No - not the champion of civil liberties

It must sometimes be a bit annoying for David Davis, the former shadow Home Secretary who stood down and fought a byelection over the 42 day detention issue and other civil liberties, to have such a common name. For his fellow conservative homonym David Davies is now calling for a further curtailment of civil liberties:

Call for ban on military protests Angry protests greeted returning soldiers in Luton Conservative MP David Davies has called on abusive protests against serving military personnel to be outlawed. The Monmouth MP has tabled an amendment to a bill governing religious hatred that would extend protection to the Armed Forces. It would make it an offence to incite hatred against serving soldiers. [From BBC NEWS | Politics | Call for ban on military protests]

The trouble is Davies is also wrong. These are big boys and girls. They have stared death in the eyes and faced him down. What they really need to know is not that there is some simmering resentment that goes unvoiced, prohibited, but that the vast majority of us, from the reaction to the Luton protestors this week amongst the good people of Britain, are prepared to stick up for them and heap opprobrium on such protestors.

We go down a dangerous route in banning protest. Far better to get angry and shout them down each and every time and make it clear as a bell that they are in the minority. Our men and women on the front lines, whatever we think of the reasons for them being there, are not there to create or enforce the kind of society that will not brook criticism, we should not shield them from it when they return, but make them proud that the majority of us stick up for them freely and genuinely.