David Davis is a commanding presence. Tall and authoritative, yet simultaneously ordinary and affable, he has that prize-winning skill of making whoever he is speaking to feel as if they are only person in the room. Speaking in Oxford on what he saw as the negative effects of the government’s rise in tuition fees, Davis managed to connect with his audience and speak to each member as if he understood their problems, performing the role of populist to perfection.

His media reputation might easily prompt those who haven’t met him to think otherwise. His self-description as “a massive Thatcherite” at first seems convincing: he voted against the repeal of Section 28 and supports the restoration of the death penalty, a tough law and order policy, and his former leader’s free-market economics of lower taxes and privatisation. And yet, Davis’s own political views are in fact at once more subtle and complex. A champion of civil liberties and an opponent of the rise in tuition fees he is not so much the classic right- wing Thatcherite many would have him be, but a more a tangled web of contradictions.

Brought up in a single- parent family in Tooting, he is able to speak with authority when he talks of those young people in Britain who are brought up in poor areas and go to what he calls “poor comprehensives and second- rate universities”. I started our conversation by talking to him about the problems involved with a university education in Britain today. For him, there is no doubt that there is, in Britain “an obsession with universities” and that the Labour aim of sending 50 per cent of school- leavers to university was “guaranteed to cause social and financial problems.” Davis believes that the idea that going to university automatically improves your life chances is all too often a “confidence trick” that can create significant opportunity costs for young people.

I asked him whether it concerned him that his party’s front bench represents a far cry from his own upbringing, being dominated by people who were privately educated, went to Oxbridge, and have of- ten never worked outside of politics. Image: Office of David Davis “Not necessarily”, he responded. For him, the One Nation concept of noblesse oblige is understandable – so long as the electors as well as the elected comprehend it – particularly since for many MPs it was grounded on their experiences in the Second World War. For Davis then, whilst Margaret Thatcher was “very good for the working classes”, by taking the ‘class’ out of the Tory party she “broke the mould” and made rebuilding it difficult.

When I put it to Davis that his 2005 Conservative Party leadership contest was principally one of Cameron’s modernisation against his more Thatcherite, right-wing conservatism, he immediately retorted by telling me that the domain name for his leadership campaign was ‘modernconservative.com’. He described himself as one of the “originators of the detoxification idea” though crucially for him, the real toxification problem was different from David Cameron’s interpretation. For Davis, it was principally based around money, and the Tory party coming across as “a bunch of rich people with friends in the city who they looked after” a conception which, he believes, stemmed from the sleaze scandals of the 1990s and the Major government’s catastrophe in the 1992 ERM crisis, when the Tory party threw “two centuries of economic credibility out of the window.”

We talked of Cameron’s idea of detoxification and whether it has worked. For Davis it was characterised by his ‘vote blue go green’ image, “huskies and a metropolitan agenda of gay rights”. He quipped that he agreed with his leader’s ‘hug a hoodie’ idea, the only difference being that he would hug “harder and longer”. According to Davis however, Cameron’s detoxification has principally failed because it addressed the wrong issue. By failing to ad- dress the Conservative Party’s public perception when it came to money, detoxification has proved pointless.

What then of Cameron in coalition? For Davis, there are “two models of a coalition and the government is metamorphosing from one to another”. The first, one of “lowest common denominator compromises on everything” is what he believes the government started with. The second, of each party adopting “distinctive positions”, which he feels the coalition has more recently moved to, is one that requires a “mechanism for differences of opinion”, something which Davis advised Cameron to allow for in a phone call the day after the 2010 election. This is something that the Coalition has, according to Davis, not yet provided for.

The Coalition’s biggest problem is, so far as Davis is concerned, its economic policy. For him, “growth is incredibly important to the deficit reduction” and “lower taxes and fierce deregulation” are the way forward. Cuts in national insurance and in capital gains levels are proposals that he believes would help with this. Davis feels that the Conservative Party needs to move back towards an emphasis on small business and an entrepreneurial spirit. Osborne and Cameron are, he says, “susceptible to arguments from big business despite it only providing about one quarter of the jobs in the country.”

