David Davis MP

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:26

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.

Presenter0:35

Born just before Christmas in nineteen forty eight to a single mother, he was brought up in the slums of South London, and indeed much has been made of his poverty stricken and often turbulent childhood. He has spent time in the SAS, Big Business, and on an IRA hit list. Bone Crusher and Boverboy are two of the friendlier nicknames he's earned around Westminster.

Presenter0:55

He says of his background.

Presenter0:58

I take the view that it's perfectly bloody ordinary.

Presenter1:01

Ordinary in the proper sense of the word, because vast numbers of people are like me. Um vast numbers of people, of course, haven't twice stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party or resigned as shadow home secretary to crusade for what they believe in, in your case this fundamental attack on civil liberties, David Davis. Do you think it is that you just can't resist a challenge?

David Davis MP1:23

Uh well yeah sure there's a bit of that the bit of that about it, but I mean the the ordinary point is that everybody virtually in the country grew up in a poorish background. And the other ordinary part about it is it never felt unusual. And uh for me I was always richer in some sense each year than I was the year before. So that's why it's ordinary. But resist a change well.

David Davis MP1:44

When something something important comes along, when there is a challenge, when there is a risk, when there is a problem, yeah, of course that brings out the best in most people, doesn't it?

Presenter1:53

When there is a crisis of sorts, what what do you think it is that propels you forwards, that propels you to the front?

David Davis MP2:00

Well, this may surprise you. I suspect I'm more cold blooded than some about crises. Not cold blooded generally, but every decision you make has got a an analytical bit and an emotional bit to it. And I work very hard at getting the analytical bit right, and then that makes the emotional bit easier.

Presenter2:19

And

Presenter2:21

I imagine you've got to not.

Presenter2:23

Be afraid of failing.

Presenter2:25

Uh

David Davis MP2:26

Um

David Davis MP2:28

Well, you always feel a fear. But you've got to be willing to fail. And the shame is not in getting knocked down. The shame is in not getting up again. And I very much believe that.

Presenter2:38

So he gets knocked down, but he gets up again. I presume the front bench is somewhere you'd like to park your backside again?

David Davis MP2:40

Uh

David Davis MP2:45

Not necessarily. Funnily enough, the the the best bits of my career have been on the back benches, not the front benches. And I had to tell you, actually, I'm not picking on anybody in particular, but quite a lot of the front bench jobs are sort of cipher jobs. They didn't all even want to be there, really.

Presenter3:00

But you said they're not necessarily. That sounds like a man who's not ruling out a return.

David Davis MP3:05

Oh, I just don't know. It's not my call, frankly, and I would be reasonably comfortable with whatever outcome. You know, if I'm called back and it's a job that's worth doing, then of course I'll be happy with that. But if I'm not, then I'm not dead. There will be big issues coming up, the big issues on the economy. These big issues actually also require people with the freedom to talk about them not within the party constraint. And there's a big, big advantage there. And because I'm quite well known, and because people like to put me on tele and radio, then I can actually use that in this media age to some, I hope, good effect.

Presenter3:45

Tell me then about your first choice to do.

David Davis MP3:47

Well, in a way it's a sort of musical cliche, but it's a lovely piece of music. I often play it to myself when I walk across the hilltops. It's Passion World's Cannon. It's a baroque, a piece of baroque music, very, very simple melody. People who don't know any serious music know this piece of music because they'cause they it just is so it goes straight to the heart.

Presenter5:05

Pachabelle's canon in D major. So I said that you were brought up in South London, David Davis, but the very early years were spent in a prefab in New York.

David Davis MP5:12

In your body, yes, yeah. A lot of people don't know what a prefab is. It's an Asbestox box, basically. But actually it felt lovely. Just on the edge of York, the end of my garden was the walls of York.

Presenter5:16

Yeah.

David Davis MP5:24

So my memory of that is sunny days playing uh Knights and Dragons with a dustbin lid as a shield and a sort of sharpened broomstick as my spear with with the other kids.

