour has thought this through.

We'd have a by-election in Middle England in which the local man, and, until now, the local MP, would be campaigning on behalf of values that would almost certainly be labelled as "English".

In the Labour corner, supporting a further extension of state power would be someone who, hero though he may be, is even more than Gordon Brown obviously Scottish to the core.

I can think of few things more likely to render the Union asunder.