For Davis, the “Tory party needs a civilising influence from time to time”, but that has not been provided by the Liberal Democrats, though he feels it should have been. He can see the possibility of a Liberal Democrat internal split and believes that those he calls the “orange book Lib Dems” (such as David Laws) could play the civilising role that the Conservatives need.

Looking towards the 2015 election, a significant possibility for Davis is that the Liberal Democrats will want to sell themselves as the party that “moderates the extremes of the other two parties” – a role that will naturally involve trying to get closer to Labour.

When I ask him about his own future he says, “Look, if I’m needed I’m here, but if I’m not I don’t care.” On the suggestion of his returning to office as a way for David Cameron to reconnect with the right wing of his party, he says he wouldn’t go back “just to be a mouthpiece” or for “symbolic reasons”. Indeed, after talking to Davis it is hard to imagine what at all he could symbolise.

His right-wing media stereotype is shattered at soon as you talk to him. His pragmatic, cool and charming manner makes him impossible to categorise. He himself put it better than any- one else ever could: “I’m a very quirky stereo- type,” he told me. That, I am sure, is how David Davis shall remain.

Science has a problem. It just doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ in society. The bad, or simply absent, coverage of science through the media; the lack of scientific knowledge in our policy making; and our inability to stand up to big business all mean that the impact that science has on society isn’t anywhere near what it could be. In an age when we rely more and more on scientific discovery, our perceptions of science undermine its importance and its contribution to our everyday lives.

One of the biggest issues is the lack of science in policy making. If we look at our political leaders, the people with knowledge seem to be less connected than ever to the people with power. The proportion of policy makers who understand science are few and far between: of the 462 MPs with degrees, just 27 (roughly 6%) have science or technology degrees, and just one is a scientist with a research background (Julian Huppert, in case you were wondering). Since Dr Liam Fox left Cabinet, science representation is even bleaker: there isn’t a single cabinet minister with a science degree.

Nonetheless it’s a two-way problem. Just as there is a lack of scientific knowledge amongst our politicians, equally the majority of scientists seem unwilling or unable to engage in the political process. Partly owing to a lack of trust in the political system, or often simply a lack of understanding of how policy is made, most scientists don’t want to get involved. 

Turning our attention to the meida, it’s pretty obvious that science is also misrepresented at this level too. Ben Goldacre, one of the few outspoken critics of science coverage in the media, claimed almost seven years ago that science stories usually fall into three categories: wacky stories, scare stories and ‘breakthrough’ stories. Not much has changed since. We still see the headline-grabbing articles with a tendency to overstate a claim based on questionable data stemming from just one source. This is what the public wants to read – it’s exciting, it’s interesting, but it’s also just plain wrong. If the media can’t stop falling over themselves to publish these sensationalist stories, then not only will the public continue to be scarily misinformed, but the real stories, the ones with real evidence and years of meticulous research that may actually make a difference, will largely be ignored.

Finally there’s the question of the relationship between science and money. Pharmaceutical companies make billions – fact. However the power that this wealth brings is accompanied by huge problems, chiefly an unwillingness to bring these companies to account. Again it’s Goldacre’s voice that stands out in the crowd in his criticism of large pharmaceutical corporations. Recently he claimed that “half of all the clinical trials ever conducted and completed on the treatments in use today have never been published in academic journals.” I don’t doubt him for a second; the lack of transparency of these companies is astonishing, and yet time and time again they get away with it.

A stark reminder of how powerful drug companies are comes in the form of a small, naturally occurring ion – lithium. Lithium has been used to treat bipolar disorder for over half a century, and despite millions put into research, no other substance has been shown to be as effective as lithium. There are of course downsides, and the unwanted side effects are well documented, but the fact remains that lithium is a wonder-drug for millions of bipolar sufferers the world over. And yet, the press coverage and availability of this drug is extremely limited. Doctors sometimes prescribe a whole host of different drugs before they get to lithium. Why? Well, as with everything the issue is a complicated one, but one of the strongest arguments lies in the fact that lithium cannot be patented. The consequence of this is simply that no money can be made from selling it.

