Trivial Pursuits.

Speaking of David Davis' by-election campaign, Mr Smith noticed these ridiculous comments from a potential rival to Mr Davis.

"David Davis's biggest rival for the by-election over the 42-day detention could be a beauty queen. Miss Great Britain, 26-year-old Gemma Garrett, representing the Beauties for Britain party, is planning to stand on a platform of making politics "sexy not sleazy" ... Ms Garrett, who stood in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election last month, rejected claims that she was playing "pantomime politics" and accused Mr Davis of being "trivial" for standing down on the issue of 42-day detention. "Was his decision to step down purely principle or is he a little crazy?" she asked. "We already have a 28-day thing in place anyway, so for the sake of 14 days I thought it was a little bit trivial."

Who's being "trivial"? Mr Davis or Ms Garrett? You decide.

Big Brother.

Mr Smith has read a lot of articles over the last week questioning the decision of former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis to resign as an MP and fight a by-election to expose the dangers of the growth of the surveillance society and Big Brother government in Britain.

If anyone was in any doubt about the correctness of Mr Davis' decision then they should read the article in the Sunday Herald which exposes the increasing use of surveillance powers by local government to spy on allegedly miscreant citizens.

"SCOTTISH COUNCILS ARE USING SURVEILLANCE AND security powers intended to fight terrorism and organised crime in order to spy on ordinary members of the public suspected of petty offences such as breaching the smoking ban, playing music too loudly and dropping litter. Local authority chiefs have ordered staff to spy on unwitting members of the public some 3579 times since being granted the powers in 2002. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), councils have the power to secretly film and bug people, use paid spies to inform on a suspect's activities, and even intercept communications data such as mobile and landline use and information about email traffic."

How can anyone defend this use of investigatory powers. Seems like using a series of sledgehammers to crack some nuts.