Entering the doors of Downing Street triumphant, Prime Minister David Davis would subsequently face the task of assembling his Cabinet and the shape of each Government Ministry. As Leader of the Opposition, Davis had had a Shadow Cabinet, which made his task far easier – the Prime Minister, for the most part, simply transplanted members of the Conservative frontbench into the Government positions which they had shadowed. The first to receive a call to Downing Street by Davis was Liam Fox, who was offered (and accepted) the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, giving him, alongside the Prime Minister, the daunting task of rebuilding the British economy in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis. Former Conservative leader William Hague, who had returned from the political wilderness following the 2005 general election, was also invited to Downing Street, where he accepted an offer from Davis to become Foreign Secretary in the new Government. After Fox and Hague came Alan Duncan, who was granted the position of Home Secretary – like Davis, Duncan was considered a libertarian, and so the Prime Minister recognised that it was crucial for a pro-civil liberties Secretary of State to be in the Home Office. Further appointments made by Davis included another former Conservative leader, Michael Howard (who had recently been granted a peerage in the House of Lords as Baron Howard of Lympne), who accepted the position of Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, and Douglas Carswell (another libertarian within the Conservative ranks) as Local Government and Communities Secretary. Several moderate and one-nation conservatives were also offered positions in the Cabinet by Davis for the sake of Party unity – Ken Clarke declined to serve in the new Government and remained on the backbenches, while George Osborne became Work and Pensions Secretary.
And so, with his Cabinet formed, Davis would embark on the task of implementing the policies which the Conservatives had committed to under his leadership. First and foremost was the economy – prior to the unveiling of the first Budget of the new Government in June 2011, detailed discussions took place between Davis and Fox on how to revive economic growth and the two men agreed that a Thatcherite approach would be the best way forward. Therefore, Fox, upon unveiling his Budget, announced that public spending cuts would be made by the Government so as to reduce the budget deficit which had drastically swelled in size under the previous administration, while inflation would be brought under control through Monetarist principles which involved the Government maintaining a sharp control over money supply in the United Kingdom. Further decisions made by Davis and Fox would come in March 2013 in the second Budget of the new Government – Monetarist principles continued to be enforced as inflation was gradually brought under control, while a further principle of Thatcherism, the rolling back of state control, would also be enacted through privatisation. It was announced that the Government would sell its shares in the Royal Mail, Network Rail and London & Continental Railways, thereby putting the companies into the private sector, and, as with the privatisation schemes embarked upon by Thatcher during the mid-80s, Davis’ Government would encourage employees of the aforementioned companies to purchase the available shares.
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Outside of the economy, Davis also focused on the passage of legislation through the Commons and Lords. First would be a Bill which arranged a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, which was accepted almost unanimously in both Houses and granted Royal Assent, scheduling said referendum for October the 25th 2012. Next would be legislation relating to civil liberties – an amendment was introduced in the Commons by the Home Secretary which amended the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 to repeal the extension of detaining suspects without charge to forty-two days, therefore returning the detention period to twenty-eight days, while the Identity Cards Act 2006 (which introduced a national identity card scheme, which was criticised by many – including Davis – for its erosion of civil liberties) was repealed outright. This, for Davis and many civil liberty campaigners, were seen as milestone moments on halting the gradual increases in Government power and the decrease in individual privacy, yet the Prime Minister recognised that, at any point in the future a new Government could easily reintroduce the legislation which he had overturned.
Therefore, Davis determined that the best way to enshrine the civil liberties of the British people was through the British Bill of Rights which the Conservatives had pledged to introduce as a replacement for the Human Rights Act 1998. The repealing of the Human Rights Act had been a central goal for many Conservatives prior to Davis’ leadership, largely due to the fact that the Act came entirely from the European Convention on Human Rights, which could only be amended through a unanimous agreement by the nations within the Council of Europe (including Britain), whereas a British Bill of Rights would come from the Government of the United Kingdom and could be amended by Parliament if necessary. Thus, when Parliament re-assembled on January the 10th 2012 after the Christmas recess, Lord Howard (as Justice Secretary) tabled before the Commons the British Bill of Rights, which largely contained the same provisions as the Human Rights Act which it would repeal (Britain was, after all, a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights), yet with several key differences – first and foremost, Section 2 of the Human Rights Act was not included in the British Bill of Rights, meaning that British courts were no longer obliged to take into account rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (thereby allowing rulings by judges in Britain to have the final say on rights). Furthermore, the enshrinement of civil liberties which Davis had discussed before also appeared in the new British Bill of Rights – for example, Article Five of the new Bill of Rights, which, like the Convention, outlined the Right to Liberty and Security, would now feature the length of time someone could be detained without a charge.
After the new Bill of Rights’ contents were announced, the legislation would then proceed to go through the Parliamentary process, passing through all necessary readings in the Commons and Lords before receiving Royal Assent on January the 31st 2013, coming into law and repealing the Human Rights Act. On the right of the political spectrum there was delight – for libertarians such as Davis, the new Bill of Rights took a further step in entrenching civil liberties (although a future Parliament could reverse Davis’ Governments decisions, it would be far more difficult given that many of the civil liberties were now Human Rights and would create a far greater public outcry if modifications were attempted), while those on the right of the Conservatives were delighted that Britain’s judicial independence had been returned.