Presenter5:33

And uh as you pointed out in the introduction, I said, you know, perfectly bloody ordinary, but ordinary and poor.

David Davis MP5:39

Yeah, yeah, sure. And I was brought up by my grandparents largely at that point. I mean, I think my mother got out to work, no father around, and they were kindly and nice and gentle, and it was just bang ordinary.

Presenter5:51

And your father and mother had split up before you were born. Did your mum ever discuss that with you?

David Davis MP5:56

No, no. I mean I throughout my entire career I have leeched out piece by piece the truth about this because I never wanted to hurt her or anybody associated with it. So I never told people until she died that she was a single mum and I don't tell people now about who my father is. I know, but because I don't want the press all visiting him and more importantly his family. But no, uh I think it was uh a short relationship which uh just ended up with her being pregnant and I'm lucky. I mean for most youngsters in that circumstance if they weren't terminated they would be adopted I suspect at birth. That was the typical thing in the forties and fifties.

Presenter6:33

And what sort of person was your mother?

David Davis MP6:35

Um, very emotional. Um she's a very loving mum uh and a very feminine mum. She was actually disabled. She had a leg she couldn't mend, but she was very, very good-looking as well. And I have a halo around her in my mind.

Presenter6:48

The fact that your father wasn't there, was that significant to you as a little child? Because often if if if a parent's not present, it is easy for a small child to to put a halo round them, to think that they somewhere off there are the perfect being. Was that the case?

David Davis MP7:00

I rather suspect I didn't think people had dads. I mean, I don't actually remember any sense of absence at all. And indeed, later on, when I was eventually adopted at the age of 12, this sort of struck me as weird. Well, you know, it was for the first time I realised. This was adopted by your mother's husband. Yeah, by my stepfather, a new husband, as it were, or not so new by then. When I was adopted, I thought, it suddenly occurred to me that they'd been going to school and telling them that actually this boy's name is David Brown, but he's going to be on the register as David Davis. Those are all things I just was not conscious of.

Presenter7:35

And were you inevitably it would seem that y you must have been very close to your grandparents then if you were

David Davis MP7:39

Oh, yeah. Oh, the m the man who the the biggest influence in my life was my grandfather, who was uh a communist, a hunger marcher. I we want you to think he was a Jarrow marcher, I don't think that's true now, but uh a hunger marcher, he'd been to prison for his beliefs, uh he'd even been to prison and had been commended by the judge for being an idealist, but he was still found a prison, you know, chained himself the reins of number ten, he was a great man.

David Davis MP8:04

You know, yeah, you're a tiny little boy. Ev all adults look big, but he just felt

David Davis MP8:09

It was a big man, even though he was a polio victim or something, a big man in character. And uh.

David Davis MP8:16

In a way, a good role model. Very, very sure of himself. He knew what he believed. Something that's not that common these days.

Presenter8:23

Let's take a break for your second piece of music then. Tell us about this.

David Davis MP8:26

Modern music for me is picked up by osmosis from my wife and my children basically. And this one, because the others are a bit sad, I thought this one I rather like it and it I get it from my willowy blonde incredibly clever daughter and it's pink and it's get the party started and it just makes me laugh every time I hear it.

Speaker 48:43

This party started on a Saturday night

Speaker 48:48

Is waiting for me to arrive Sending out the message to all of my friends We'll be looking flashy in my Mercedes bands I got lots of styles like my gold diamond rings

Speaker 49:03

Final joking no

Presenter9:13

Pink and Get the Party Started. That song reminds you, David Davis, of your daughter. She introduced you to Pink. You have three children.

Speaker 49:20

Yeah.

Presenter9:20

Is it true that you taught them fear management by sending them up a rock climbing wall?

David Davis MP9:26

Well it's almost true. I don't know where you got that. It's very clever. But the yeah, I believe you can manage fear. And I believe, you know, courage is something that you can learn, really. And I tried to teach each of them in a sort of appropriate way. My two daughters I taught a ski, you know, very early from the age of three onwards. And uh my son I taught uh scuba diving and and uh rock climbing because of the sorts of things you do. You know, you've got to make a decision and you've got to commit to the decision and you've got to control the fear while you're doing it. That's all quite useful in other things.

