2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election would extend the legal detention of terror suspects without charge to a maximum of 42 days. Explaining his actions, Davis stated he intended to spark a wider public debate about the perceived erosion of civil liberties by the then Labour government, which in the following week was launched as the 'David Davis for Freedom campaign'. Culture Secretary Andy Burnham called on Davis to fund the cost of the by-election to the taxpayer, estimated at £80,000, from his own pocket. Davis had held the seat as a Conservative since its creation in 1997, having previously been MP since 1987 for the
Norman Scarth Sedgefield (receiving 34 votes, 0.1%); and in 2008 in Haltemprice and Howden (receiving 8 votes, 0.0%). In Sedgefield, police were called to move him when he campaigned outside a supermarket. In Haltemprice and Howden he came joint last with 8 votes. He stood on an anti-crime platform and argued that "modern surveillance methods were as bad as the Nazis'". Scarth has also stood for his own Anti-Crime Party in local elections in Bradford, first standing in Bingley in 2007. He was arrested for shouting through a loudhailer outside a polling station in 2008, and challenged the election result, in which