Ron Davies

Ronald Davies (born 6 August 1946) is a Welsh politician, former Secretary of State for Wales, former Member of Parliament and former member of the Welsh Assembly. Image File history File links Ron_davies. ... August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days remaining. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Motto: (Welsh for Wales forever) Anthem: Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff Official language(s) English, Welsh Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Rhodri Morgan AM Unification    - by Gruffudd ap Llywelyn 1056  Area    - Total 20,779 km² (3rd in... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The post of Secretary of State for Wales came into existence in October of 1964, the first incumbent being Jim Griffiths, MP for Llanelli. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house. ... The National Assembly for Wales (or NAW) (Welsh: Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru) was established in 1998, following a 1997 referendum in which a small majority of voters (but not the electorate) voted in favour of the Labour Governments plans for devolution. ...

He is credited with being the 'architect of devolution' in Wales and led the campaign to create a National Assembly for Wales. He became the first Cabinet Minister to resign from Tony Blair's Cabinet, in 1998. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953)[1] is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Leader of the UK Labour Party, and Member of the UK Parliament for the constituency of Sedgefield in North East England. ...

In 2004 he resigned from the Labour Party, joining Forward Wales, for which he has unsuccessfully stood as a candidate. The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the principal political party of the left in the United Kingdom. ... Forward Wales (or Cymru Ymlaen in Welsh) is a political party operating in Wales. ...

Life

Born in Machen in the Rhymney Valley, he was first elected as a Councillor in 1969 to the former Machen Urban District Council at the age of 23. A year later he became the youngest council leader in Britain at the age of 24. After local government re-organisation in 1974 he continued as leader of the newly constituted Rhymney Valley District Council and led a campaign for a Fair Rents Act against plans by the Conservative Government of Edward Heath to increase the amount of rent paid by Council house tenants. Machen is a small village 4½ miles east of Caerphilly, south Wales, situated in the Caerphilly borough and traditional county of Monmouthshire. ... The Rhymney Valley is a valley in south Wales, formerly famous for its coal mining industry. ... Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, MBE (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005), soldier and politician, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. ...

He was educated in Bassaleg Grammar School before graduating in Geography at what was then known as Portsmouth Polytechnic (University of Portsmouth). After training to be a teacher at Cardiff University he spent two years as a school teacher before becoming a Tutor-Organiser for the Workers' Education Association, succeeding Neil Kinnock on his election to Parliament. He went on to become Further Education Adviser for the Mid-Glamorgan Education Authority from 1974 until 1983, when he was elected to Parliament as the Labour MP for Caerphilly. The University of Portsmouth is the only university in the city of Portsmouth. ... The main building of Cardiff University Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cardiff University Cardiff University (Welsh: Prifysgol Caerdydd) is a leading university located in the civic centre of Cardiff, Wales. ... Rt. ... Caerphilly Castle Caerphilly (Welsh: Caerffili) is a town in Glamorgan, Wales, located at the bottom of the Rhymney Valley. ...

Life as an MP

After two years as a backbench MP, Ron Davies was appointed an Opposition Whip in 1985, where his subject areas included agriculture and the environment. In 1987 he was appointed to the opposition frontbench as a spokesman on Agriculture and Rural Affairs responsible for reviewing the Labour Party's policies on animal welfare. In politics, a whip is a member of a political party in a legislature whose task is to ensure that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires. ...

He was appointed Chief Opposition spokesman for agriculture in July 1992 and did much to highlight the growing threat from BSE. In October 1992 he won a by-election to the Shadow Cabinet following the resignation of Bryan Gould from the Labour frontbench. He was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Wales by John Smith. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) commonly known as mad cow disease, is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle, which infects by a mechanism that surprised biologists on its discovery in the late 20th century. ... Bryan Gould (born February 11, United Kingdom, but was born in New Zealand. ... John Smith QC (September 13, 1938 – May 12, 1994) was a British politician who served as leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack on 12 May 1994. ...

As the Labour Party's chief spokesman for Wales from 1992 to 1997, Ron Davies developed the party's devolution policy. He negotiated support for a sixty-member Welsh Assembly to take over the functions of the Secretary of State for Wales and elected by an element of proportionality. His personal preference for a body with stronger powers was defeated internally.

Ron Davies as Secretary of State for Wales

In May 1997 Ron Davies was appointed by Tony Blair to the Privy Council and the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. Image File history File links Ron Davies MP, Secretary of State for Wales 1997 - 1998 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953)[1] is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Leader of the UK Labour Party, and Member of the UK Parliament for the constituency of Sedgefield in North East England. ...

One of his first acts was to return the £150,000 to the Aberfan disaster fund that a previous Labour Government had taken to restore the site of the landslide that had devastated the valley's community in 1966. Aberfan (in Welsh the f is pronounced like a v in standard English) is a small village 5 miles (8 km) south of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. ...