Presenter9:55

And what about you? What about your personal development, given that there was nobody sending you up a climbing wall or or on a pair of skis when you were three?

Presenter10:03

When did you first confront your own fear?

David Davis MP10:07

Oh uh funny enough, this I I guess an interesting question nobody's ever asked me. The I suppose that the the the answer is when my stepfather actually made me go out and face some bullies. And there were five of them, so it wasn't it wasn't very easy and I lost. Um but uh he made me do that. When I was I thought it must have been about

David Davis MP10:26

Six, seven years old, I guess.

Presenter10:28

Tell me more you were in the house than they were outside, or?

David Davis MP10:30

Yeah, I w th they'd sort of chased me home from school and uh one of them was uh trying to stub out a cigarette on me. So I ran home, ran in and uh he said, Well, yeah, he could see I was distressing what's going on so I told him, He said, Go back and deal with them.

David Davis MP10:43

Uh and yeah, after about

David Davis MP10:45

About a minute he came out and sort of stopped the fight, but kind of just as well, really. So, yeah.

Presenter10:52

Can you remember what you thought?

David Davis MP10:54

Oh, gosh, not much.

Presenter10:55

Uh Uh

David Davis MP10:56

I mean, I was terrible.

Presenter10:56

Terrified. There was a time, wasn't there, when you were, I think around about eleven in the playground, when you decided that you weren't gonna put up with the bullies. Indeed, you weren't gonna side with the bullies. You confronted them.

David Davis MP11:07

Oh gosh, that was when I went to grammar school. I mean a very s uh sort of small lightweight kid changing schools all the time. You tended to be the person, get get the butt end of things. And and when I was I'd passed my eleven plus and I was going to go to grammar school, I just decided this was going to come to an end and I was going to deal with it. That's what I did. And it was quite interesting because from then on, for the next seven or eight years, nobody ever picked a fight because they knew that I wasn't going to tolerate it.

Presenter11:29

One?

Presenter11:38

Tell me about your third piece of music then.

David Davis MP11:40

Ah well, this actually brings me memories of seeing homeless people because

David Davis MP11:45

Just before I was taking my A level, so literally the day before I was taking my physics A level, I had a real big row with my stepfather. I mean it was violent in the sense of it was noisy, we were sort of staring at each other nose to nose. And I ended up walking out the door and just leaving home. I had nowhere to go. So I spent the night wandering the streets of London and I remember walking on the Strand because it was a Joe Lyons. People know where that is now, but a tea shop that was open all night. And I went there and made a mug of tea last a couple of hours, you know, that sort of thing.

Presenter12:11

The T.

Presenter12:16

Yeah, that sort of thing.

David Davis MP12:18

And seeing all the people I'd never seen before who are homeless, you know, lying by sort of vents and things to keep warm. And this this particular song just brings it back to me. It's Phil Collins, Another Day in Paradise.

Speaker 412:32

She calls out to the man on the street

Speaker 412:37

So can you help me?

Speaker 412:42

It's cold and I'm nowhere to sleep.

Speaker 412:46

Is there somewhere you can tell me?

Speaker 412:50

He walks on.

Speaker 412:53

Doesn't look bad.

Speaker 412:55

He pretends he can't hear her

Presenter13:00

Phil Collins and Another Day in Paradise. And it stirs up it's not of the time, of course, but it stirs up memories for you, David Davis, of walking those streets after this huge bust-up that you had with with your stepfather.

David Davis MP13:08

But yeah

Presenter13:12

Uh did that change your relationship with other people in the family? What sort of impact did it have?

David Davis MP13:16

Well, this was the time that I suppose I was at my most idealistic. My grandfather's influence on me was was at its most. And so I think it was.

Presenter13:22

This is your communist band.

David Davis MP13:24

I called his grandfather and I talked to him about it and he you know, he had incredible insights about this sort of thing because I remember about two months after I'd left home, you know, and I'm sort of angry with my step dad at that time.

