As has been the case throughout much of the debate over the 42-day detention of terror suspects, the question on everyone's lips is not necessarily the one that matters.

Forget for a moment the gossip of the Westminster village and ask yourself whether or not it will make us safer to give police the power to hold terror suspects without charge for 42 days.

For Kelvin MacKenzie, who may stand against Davies in the by-election following the former shadow home secretary's resignation, the answer is obvious.

He says he's not afraid of being locked up for 42 days, but he is afraid of being bombed.

UK citizens face a roughly equal threat of being killed by terrorists.
But when it comes to being locked up for 42 days, some of us are at more risk than others.

Kelvin MacKenzie and I are unlikely to feature on any list of terror suspects.

But what if I was a bearded Muslim, living in Beeston and studying a chemical engineering degree, with a penchant for Islamist websites, prone to angry online outbursts concerning British foreign policy?

This character might as well have a name. Let's call him Shehzad.
And let's say one fine morning men come to his house to arrest him.
During his 42-day detainment, he has plenty of time to dwell upon what's happened to him. But when he's released, he is still given no answers.

He has fallen behind with his studies. He can't afford to repeat the year. A future in a dead-end job awaits.

If his neighbours didn't look upon him with suspicion before, they certainly do now.

Because the police never explained why he was held, when his friends at the mosque say it happened simply because he was a Muslim, and that the authorities have got it in for Islam, he will struggle to contradict them.

I'm sorry if this is starting to read like a treatment for a screenplay called The Making Of A Jihadist. But that's the point.

It's worth reminding ourselves of how Islamist terrorists think. Consider, to take one of many examples, the terrorists' statement published after the July 7 attacks, which claimed the outrage was a response to the 'massacres in Iraq'. Never mind that the massacres taking place there were massacres by Muslims of other Muslims; the mentality is such that Islam is engaged in a defensive war with an aggressive West, and that terrorism is the only way the victims have of fighting back.

This is a myth, but it is an attractive one for a minority of angry young men.

The vote for 42 days marks a step back in any progress that had been made in challenging that myth.

As Baroness Shirley Williams said on Question Time last week, interment without trial in Northern Ireland acted as a 'recruiting sergeant' for the IRA. I fear the same thing will happen with the 42 days and Al-Qaida.

In the coming weeks, when we're chuckling at the mess David Davies has landed himself in, when we're indulging in schadenfreude over Gordon Brown's latest misfortune, we'd be wise to remember – and to fear – Shehzad.