"The more you knew him, the more you admired him": Tribute to Lord Davies of Oldham
Lord Davies of Oldham: 9 November 1939 – 27 October 2026 | Image courtesy of UK Parliament
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Labour MP, founder member of the Commons football team, and later a peer and government whip, Bryan Davies was a doer as well as a thinker. A man of integrity, he had an awesome capacity for hard work
Bryan was a friend of mine for more than 50 years. We were both elected in 1974 and lived through the ups and downs, the triumphs and disasters, of politics ever since. We lost our seats in 1979, returning later for different constituencies, joining that select group of MPs, “the retreads”. Later we both became members of the Lords.
When Bryan lost his Enfield North seat in 1979 it didn’t take him long before he moved back into full time politics. He was appointed secretary to the Parliamentary Labour Party, a post he held for 13 years. He was right at the centre of events when the SDP was formed as a breakaway party in 1981 taking 28 Labour MPs with it. Bryan’s steadfast, tireless service to the party at that time and his behind the scenes efficiency were of immense value to Michael Foot and then Neil Kinnock.
In 1992 Bryan returned to the Commons as MP for Oldham Central and Royton but the constituency was abolished by the Boundary Commission and Bryan was without a seat for the 1997 election. He was appointed to the Lords by Tony Blair and was a very effective minister, calm and commanding at the Despatch Box.
Bryan was one of those people of whom it is possible to say, that the more you knew him the more you admired him. His great abiding loves aside from his close family to whom he was devoted, were the Labour Party, sport, and Parliament. He excelled in all these areas. He brought to all of them his abiding qualities of integrity, enthusiasm, and an awesome capacity for hard work. Even in the later months of his illness you could guarantee his enthusiastic attention whenever you mentioned elections, the Labour Party, or Tottenham Hotspur.
We worked together, often in tense situations. I can’t ever remember us having cross words
Bryan was a very clever man who read widely and spoke fluently on a wide range of subjects, but he was a doer as well as a thinker. He played sport, especially cricket, football and golf to a high level and continued far beyond the age when most of his contemporaries had hung up their boots. He was a founder member of the House of Commons football team, one of its best players, and its captain. He was a pleasure to watch – pundits would describe him as an elegant midfielder. He cycled regularly until he was 80 and played golf until the age of 82.
For five years in the Lords, I was government chief whip and Bryan was deputy. We could easily have swapped roles. We worked together, often in tense situations. I can’t ever remember us having cross words. We would sometimes reflect on our journey from young men in the Labour Party in the Midlands, whose careers had taken us many years later to managing government business in the House of Lords.
After Labour’s defeat in 2010 Bryan and I shared an office and I can vouch that in his 70s he worked just as hard with just as much enthusiasm as ever. The only downside was that his desk must have been the untidiest in the Palace of Westminster. Books and papers were strewn everywhere, the desktop was invisible: football programmes, sundry magazines, a cricket ball and a packet of sandwiches, randomly distributed. How on earth he produced such fluent speeches on so many subjects remains a mystery. And all this without much help from modern technology – which for the most part, like me, he loathed. And at which, like me, he was serially incompetent.
Bryan enjoyed life, never losing his enthusiasm, modest about his achievements, always at heart an optimist. And at the centre of it all were his wife of 62 years, Monica, and his three children, Gordon, Rod and Amanda. Their loss is immense.
Lord Grocott is a Labour peer