David Davis MP13:35

He said done.

David Davis MP13:36

David, you don't understand.

David Davis MP13:39

that to your stepfather you are the other man in your mother's life.

David Davis MP13:43

And when he said that, sort of scales dropped my eyes. I just I just th thought, well, you know, he he went suddenly from villain to saint in in sort of seconds. Your stepfather did. My stepfather did and I thought, Crikey.

Presenter13:47

Yeah, it gave me.

Presenter13:51

Your stepfather died.

Presenter13:55

But it didn't enable you to to to patch up this difficulty. I mean, you you you didn't talk to your stepfather, indeed your for your parents for a long time.

David Davis MP13:59

For indeed for a long time. I just earned the money for it because because I didn't even get them to fill in the forms to get the grant, you know.

Presenter14:10

Right. They wouldn't fill in the form.

David Davis MP14:11

Well, I mean, we do would they wouldn't none of us would speak to each other. It's as much my fault as theirs.

Presenter14:17

Yeah, I mean I that I was wondering, how much of a reflection is that on either their stubbornness or yours?

David Davis MP14:17

Box.

David Davis MP14:21

Both, both. I mean, this was a I'm afraid this was a high testosterone household. We used to have I'm getting that impression. You know, we were both pig-headed.

Presenter14:25

I'm getting that impression.

Presenter14:30

And you then around about this time, you joined the Territorial Army and and I hope you don't expect me to believe this. You chose the SAS because it paid best.

David Davis MP14:42

Uh

Presenter14:42

It's

David Davis MP14:43

That's what I read. It did pay a bit better. Ah, f well, it was one of those things. I mean.

Presenter14:43

That's what I read in a couple of years.

David Davis MP14:48

Um he chose the SAS because.

David Davis MP14:51

I don't actually know, uh is the honest answer. Gotta understand. Well everybody knows about it now, it was almost unknown in those days.

David Davis MP14:59

And it was sort of rather attractive from that point of view. I wanted to parachute, I wanted to do the sorts of things I did, and also I suppose all the events of the preceding years left me want to prove myself a bit.

Presenter15:12

Yeah. I'm glad. It's ice in the open. Here we have it. Um, was it difficult to get in?

David Davis MP15:17

What a

Presenter15:18

They make you do.

David Davis MP15:19

Um well not supposed to talk about very much of that, but basically about only about I think it's normally less than one in ten, get it. It's very physical, but really the primary physicality is between your ears.

David Davis MP15:30

Just not giving up, man.

Presenter15:32

The idea of being physically not just able, but actually strong and powerful is seems very important to you.

David Davis MP15:40

No. Um it's an interesting thought. I mean, I'm I it's been an assumption. That's a terrible arrogant thing to say, but I I suspect everybody lives to a sort of self-image of themselves. They sort of create.

David Davis MP15:51

a sort of personal illusion and then try and live to the illusion. I mean I that's essentially what I do. And you look through history, who do you admire? Who do I admire? Leonidas the Spartan or Horatio who defended the Bridge of Rome and people who just stood up and did things. History is made by people, often by just one or two people.

David Davis MP16:10

Deciding that against the odds they're going to do something. We all have our aspirations, and that's my aspiration. To try and do things and try and recognize sometimes that, you know, if it's scary or whatever, you can still do it.

Presenter16:21

Tell me about your next piece of music then, not from Brave Heart.

David Davis MP16:23

No, it's not from Braveheart. No, no. I didn't really like Braveheart, to be honest, but the.

David Davis MP16:28

I worked for a while in North America. It was actually in Southwest Ontario. And I have just always had an admiration for the people who built America. They fought against temperatures and weather and the wildness of the country. And they conquered the country. I'm not talking about the conquering the Indians, that's a rather sadder aspect of it, but they conquered the country. And this piece of music just brings back that just feeling of awe, frankly, at what they were like. I mean, how these ordinary people

David Davis MP16:59

made a very extraordinary set of nations.

