Denzil Davies

Denzil Davies
The Right Honourable; Denzil Davies
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; for Llanelli
	In office; 19 June 1970 – 11 April 2005
Preceded by	Jim Griffiths
Succeeded by	Nia Griffith
Personal details
Born	David John Denzil Davies; 9 October 1938; Carmarthen
Died	10 October 2018 (aged 80)
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Mary Ann Finlay (div.) Ann Carlton
Alma mater	Pembroke College, Oxford

David John Denzil Davies PC (9 October 1938 – 10 October 2018) was a British Labour politician. He served for 35 years as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Llanelli from 1970 to 2005, and was a member of the Privy Council.

Early life

Davies was born in Cynwyl Elfed, Carmarthenshire. He attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School for Boys in Carmarthen, and then Pembroke College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First Class Honours BA in Law and Gray's Inn where he qualified as a barrister. He lectured in Law at University of Chicago in 1963 and the University of Leeds from 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 the 1966 Carmarthen by-election, losing out to Gwilym Prys-Davies.[1]

Davies was elected in the 1970 general election as the Member of Parliament for Llanelli. He would go on to be appointed as a Treasury Minister in James Callaghan's Government. He was a Eurosceptic, and he campaigned against Britain's entry into the EEC.[2] He also opposed the National Assembly for Wales.

Davies served in a number of posts when Labour formed the Official Opposition after the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, including Shadow Secretary of State for Wales in Michael Foot's Shadow Cabinet and Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in Neil Kinnock's. Like his predecessor as Shadow Defence Secretary, John Silkin, he resigned from the front bench in June 1988 in protest at Neil 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 in 1983.[3]

He was one of the few Labour MPs with ministerial experience remaining after the 1997 landslide that returned Labour to power after 18 years in opposition. As a backbencher Davies continued to oppose Britain's membership of the EU.[4]

He stood down at the 2005 general election, and was replaced by Nia 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 (2010 ISBN 978-0-9566489-0-7)

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gollark: To ensure proper distribution of powers, you should have many submods with one permission each.

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VZu9RpY92c (6 minutes in)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/15/denzil-davies-obituary Archived 5 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
"Labour Deputy Leader Elections". Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020227/debtext/20227-03.htm Archived 20 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Hansard, 27 February 2002. Retrieved 12 September 2017.

External links

BBC profile (outdated)
They Work for You
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Denzil Davies

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Jim Griffiths	Member of Parliament for Llanelli 1970–2005	Succeeded by Nia Griffith

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[1] ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VZu9RpY92c (6 minutes in)

[2] ttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/15/denzil-davies-obituary Archived 5 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 5 April 2019.

[3] "Labour Deputy Leader Elections". Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 18 February 2015.

[4] ttps://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020227/debtext/20227-03.htm Archived 20 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Hansard, 27 February 2002. Retrieved 12 September 2017.