In July 1997 he published the Government's detailed devolution proposals in the White Paper "A Voice for Wales" and led the Labour Party's successful campaign for a 'yes' vote in the devolution referendum on September 18th, 1997. Though Labour reversed the 4 to 1 majority against devolution recorded in the 1979 referendum, the slender majority of 0.6% and poor turnout (resulting in only 1 in 4 voters in Wales actually voting for the Assembly) cast a shadow over the institution's authority. The Wales referendum of 1997 was a pre-legislative referendum held in Wales only over whether there was support for the creation of an assembly for Wales. ... In a referendum on St Davids Day (March 1) 1979, the people of Wales voted against proposals by the Labour government of the United Kingdom to establish a Welsh Assembly. ...

He steered the Government of Wales Bill through Parliament, and on July 31st, 1998, he saw the Government of Wales Act reach the statute book, putting in place the legislation to set up the first ever National Assembly for Wales. States currently utilizing parliamentary systems are denoted in red and orange—the former being constitutional monarchies where authority is vested in a parliament, and the latter being parliamentary republics whose parliaments are effectively supreme over a separate head of state. ... The National Assembly for Wales (or NAfW) (Welsh: ) is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales, and is also responsible for most UK government departments in Wales. ...

He has been credited with being "the architect of devolution", and was appointed to the highest order of the Gorsedd of the Bards at the 1998 National Eisteddfod in Bridgend. A gorsedd (SAMPA /gO:rsED/), occasionally spelled gorseth, plural gorseddau, is a community of bards. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Bridgend (Welsh: Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) is a town in the traditional county of Glamorgan and the main town in the county borough of Bridgend in south Wales. ...

Five Resignations

On 19th September, 1998, he defeated Rhodri Morgan to become Labour's candidate for First Secretary of the Assembly at a special Labour Party conference in Newport. Just over a month later on 29 October 1998, he resigned this post - two days after resigning as Secretary of State for Wales on 27 October 1998. He stood down citing "an error of judgement" in agreeing to go for a meal with a man he had met while walking on Clapham Common in London, a well-known gay meeting place. He was mugged at knifepoint. The full details of the incident (which he famously called a "moment of madness" at the urging of the Tony Blair's Press Secretary Alastair Campbell) have never emerged. He later acknowledged that he had been bisexual for some time, and was receiving treatment for a personality disorder which led him to seek out risky situations. Rhodri Morgan, pictured while on an eve of poll visit during the National Assembly of Wales election in 2003. ... October 29 is the 302nd day of the year (303rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... October 27 is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 65 days remaining. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Clapham Common Clapham Common is a triangular area of grassland of about 200 acres (0. ... For other articles with similar names, see Gay (disambiguation). ... Alastair Campbell Alastair John Campbell (born May 25, 1957) was the Director of Communications and Strategy for 10 Downing Street. ... In human sexuality, bisexuality describes a man or woman having a sexual orientation to persons of either or both sexes (a man or woman who sexually likes both sexes; people who are sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females). ...

On 30th January, 1999, Ron Davies was selected as Labour's prospective candidate for the first elections to the National Assembly for Wales. He was successfully elected on May 6th, 1999 as Assembly Member for the Caerphilly Constituency, and initially chaired the Economic Development Committee after Alun Michael refused to appoint him to his Cabinet. Further revelations and disagreements with the Labour leadership resulted in his resignation from the Chairmanship of the committee. He stood down from Parliament at the 2001 general election. The Right Honourable Alun Edward Michael (born August 2, 1943) is a Welsh politician. ... Tony Blair William Hague Charles Kennedy The UK general election, 2001 was held on 7 June 2001 and was dubbed the quiet landslide by the media. ...

He is known for the phrase "Devolution is a process and not an event", by which he meant that the settlement he introduced in 1997 would not be the final one, and more powers would accrue to the Welsh Assembly over time. He wrote a pamphlet for the Institute of Welsh Affairs with the same title in 1998.

Shortly before the 2003 assembly elections, The Sun revealed that Davies had been visiting a well-known cruising spot near a motorway layby. When challenged as to what he had been doing there, Davies claimed to have been looking for badgers. Davies was forced to stand down as Labour candidate in the election. The second election to the Welsh Assembly was held on May 1, 2003. ... The Sun is a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland with the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at 3,107,412 copies daily in the first half of 2006 [1], (cf USA Today, the best-selling... Cruising for sex, or cruising, describes the act of walking or driving about a locality in pursuit of a partner for (often quick and anonymous) sex. ... Genera  Arctonyx  Melogale  Meles  Mellivora  Taxidea For other uses, see Badger (disambiguation). ...

He resigned from the Labour Party in 2004, citing opposition to the Iraq War and worries about the competence of the Welsh Labour Party. He has since joined the new Forward Wales political party, and stood for election to the European Parliament in June 2004 as a candidate of that party, but failed to be elected. For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ... Forward Wales (or Cymru Ymlaen in Welsh) is a political party operating in Wales. ... Sign in the entrance of the European Parliament building in Brussels, written in all the official languages used in the European Union as of July 2006 The European Parliament building in Strasbourg The debating chamber, or hemicycle, in Strasbourg The European Parliament building in Brussels The European Parliament (formerly European...

External links

• [1] Ron Davies's former home page
• [2] National Library of Wales documents on devolution