Presenter17:31

Unger and Mason and the Ashokan Farewell. So, David Davis, you you wanted to go to Cambridge, but you ended up winning a scholarship to Warwick University. You read molecular and computer sciences.

Presenter17:43

Warnock University campus around about the time you were there must have been a a hotbed of left

David Davis MP17:48

Wing

Presenter17:48

Uh

David Davis MP17:48

Radicalism, how did you fit in? It was, and it was sort of there I discovered I was a conservative, actually. I joined all the political parties on the first day.

Presenter17:48

Radicalism

David Davis MP17:56

My wife will kill me for this, but partly because the socialists had the best-looking girls and some of the best literature. The Liberals were the most amusing, and the Tories, well, just because I wanted to get a full set.

Presenter18:06

But but given your your background and given how close you were to to your grandparents, to your grandfather particularly, what your political awakening in terms of making a connection with the right rather than the left, can you trace it to one particular scene?

David Davis MP18:20

It's quite hard. There are sort of amalgam of things that had an an impact and who knows which was most important. Part of it was the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. Part of it was actually the sort of irresponsible bourgeois radicalism of my fellow students at the time, actually destroying a good university with sit-ins and all this sort of stuff.

David Davis MP18:43

Part of it was just growing up and realizing, you know, that life was about earning enough money to pay the bills and all the rest of it.

Presenter18:50

How were you how were you paying yourself to universal

David Davis MP18:51

Well, I'd save money um as you as you noted, partly from the army, partly from working during that uh year out. And then I was working during the holidays, you know, on building sites and so on to to pay my way through.

Presenter19:04

And university, as you've mentioned, was the the time that you you met your wife, Doreen Cook. You've been together for forty years. Yeah.

David Davis MP19:07

Doing

David Davis MP19:09

Yeah. Oh, what

Presenter19:11

What kind of woman is

David Davis MP19:12

Um she's Scottish by origin, Hertfordshire by where she grew up. But I sat next to her in the lectures and eventually she moved because I used to make her laugh all the time, and distract her from the lectures. Um I suppose I laid siege for about two years uh before I was successful.

Presenter19:29

And so by the it was the early seventies then, you were chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students, and that is a significant role because usually it means that whoever has held that post will then be fast-tracked through the party. And yet, perversely, you went into business. You ended up on the board of Taton Lyle. And you specialise, you were very good at turning round failing businesses. That's all about being incredibly tough and resilient. You've really not got to care what people think.

David Davis MP20:00

Uh not entirely. That's partly true. But also when you're actually trying to turn around a failing company, a lot of it is making people believe that they can make this failure work. And you know, I always took the view it's my job on the line too and I tried to get that across to everybody. You know, either we're all going to be employed next year or none of us are going to be employed next year. And then it worked.

Presenter20:20

And so after a a successful time in business, you became an MP in 1987.

David Davis MP20:25

Yeah.

Presenter20:26

I'm wondering about your ideals. There you were, somebody who had pulled yourself up by your own bootlaces. We we've heard about all the work you did through university. You funded yourself, you did difficult jobs, you had to fit in all the studying. At the same time, you were given extra money because you were such a a good student, you were given a bursary.

Presenter20:46

There you are looking at the people at the bottom and thinking, well, if I did all of that, why can't you at least do a bit of it? Do you think there's some of that in you?

David Davis MP20:54

No, I'm not really a moralizer about those sorts of things. I mean, yes, I do think people ought to make the best of their lives, there's no doubt about that. But I'm also acutely conscious that people can get broken.

David Davis MP21:08

By life. I mean, that's the converse, if you like, of believing you can teach courage.

Presenter21:13

Is

David Davis MP21:13

is that you can be taught the opposite. Circumstances can teach you the opposite.

Presenter21:17

Let's take a break for your next piece of music then. What have you chosen?

David Davis MP21:20

This is uh one fine day from Bethune's Madam Butterfly. This has got significance to me for another reason. This was the day that Margaret Thatcher effectively decided to stand down as Prime Minister. And many others tried very hard to uh persuade her not to stand down.

David Davis MP21:39

There was this woman.

