David Davis MP

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2008

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Conservative politician David Davis. Born just before Christmas in 1948 to a single mother he was brought up in poverty in first York and then London. He says that he learnt early on the importance of not running away from a challenge and his grandfather and step-father taught him how to face up to his own fears.

He went on to join the SAS through the territorial army and, during his career at Westminster, has earned the nicknames 'Bone Crusher' and 'Bovver Boy'. Yet he shocked his own party when, in June last summer, he stood down as Shadow Home Secretary and announced he was going to campaign against what he saw as a fundamental assault by the government on our civil liberties. In this personal interview, he describes the anxieties that beset him as he made that decision - and the extent to which his political life changed as a result of it.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Un Bel Di - One Fine Day by Kiri Te Kanawa Book: The complete works by Iain Banks Luxury: A magic wine cellar which never runs out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.2	The program was originally broadcast in 2008. My castaway this week is the conservative politician David Davis. Anyone who thinks politics is boring clearly hasn't had an eye on his life and work.
0:35.0	Born just before Christmas in 1948 to a single mother, he was brought up in the slums of South London
0:41.0	and indeed much has been made of his poverty-stricken and often turbulent
0:45.0	childhood.
0:46.2	He has spent time in the SAS, big business and on an IRA hit list.
0:51.4	Bone Crusher and Boverboy are two of the friendlier nicknames he's earned around Westminster.
0:56.1	He says of his background, I take the view that it's perfectly bloody ordinary, ordinary
1:01.6	in the proper sense of the word because vast numbers of people are like me.
1:06.0	Vast numbers of people of course haven't twice stood for the leadership of the Conservative
1:10.5	Party or resigned as Shadow Home Secretary to
1:13.6	Crusade for what they believe in in your case this fundamental
1:16.9	attack on civil liberties David Davis.
1:18.7	Do you think it is that you just can't resist a challenge?
1:23.0	Well, yeah, sure, there's a bit about it, but I mean, the ordinary point is that everybody, virtually
1:29.2	in the country grew up in poorish background. And the other ordinary part about it is it never felt
1:34.8	unusual and for me I was always richer in some sense each year than I was the year
1:40.0	before so that's why it's ordinary but resist a change well when something something
1:45.9	important comes along when there is a challenge when there is a risk when there is a
1:50.1	problem of course that brings out the best in most people doesn't it? When there is a problem. Of course that brings out the best in most people doesn't it?
1:53.0	When there is a crisis of sorts what do you think it is that propels you forwards that
	...

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