Tag: Denis Healey

The former Treasury minister Denzil Davies, who has died aged 80, was a brilliant but mercurial politician for whom the promise of a glittering Westminster career was thwarted by the unfortunate combination of Labour’s long years in opposition after 1979 and his somewhat volatile character. The son of a colliery blacksmith from Carmarthenshire, Davies left the valleys of south-west Wales for Pembroke College, Oxford, where his outstanding intellect was confirmed by a first-class honours degree in law. Davies was a charming, popular and convivial man who throughout his 35 years in the Commons resisted aligning himself with the factions of either left or right in the Labour party and was driven, rather, by his own strongly held political convictions. He had tried to resist Kinnock reappointing him to defence after the general election in 1987 – having unsuccessfully sought instead to become foreign affairs spokesman – and was irritated by Kinnock’s style of leadership. At Westminster he became parliamentary private secretary to the Welsh secretary John Morris in 1974, until becoming a minister himself in 1975. He was switched to defence in 1982 and briefly to Welsh affairs when Kinnock first took over as leader in 1983, before then being moved back to defence and disarmament. In doing so, however, he thus guaranteed his place as a backbencher during the Blair government. He stood down as MP in 2005. The compensation of his latter years was to have found profound happiness in his second marriage, in 1989, to Ann Carlton, the journalist and author, who had previously worked as a member of the Labour party research staff. His first marriage, in 1963, to Mary Ann Finlay, ended in divorce in 1988.

The former Treasury minister Denzil Davies, who has died aged 80, was a brilliant but mercurial politician for whom the promise of a glittering Westminster career was thwarted by the unfortunate combination of Labour’s long years in opposition after 1979 and his somewhat volatile character. The son of a colliery blacksmith from Carmarthenshire, Davies left the valleys of south-west Wales for Pembroke College, Oxford, where his outstanding intellect was confirmed by a first-class honours degree in law. Davies was a charming, popular and convivial man who throughout his 35 years in the Commons resisted aligning himself with the factions of either left or right in the Labour party and was driven, rather, by his own strongly held political convictions. He had tried to resist Kinnock reappointing him to defence after the general election in 1987 – having unsuccessfully sought instead to become foreign affairs spokesman – and was irritated by Kinnock’s style of leadership. At Westminster he became parliamentary private secretary to the Welsh secretary John Morris in 1974, until becoming a minister himself in 1975. He was switched to defence in 1982 and briefly to Welsh affairs when Kinnock first took over as leader in 1983, before then being moved back to defence and disarmament. In doing so, however, he thus guaranteed his place as a backbencher during the Blair government. He stood down as MP in 2005. The compensation of his latter years was to have found profound happiness in his second marriage, in 1989, to Ann Carlton, the journalist and author, who had previously worked as a member of the Labour party research staff. His first marriage, in 1963, to Mary Ann Finlay, ended in divorce in 1988.