David Davis MP21:40

Brave, determined, committed, altruistic.

David Davis MP21:45

Who was gonna have her life destroyed, in effect? And I just felt for her. This was a great personal tragedy. And I don't drink alone normally, but I went home that day, that night, it was after midnight by then, and got a half bottle of whiskey out and listened to some Puccini. And this was, I think, the most appropriate one, because this is when a woman who's been abandoned is looking to see whether her lover is coming back. It's a very evocative piece of music, anyway, but I always associate it with that.

David Davis MP22:17

Great personal tragedy and a great changing point in Britain's history.

Speaker 423:03

Oh no!

Presenter23:18

Kili Tikanua singing Anbeldi one fine day from Puccini's Madam Butterfly. Memories there very evocative of Thatcher leaving number ten. L let's bring the politics, let's drag you bang up to date. I want you to think back to Blackpool two thousand and five. It's the party conference.

David Davis MP23:34

It's there.

Presenter23:36

It is the moment when, potentially, you wow the party faithful.

Presenter23:41

You could have clinched the leadership of the party that you had devoted so much of your life to.

David Davis MP23:46

Yeah, and uh yeah, I I suppose that's true. Uh well frankly what I did, I didn't do enough work on that. I spent too much time doing other things uh in the I simply made the mistake of not spending enough time on that speech. And nobody else to blame but me. I made the mistake and uh I took the hit and uh I knew that within twenty-four hours.

Presenter24:08

Um you confounded given that some people criticise you for saying that you're not a team player, you confounded your critics by being a very dutiful shadow home secretary. And then, of course, in June of this year you did an extraordinary thing which took, I understand, absolutely everybody by surprise. You decided to resign your post on the shadow front bench because you wanted to fight the issue of the forty-two day detention that the government was trying to bring in for suspected terrorists. It was an extraordinary decision.

Presenter24:41

Why did you make it?

David Davis MP24:43

This is an issue which for me

David Davis MP24:46

It's central to all sorts of things. It's central to being British. What has made us a great nation historically has been our freedom, our liberty, our sense of justice, our sense of fairness. And this was just a strike to the heart of it, really. Frankly, I didn't want to do what I ended up doing. As I say I'm no saint, no hero. I didn't want particularly to sacrifice the remainder of my career for any reason. But I didn't see, I couldn't think of any other way to stop this thing in its tracks than by resigning and making it as huge an issue of it.

Presenter25:22

As I could.

Presenter25:23

And indeed you um rehearsed the arguments very well, and this is not not the place necessarily to go into uh all the details of those arguments. It might though be a place to examine.

David Davis MP25:29

I don't need to go into that.

Presenter25:34

The fact that it's

Presenter25:36

infuriated your colleagues on the front bench.

Presenter25:40

You didn't care about that.

David Davis MP25:41

I did that calculation. I mean I sat and I spent a whole weekend thinking about this, literally just non-stop. And of course, historically, parties that are divided lose support. And my view was the public would see this as an important stand, and that would eclipse the division story.

Presenter26:02

I was about to say enough of politics, let's have some music, but actually, in the case of your next choice, it's more of the same. Tell me about that.

David Davis MP26:07

Yeah.

David Davis MP26:09

More of the same, because because this took all my nerve. I mean, I was I was scared of this.

David Davis MP26:17

It took the whole previous weekend for me to sort of really, really decide. You know, you can make an intellectual decision, but you gotta make the emotional decision. And yeah, yeah, as you say, it shocked everybody.

David Davis MP26:27

And so I spent that weekend and a lot of the time I played this next piece of music. It's a piece of music that I just lit upon in a cut in a in a white van driv driving some furniture north for my daughter to Edinburgh. And I just lit upon it and I heard it and I thought I looked it up and I played to myself about twenty times, just as a way of sort of reinforcing

David Davis MP26:47

My courage to do what I was gonna do. And it's not a very well-known song, it's it's by Mundy Turner and it's called Stealing My Democracy.

Speaker 326:57

Atomy

Speaker 327:01

You dragged me into an illegal war.

