Quentin Davies
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| Quentin Davies MP | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 11 June 1987 |
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| Preceded by | Kenneth Lewis |
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| Majority | 7,445 (15.8%) |
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| Born | 29 May 1944 Oxford |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour Party (formerly Conservative) |
| Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
John Quentin Davies (born 29 May 1944) is a British Labour Party politician, and Member of Parliament for Grantham and Stamford. He defected from the Conservative Party on 26 June 2007.
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[edit] Early life and education
Quentin Davies was born in Oxford, the son of a doctor who had been in the Royal Air Force (RAF) in World War II (being stationed for a time at Grantham). He went to the local preparatory Dragon School, before attending the Quaker Leighton Park School, Reading. He attended Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1966 and was a Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard University.
[edit] Career
[edit] Diplomat
After his education, he joined the diplomatic service and was appointed Third Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1967, and became a Second Secretary at HM Embassy Moscow in 1969, before returning to London as one of several First Secretaries at the Foreign Office in 1972.
[edit] Businessman
Davies left the diplomatic service in 1974 when he joined Morgan Grenfell. In turn he was an assistant director, the president of the firm in France in 1978 and a director of the international company in 1981, in which capacity he remained until his election to Parliament in 1987. He continued as a consultant to Morgan Grenfell until 1993.
[edit] Politician
He contested the 1977 Birmingham Ladywood by-election caused by the resignation of Brian Walden to become a television presenter but was defeated by John Sever who won the Birmingham Ladywood seat with a majority of 3,825. He was elected to the House of Commons ten years later at the 1987 General Election for the safe Conservative seat of Stamford and Spalding on the retirement of the sitting MP, Kenneth Lewis. Davies held the seat with a majority of 13,991 votes and has remained an MP since. The constituency was abolished in 1997, and he has since represented the redrawn seat of Grantham and Stamford.
In Parliament he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science Angela Rumbold in 1988, and remained her PPS in her incarnation as the Minister at the Home Office. After the 1992 General Election he was a member of the Treasury Committee until he was promoted to the Opposition frontbench by William Hague in 1998 as a spokesman on social security, moving in 1999 to speak on Treasury matters, moving again in 2000 as a spokesman on defence. After the 2001 General Election he joined the Shadow Cabinet of Iain Duncan Smith, even though he had backed Kenneth Clarke's leadership bid. Under Iain Duncan Smith, he became the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, continuing until the election of Michael Howard in 2003, since when he became a member of the International Development Committee. A role that he continued with until his defection to Labour in 2007.
Davies is one of the highest paid MPs for his outside interests and has held many directorships and consultancies with several companies during his time in parliament.[1] He was awarded the 'Parliamentarian of the Year Award' by The Guardian in 1996, the same year he was named 'Backbencher of the Year' by BBC Radio 4. Somewhat unusually, he is a Thatcherite Europhile and was the Chairman of the Conservative Group for Europe from March 2006 until his defection to Labour in June 2007. He was once fined for two charges of animal cruelty relating to sheep on his estate;[2] following his conviction and the immediate dismissal of the shepherd who had been left in charge of the estate, he was greeted by Labour MPs with a retort of 'Baaa!' His estate is now rented to a local cattle farmer.
[edit] Defection from Conservative Party to Labour Party
Davies defected from the Conservative Party to join the Labour Party benches on 26 June 2007, the night before Gordon Brown became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The defection was described by Lincolnshire County Council's Tory leader Martin Hill as an "act of treachery and betrayal".[3] Davies made his decision public in a letter to the Conservative leader David Cameron in which he wrote, "Under your leadership the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything. It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda."[3][4] Davies went on, "I am looking forward to joining another party...which has just acquired a leader I have always greatly admired, who I believe is entirely straightforward, and who has a towering record, and a clear vision for the future of our country which I fully share."[5] Two years prior to his defection, in a speech in the House of Commons Davies described Gordon Brown in as "extraordinarily incompetent", "imprudent", "extraordinarily naïve" and said in conclusion "I trust and believe that something nasty will happen to the Chancellor in electoral terms before too long. He will have no one but himself to blame."[6][7]
[edit] Personal life
He married Chantal Tamplin (daughter of Lt.Col Richard Tamplin) in 1983 at St Andrew's church in Irnham; she is his Parliamentary Assistant and they have two sons (Alexander born June 1987 and Nicholas in August 1988). They live at Frampton Hall (built in 1725 by Coney Tunnard) in Frampton, in the borough of Boston.
[edit] See also
[edit] Publications
- Britain and Europe: A Conservative View by Quentin Davies, 1996, London Conservative Group for Europe.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Guardian Unlimited Politics — Ask Aristotle: Quentin Davies MP
- TheyWorkForYou.com — Quentin Davies MP
- Register of interests
- BBC Politics page
[edit] Video clips
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Kenneth Lewis |
Member of Parliament for Stamford and Spalding 1987–1997 |
Succeeded by (constituency abolished) |
| Preceded by (new constituency) |
Member of Parliament for Grantham and Stamford 1997 – present |
Incumbent |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Andrew Mackay |
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 2001–2003 |
Succeeded by David Lidington |
