I searched high and low for David Davis, all over the Palace of Westminster, after the National Union of Students sent Sky News an email from the former Shadow Home Secretary to the president of Hull University Union.
Hull's president, Aidan Mersh, had emailed Davis asking for a meeting with him during the lobby of Parliament on Thursday, when MPs will vote on the Government's controversial proposals to raise the cap on tuition fees.
"Thank you for your e-mail," Davis replied. "But you can save your time. I am going to vote against this proposal."
I eventually tracked David Davis down, not in the Members' Lobby, the cafes, bars or corridors of the Commons or even in his grand corner office in Portcullis House.
He was at home in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency, in bed with flu, he told me.
Yes, he said, he was going to vote against tuition fees. But this was nothing new, he claimed. He has always been against them.
His reasons, he said, were social mobility - after all, he's a grammar school boy raised by a single mum on a council estate in south London - and his fearsabout students getting into too much debt.
But then he told me: "I suspect I am a rebellion of one."
So far, that appears to be correct. At least as far as Conservative MPs are concerned.
In the highest reaches of the Coalition government, there is fury at Davis' latest mutiny against David Cameron.
"Opportunism!" one senior Cabinet Minister told me angrily. "Typical!" said another senior Tory MP.
Students are delighted, however.
"David Davis is to be congratulated for taking a stand on behalf of students and their families and against an attempt to steamroller a tripling of tuition fees through Parliament," said Aaron Porter, NUS president. "He will be by no means the only one to do so."
By that, however, I assume the NUS president means LibDem rebels, rather than Conservative MPs.
But don't get too excited by Norman Baker's apparent threat to rebel. The junior transport minister - a scourge of the establishment in his pre-Government days - gave an interview on Sunday saying he may resign from the Government.
Unlikely, say his pals. He likes being a minister, they claim, and he will almost certainly vote with the Government.
"Playing to the gallery," said one LibDem MP about Stormin' Norman.
The LibDems look as though they will split three ways. Or possibly even four if you count the Greg Mulholland proposal to delay the voting.
Most MPs expect the Government to win the vote on Thursday, however.
LibDem MPs hold their meeting on Tuesday afternoon to decide how they'll vote. But some of them expect they'll need another meeting on Wednesday, because they're so divided.
David Davis tells me that despite his flu he will be back in Westminster on Thursday to vote.
But will it be, as he suggests, a rebellion of one?
Source http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:8823b520-9389-49b7-90fc-3b87589d4e9a
Hull's president, Aidan Mersh, had emailed Davis asking for a meeting with him during the lobby of Parliament on Thursday, when MPs will vote on the Government's controversial proposals to raise the cap on tuition fees.
"Thank you for your e-mail," Davis replied. "But you can save your time. I am going to vote against this proposal."
I eventually tracked David Davis down, not in the Members' Lobby, the cafes, bars or corridors of the Commons or even in his grand corner office in Portcullis House.
He was at home in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency, in bed with flu, he told me.
Yes, he said, he was going to vote against tuition fees. But this was nothing new, he claimed. He has always been against them.
His reasons, he said, were social mobility - after all, he's a grammar school boy raised by a single mum on a council estate in south London - and his fearsabout students getting into too much debt.
But then he told me: "I suspect I am a rebellion of one."
So far, that appears to be correct. At least as far as Conservative MPs are concerned.
In the highest reaches of the Coalition government, there is fury at Davis' latest mutiny against David Cameron.
"Opportunism!" one senior Cabinet Minister told me angrily. "Typical!" said another senior Tory MP.
Students are delighted, however.
"David Davis is to be congratulated for taking a stand on behalf of students and their families and against an attempt to steamroller a tripling of tuition fees through Parliament," said Aaron Porter, NUS president. "He will be by no means the only one to do so."
By that, however, I assume the NUS president means LibDem rebels, rather than Conservative MPs.
But don't get too excited by Norman Baker's apparent threat to rebel. The junior transport minister - a scourge of the establishment in his pre-Government days - gave an interview on Sunday saying he may resign from the Government.
Unlikely, say his pals. He likes being a minister, they claim, and he will almost certainly vote with the Government.
"Playing to the gallery," said one LibDem MP about Stormin' Norman.
The LibDems look as though they will split three ways. Or possibly even four if you count the Greg Mulholland proposal to delay the voting.
Most MPs expect the Government to win the vote on Thursday, however.
LibDem MPs hold their meeting on Tuesday afternoon to decide how they'll vote. But some of them expect they'll need another meeting on Wednesday, because they're so divided.
David Davis tells me that despite his flu he will be back in Westminster on Thursday to vote.
But will it be, as he suggests, a rebellion of one?
Source http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:8823b520-9389-49b7-90fc-3b87589d4e9a
