Denzil Davies

The Right Honourable Denzil Davies
Official portrait, 2001
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
In office 26 October 1984 – 14 June 1988
Leader	Neil Kinnock
Preceded by	John Silkin
Succeeded by	Martin O'Neill
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales
In office 20 March 1983 – 31 October 1983
Leader	Michael Foot
Preceded by	Alec Jones
Succeeded by	Barry Jones
Minister of State at the Treasury
In office 17 June 1975 – 4 May 1979
Prime Minister	James Callaghan
Preceded by	Robert Sheldon
Succeeded by	Arthur Cockfield Peter Rees
Member of Parliament forLlanelli
In office 19 June 1970 – 11 April 2005
Preceded by	Jim Griffiths
Succeeded by	Nia Griffith
Personal details
Born	David John Denzil Davies (1938-10-09)9 October 1938 Carmarthen
Died	10 October 2018(2018-10-10)(aged 80)
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Mary Ann Finlay (div.) Ann Carlton
Alma mater	Pembroke College, Oxford

David John Denzil DaviesPC(9 October 1938 – 10 October 2018) was a WelshLabour Partypolitician. He served for 35 years as theMember of Parliament(MP) forLlanellifrom1970to2005.He was a Treasury Minister (1975–1979); a member of Labour's Shadow Cabinet team (1979–1988); and a member of thePrivy Council.

Early life

The son of a colliery blacksmith, Denzil Davies was born and brought up inCynwyl Elfed,in ruralCarmarthenshire.From his childhood in this Welsh-speaking area, Davies spoke Welsh fluently.He attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School for Boys in Carmarthen, and thenPembroke College, Oxford,where he graduated with aFirst Class HonoursBAin Law andGray's Innwhere he qualified as abarrister.He lectured in Law at theUniversity of Chicagoin 1963 and theUniversity of Leedsfrom 1964. He practised at the tax bar between 1967 and 1975. Later he also practised in the field of personal injuries and served as a head of chambers.

Parliamentary career

Davies unsuccessfully sought the Labour nomination for the1966 Carmarthen by-election,losing out toGwilym Prys-Davies.

Davies was elected in the1970 general electionas theMember of ParliamentforLlanelli,followingJim Griffiths.

From June 1975 to May 1979, he was aTreasuryMinister in the Labour Government first ofHarold Wilsonand then ofJames Callaghan.

AEurosceptic,Davies campaigned against Britain's entry into the EEC.

He was a supporter of Welsh devolution in the 1979 Referendum.In 1997, he was a strong critic of the Labour Government's plans for limited devolution for Wales, challenging them as inadequate and undemocratic.

Davies served in a number of posts when Labour formed theOfficial Oppositionafter the election ofMargaret Thatcherin1979,includingShadow Secretary of State for WalesinMichael Foot'sShadow CabinetandShadow Secretary of State for DefenceinNeil Kinnock's. He was popular among Labour MPs, and was regularly elected to the Shadow Cabinet without being part of any factional “slate” and without any organised campaign: in 1986 he reached third place in the Shadow Cabinet ballot.

Like his predecessor as Shadow Defence Secretary, John Silkin, he resigned from thefront benchin June 1988 in protest atNeil Kinnock's management style. The trigger for his resignation was Kinnock's announcement, without reference to Davies or the Shadow Cabinet, of a change in Labour's defence policy, from unilateral nuclear disarmament to multilateral nuclear disarmament and then back to unilateral nuclear disarmament, over a period of three days. He made an unsuccessful bid for the Labour Party deputy leadership in1983.

Davies was one of the few Labour MPs with ministerial experience at the time of the1997 landslidethat returned the party to power after 18 years in opposition. However, he was not included in any of the governments formed by Tony Blair. As a backbencher Davies continued to oppose Britain's membership of the EU.

In March 2003, he was one of the Labour MPs who voted against theIraq War.

He stood down at the2005 general election,and was succeeded byNia Griffith.He died on 10 October 2018.

Personal life

He married Mary Ann Finlay in 1963.They had a son and daughter.They divorced in 1988.He married Ann Carlton in 1989.

Publications

• Booth:Residence and Domicile in U.K. Taxation(successive editions)
• Maximise Damages, Minimise Taxes(1993)
• World Trade Organisation and GATT(1994)
• The Galilean and the Goose – How Christianity converted the Roman Empire(2010ISBN978-0-9566489-0-7)

External links

• BBC profile (outdated)
• They Work for You
• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Denzil Davies