There is simply no defence for withholding effective treatments on account of money. This is a simple right versus wrong issue, and yet every day, sufferers are denied such a simple life-changing solution. The same applies to antiretroviral drugs in Africa, and many more besides. Drug companies are simply too powerful, and there aren’t enough Goldacres of this world who are pointing this fact out.

We need more figures in the media, politics and business with the knowledge and the courage to make sure that science gets its voice heard for its own sake. Only then can we appreciate the benefits that good science can bring.

On Tuesday morning Peter Huhne, a second-year at Oxford, woke up to find his name splashed across national newspapers, his adolescent picture featuring prominently on its inside pages.

Peter Huhne’s big mistake, his unforgiveable crime, was to be born to someone famous. Whilst he was at school, preparing for his A-levels and applying to Oxford, his father, the former Lib Dem Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne, was misbehaving in both his private and public life. He conducted an affair and forced his family through an unpleasant divorce.

Forgetting that it’s generally a bad idea to cheat on someone who’s provided you with an alibi, he then perverted the course of justice, denying that he had been at the wheel of his car a decade ago when it was caught speeding. To covnceal a fairly innocuous crime – speeding and then ‘points sharing’ – Huhne committed a serious one, namely lying about it in front of a judge.

In the poisoned relationship that developed between Chris and Peter, the then-teenage Huhne sent his father a series of aggressive and spiteful text messages. Two of these strongly implicated the former Energy Minister in a crime to which he was publicly pleading innocent. The first: “We all know that you were driving and you put pressure on Mum. Accept it or face the consequences. You’ve told me that was the case. Or will this be another lie?” And the second: “Are you going to accept responsibility or do I have to contact the police and tell them what you told me?” It is eminently sensible that these were disclosed to the court. However the rest indicated nothing more than a dysfunctional relationship between a father and a son. Chris called Peter “Tiger”; he replied labelling him “an autistic piece of shit”.

Simon Kelner, a former editor of The Independent, describes the pain Huhne must have felt much better than any fatherless student can. “[Imagine] he sends a text to his son, proffering a hand in reconciliation, or sending a message of support, or simply expressing paternal love. A few minutes later, his mobile pings, and for a brief moment his heart lifts, hopeful for what has been delivered. But then he opens the text to reveal an implacably hostile response. Again and again, over the course of a year, Huhne put himself through the same gut-wrenching process.” Why did these anguished exchanges need to be disclosed to the court?

The Indy reported that the texts were read out “as part of an ill-fated attempt to have the prosecution case against Huhne thrown out.” That’s potentially misleading, because it suggests that Huhne used the hostile texts he received from his son to undermine the veracity of his son’s accusations.

Lianna Brinded, a legal affairs journalist, doesn’t think that was the motivation. “Technically, the text messages were not actually hugely important to the judgment, but they were relevant to the applications Huhne made in open court. The disclosure of the texts occurred after Huhne made an application for a case dismissal and so therefore circumstantial evidence, such as the text messages, became relevant and admissible for the Crown Prosecution.”

In any case, that is how the texts entered the public domain. Chris Huhne’s defence team, not the newspapers, put them there. However that the public should now be privy to all the messages – private messages – remains unpleasant. The newspapers’ collective decision to publish a deeply personal and wretched correspondence between a father and son, both under immense pressure, is morally dubious.

Jane Merrick, a political editor, spoke for the journalistic class when she insisted to me on twitter that “the media will always cover details of court cases once [reporting restrictions] are lifted.” But just because the papers were entitled to publish the texts doesn’t mean they should have done. Nor is it correct to infer that the public ought to be told the grisly details from the fact that they could, in theory, go and find them out themselves. It is a classic case of journalists purposefully conflating what interests the public with the public interest. And it stinks.

Clearly to expect censorious behaviour from one paper, not to mention several, is unrealistic. For one paper to break ranks would be impossible; in a struggling industry newspapers need to squeeze as much juice out of every story as they can. Collective action is the only way the industry can restrict its most odious practices. This does not constitute an appeal for the full implementation of the Leveson recommendations: state regulation of the press remains an ugly and unpromising prospect.

If the press could exercise the sort of collective self-restraint on reporting that it does when Harry goes to Afghanistan, for instance, then the likes of Peter Huhne might sleep a little easier at night.