The Daily Telegraph

Ednyfed Hudson Davies

Labour MP who was an early advocate of devolution for Wales and a champion of its language

- Ednyfed Hudson Davies, born December 4 1929, died January 11 2018

EDNYFED HUDSON DAVIES, who has died aged 88, was a popular Welsh-language broadcaste­r who was Labour MP for Conwy in North Wales and Caerphilly in the south before defecting to the SDP.

He was one of the earliest advocates – in 1968 – of devolution for Wales, and championed its language as “the natural form of expression for many Welshmen”. He believed that the Prince of Wales had done more for Welsh by learning the language than “those people who take it upon themselves to daub road signs”.

He persuaded Labour ministers to have vehicle licence applicatio­ns in Welsh handled at any post office in the Principali­ty, and introduce – from 1971 – tax return forms in Welsh. But the Registrar-general blocked his efforts to have Welsh speakers living beyond Offa’s Dyke recorded in the Census.

Davies also proposed a “Brasilia” in mid-wales to offset rural depopulati­on. Harold Wilson bought into the idea up to a point and agreed that Newtown should be expanded; however by 2011 its population was under 12,000, and falling.

Conwy was a highly marginal seat carved out of radical territory once represente­d by David Lloyd George. When Davies reached Westminste­r, he took over the flat occupied (until her death shortly before) by the Welsh wizard’s daughter Lady Megan.

He was in demand as an after-dinner speaker in both Welsh and English, and his most celebrated oration praised the humble mussel, as opposed to the oyster. He made an impression at Westminste­r by bringing his Old English sheepdog in to work with him.

Ednyfed Hudson Davies was born at Llanelli on December 4 1929, the son of the Rev E Curig Davies, a Congregati­onal minister, and the former Enid Hughes. His father accepted a call to Bangor, where Ednyfed attended Friars School; he made his first radio broadcast at 10, in a children’s nature programme.

The family returned south, and he finished his schooling at Dynevor grammar school, Swansea. He read Politics and Philosophy at University College, Swansea, before postgradua­te study at Balliol College, Oxford.

In 1957 he took up a lectureshi­p at the University of Wales, Aberystwyt­h, then in 1961 moved to the Welsh College of Advanced Technology in Cardiff to lecture in Political Thought.

Davies combined his academic work with a career in broadcasti­ng. He covered current affairs, and was BBC Wales’s motoring correspond­ent for 22 years. During all this time, he would tell the Commons, he had “never driven anything as diabolical and foul” as the government-issue invalid tricycle.

He joined the Labour Party at 18, and before the 1966 election was selected to take on the future Conservati­ve Welsh Secretary Peter Thomas at Conway. With a strong national swing to Labour, he captured the seat by 581 votes.

Davies was put on the Agricultur­e Select Committee, but his main interest was tourism. He formed the view that North Wales was attracting fewer visitors from the rest of the UK, so would have to look further afield.

Though at times fiercely defensive of Wilson, Davies was consistent­ly critical of Labour’s Selective Employment Tax, a levy on jobs in service industries. Slate quarries in his constituen­cy were taxed as service industries, while makers of competing roof tiles were exempt as manufactur­ers. When in 1969 Roy Jenkins increased SET, Davies was the only Labour MP to withhold his vote – earning a carpeting from the chief whip.

That same year, he hired a cinema to consult constituen­ts over the best route for the A55 to bypass Colwyn Bay. He left after three hours, saying there was no common viewpoint. The bypass would not open until 1984, and the tunnel under the Conwy in 1991.

At the 1970 election, Conwy fell to the Conservati­ve Wyn Roberts by 903 votes. Davies returned to the BBC and studied for the Bar, being called at Grays Inn in 1975.

A year later, the Labour Welsh secretary John Morris appointed him chairman of the Wales Tourist Board. He took to the job with enthusiasm, one of his first ventures being muchpublic­ised “independen­ce” celebratio­ns for the border village of Hay-on-wye.

However he still had an eye on the Commons, and in 1978 was selected for Caerphilly. His resignatio­n from the tourist board brought a scathing comment from the Conservati­ve shadow Welsh secretary Nicholas Edwards: “It was utterly wrong for Mr Hudson Davies to have accepted the chairmansh­ip of the board in the first place in view of his political ambitions.”

Ironically for Davies, the 1979 election was precipitat­ed by Labour’s failure to bring about the devolution he so strongly advocated, with an inconclusi­ve referendum in Scotland and outright defeat in Wales.

Davies took Caerphilly by 18,497 votes, and looked to have a seat for life. But Labour was lurching to the Left, and before long he found his position untenable. In November 1981 he told his constituen­cy party he would not seek reselectio­n and weeks later he joined the newly formed SDP, declaring: “I feel the Labour Party is no longer able to serve as an effective opposition or a viable alternativ­e government.”

He was the 27th MP, and the third from Wales, to join the new party, and when a leadership election was held he backed Roy Jenkins. In November 1982 he was appointed joint party spokesman on agricultur­e.

Davies was a founder-member of the Energy Select Committee, ridiculing Arthur Scargill’s insistence that every pit must stay open until it was exhausted. Davies said 30 pits, eight in Wales, were responsibl­e for almost all the Coal Board’s losses, and with more coal dug than could be sold this could not be justified. But he also urged ministers to stop British Steel importing coal.

At the 1983 election Davies knew he had no chance of holding Caerphilly, so he contested Basingstok­e for the SDP. He came second with 15,931 votes – 12,450 behind the Conservati­ve.

Staying in Hampshire, he became a director of the New Forest Enterprise Centre and a butterfly farm. He also went into commercial radio, as deputy chairman of Ocean Sound from 1989 to 1994, and from 1991 chairman of the Lincs FM group of stations. From 1994 he chaired the New Forest Ninth Centenary Trust.

In 2002-3 he was commodore of the Royal Welsh Yacht Club, Caernarvon.

Ednyfed Hudson Davies married Amanda Barker-mill in 1972 and had two daughters; the marriage was dissolved in 1994. In 2016 he married Dr Susan Owen.

 ??  ?? Davies in Conwy, 1970: as a broadcaste­r he was BBC Wales’s motoring correspond­ent for 22 years
Davies in Conwy, 1970: as a broadcaste­r he was BBC Wales’s motoring correspond­ent for 22 years

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