Speaker 327:05

Lied about what we'd be fighting for So how can I believe in you anymore?

Speaker 327:17

Stealing my democracy

Speaker 327:22

A little more each day.

Presenter27:22

Little

Presenter27:25

Mundy Turner and Stealing My Democracy. So, David Davis, you took this huge leap. What about those people in in the party? Is it comfortable to sit among to chat to those people who were so outraged by your decision?

David Davis MP27:40

Yeah, there was a great recovery of affection, shall I say. The day that the government backed off on 42 days, I had more people slap me on the back, as though it was my personal victory, which it wasn't. It was much wider than that. From every party, every party. As many from Labour as Tory, but all of them, and including people who at the time thought I was mad. So, you know, success matters, I'm afraid, to politicians, and understandably.

Presenter28:04

And I know you have been enthusiastic about the back benches, but the truth is, you may well have made this decision that means that you never.

David Davis MP28:07

But this

Presenter28:11

have any real power again, you might not get back to the front bench. I'm wondering what you think of George Bernard Shaw's view that political necessities sometimes turn out to be political mistakes.

David Davis MP28:12

And he ran.

David Davis MP28:21

Yeah, he's right. Of course, of course that's true. Necessities do sometimes have to be mistakes and this may have this this could have been a mistake. I suppose you you know you might calculate that

David Davis MP28:30

Somehow or other 42 days would have died anyway. Or alternatively, that I could have done a better job of defeating them if I was home secretary, not shadow home secretary, which presumably would have happened in due course. But I mean again I did the calculation and also I actually don't subscribe to the view that being a backbencher is a powerless position. I think actually if you know how to use it being a backbencher is both powerful and free and that second part is quite important to me too.

Presenter28:59

Let's take a break for some music then.

David Davis MP29:02

Dire Straits are the sort of granddad's rockers. I imagine grandchildren across the country draw a great sigh and cover their ears when their granddad puts on diastraits and.

Presenter29:10

And you are a grandfather.

David Davis MP29:10

I'm a grandfather, I've got three young grandchildren, they're not quite of an age yet, I'm going to expose them to Diastrites. But also I am known for having very strong and very odd friendships. Alan Clark, Alastair Campbell, Eric Forth were now dead, a leading light in the Tory Party, very eccentric. I mean I like strong big people, I like strong tastes, hot curry in people, yeah? And this also is evocative of that. It's Diastrait's brothers in arms.

David Davis MP29:41

As the battle reached high

Speaker 429:43

Uh Yeah.

David Davis MP29:43

Yeah.

Speaker 429:49

Go back.

Speaker 429:51

Uh

Speaker 429:53

In the fear and alarm

Speaker 429:59

You did not disturb me, my brothers and I.

Presenter30:09

Dire Straits and Brothers in Arms. I'm wondering, David Davis, if uh your mum and dad, your step dad essentially, lived to see how well you did both in in business and politics and what they made of it.

David Davis MP30:19

Uh business certainly, um, and politics some of it anyway. I mean they were both alive when I was a minister, which for them would have been really beyond imagination.

Presenter30:30

And what did your left wing shop steward dad make of this uh Tory boy?

David Davis MP30:35

Well, you know, funny enough, I mean, I actually think he was rather proud of me. When well, in fact, I know he was, because when he died and we went to the service

David Davis MP30:42

This will come out wrong, but it was like a mafia funeral. There were three hundred people there. He'd been a father of the chapel, and that's exactly it.

Presenter30:46

He'd been a

David Davis MP30:49

And I stood there, and it was weird, because people kept coming up to me and shaking my hand. They didn't quite drop to one knee, but I mean and saying, you know, how what a privilege it was to meet me and so on, and how proud my Dad was of me. And also what was very clear was the affection they had for him.

Presenter31:07

And did you ever feel the need to go in search of your your birth father?

David Davis MP31:11

Yeah. I again I I kept this all very close for a very long time because uh you always have to think about not the individual concerned, but their you know, his wife, his children, and all of that.

Presenter31:24

And indeed your own mum and dad, the people who brought you.

David Davis MP31:26

And my mum died. And n none of this came out until my mum died and then and then and and uh then I thought, well, okay, I can now tell the whole truth rather than just the partial truth.

David Davis MP31:34

And uh yes, I met him. I found him. It was a sort of little detective story to find him. Met him, talked to him, quite liked him. He was obviously very intelligent. Uh

Presenter31:42

Was he shocked that you'd come looking for him?

David Davis MP31:46

Not visibly. I think he was worried. You know, I mean he was worried that I s might suddenly disturb his life,'cause this is this is twenty years ago now. And as I think as anybody might reasonably be, but I was quite determined I was not going to visit on his family any sort of embarrassment or or grief.

Presenter32:03

And by that time you said it was twenty years ago, so that's when you would have just been an MP just before.

David Davis MP32:07

Actually just before then, twenty five years ago.

Presenter32:09

Try it.

David Davis MP32:09

Yeah.

Presenter32:10

And what was it you wanted from it?

David Davis MP32:12

It was sort of an intellectual puzzle really, and

David Davis MP32:16

There's also a bit about knowing yourself. I was looking at somebody who was a part of me, in a sense.

David Davis MP32:22

But you know, it was just the one meeting. I never ever saw him again after that, never ever contacted him again after that. It was just okay, I've done that.

Presenter32:30

And both you and he were happy with that arrangement.

David Davis MP32:32

Well, I didn't ask him, but yeah, for me it was something done. I mean, there's there's a piece of me that even now says what I'd like to sort of meet him again, but frankly, the risk of causing

David Davis MP32:43

grief to other people makes me not do anything about it.

Presenter32:46

You will be one of very few of our castaways who can, of course, I imagine, survive on this desert island given your uh territorial SAS training.

David Davis MP32:54

The very first day I shall start building the raft.

David Davis MP32:57

Yeah, sure. I've had to do escape invasion and living off the countryside and it is a full-time job. It's very tiring.

Presenter33:03

Well, you won't have anything else to do?

David Davis MP33:04

Well, yeah, I mean we don't have too much time to listen to the music, I tell you. It it is it is a very, very tough thing. And so I would start building a raft on day one.

Presenter33:13

Uh

David Davis MP33:13

Tum

Presenter33:13

Tell me about your final piece of music today then.

David Davis MP33:16

Well, I've never actually seen the film Shindler's List, but this is the main theme from it. And much of my music listening is done in the hills. I mean, I walk most years I walk a 200-mile walk, but a lot of it's been listening to music. And this particular piece was on my MP3 player on the day I was in the Lake District, and Jane Clark rang me up and told me that Alan, her husband, had died. Very, very close friend of mine. And I just put this on repeat all day. And it's

David Davis MP33:51

It's just that while it was raining because then nobody could see the tears right down my face. Um it was a very very bonker piece for me.

Presenter34:27

It's Zach Pearlman playing the theme from the film Shinder's List. So, David, I will, as you know, give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you'd all like to pick a book to take with you onto the island.

David Davis MP34:37

I want the complete works of Ian Banks. He'll be mad as hell I've picked him because he's a very left-wing writer. Is that why you're doing it? Yes.

Presenter34:42

That one

David Davis MP34:44

And a luxury. Well, I don't know whether you can give me this, but I want a sort of magic wine cellar, one that never runs out, because I have to say, although I don't normally drink alone, I'm going to make an exception on this, because I suspect I should spend my time

David Davis MP34:56

Trying to stay alive and staying drunk.

Presenter34:59

Uh

David Davis MP34:59

Uh

Presenter34:59

And uh if you had to choose just one of these eight pieces of music.

David Davis MP35:02

I picked the Puccini and Beldi Vedrema. I mean, it's the most evocative, the most sentimental in a way of these. But I can see myself sitting on a cliff top like that lady, looking at the horizon and listening to this, waiting for the boat to come.

Presenter35:15

David Davis, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

David Davis MP35:18

Thank you very much.

Presenter35:26

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.