GOING HEAD TO HEAD IN BID TO LEAD WELSHTORY PARTY
The Welsh Conservative leadership race is a contest between a Bohemian Rhapsody-loving former banker and an Abba fan who helped found a film festival. Paul Davies and Suzy Davies are competing for the chance to lead the Conservatives into the 2021 Assembly election. Here, the two tell DAVID WILLIAMSON about their childhoods, their political awakening, and the ideas and experiences that have shaped their lives – and could shape Wales
THERE is at least one thing Suzy Davies, 55, has in common with David Cameron. They are both fans of Benny Hill’s 1971 novelty hit Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West).
It was the first record Ms Davies ever bought, and Mr Cameron named the song about the lovelorn milkman as one of his Desert Island Discs back in 2006 and entertained a TV studio audience during an advertisement break in 2015 by reciting from it.
Suzy’s dad, Hywel Davies, worked for the South Wales Electricity Board and his work meant she, along with her mum, Aurwen, and younger sister, Hilary, regularly had to up sticks.
She has lived in Bridgend, the Cynon Valley, Cardiff, Brecon, Swansea, Newtown, Aberystwyth and now the Dyfi Valley.
She spent the biggest chunk of her childhood in Cwmbach, near Aberdare, where she said the local politics were “Labour, Labour, Labour.”
“Yo u would watch th e t elly,” sh e said. “You knew there w e r e other parties, and I just thought, ‘Well, why don’t we see anything about them here?’” The next stop for the family was Lisvane, Cardiff. “I remember getting on the bus and being asked by children if I was Pakistani because of my accent,” she said. At the age of 16 she was uprooted again. She admits she took the news that they were moving to Brecon with a “slightly heavy heart” because she liked the bright lights of Cardiff. She said: “It turned out to be completely marvellous. I went to Brecon H i g h School [and] met lifelong friends... “It’s a bit like the Valleys in that ever y body knows everybody else and really feels a sense of responsibility to each other and that is the thing that has really stuck with me as a political imperative.”
The 1974 three-day week stands out in her memory.
“The lights used to go off and I had to do my homework by candlelight,” she said. “It coincided with when the IRA were very active and so we had bomb scares in our schools as well...
“Politics felt really up close and personal at certain stages.”
A further moment of political awakening came when “people I knew went to fight in the Falklands”.
Ms Davies studied law at Exeter University but came back to Brecon instead of pursuing a postgraduate qualification. She worked in a tourist information centre and then spent fun and culture-packed years in posts at theatres in Swansea, Newtown and at Aberystwyth’s art centre.
A life-changing moment came when she met husband-to-be Geraint. “I met him at a friend’s wedding,” she said. “My next-door neighbour in Brecon married his next-door neighbour up in the Dyfi Valley.”
He farms and runs a caravan park. They have two sons, Alex and Calum.
She sent the boys to Sunday school so they would be able to make up their own minds about faith.
“One thing that always stuns me is the level of fellowship that faith brings – and how people support each other.
“Whether that’s through politics or faith, they’re both great.”
She decided to enrol at the University of Glamorgan and gain the legal qualifications she needed to practise as a solicitor. Re-entering the workforce brought financial challenges. “[It] actually cost me to go to work because of childcare, she said, adding: “I understand how childcare is a big deal for families, it’s not just for women, because not everyone is in the fortunate position I was to have somebody who could basically tide me over financially, because I was married.”
The experience of trying to buy a house and a desire to be able to do things for herself helped her, as she puts it, discover she was a Conservative, in her 30s.
“At that time in your life, not paying a lot of tax is something g that appeals pp to you,” she said.
She became involved with a local Conservative association and was encouraged by party stalwart, and now Montgomeryshire MP, Glyn Davies to stand for election.
In the 2005 Westminster election she finished third in Plaid Cymruheld Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and she came second in the 2007 Assembly contest when she stood against Liberal Democrat Kirsty Williams in Brecon and Radnorshire. She tried again in the same constituency in the 2010 Westminster vote before winning an Assembly seat on the South Wales West regional list in 2011.
This enthusiastic Welsh speaker enjoys friendships beyond the Tory tribe.
“I’ve got friends with all kinds of different political views and, of course, in the Assembly itself, being such a small institution, you can’t let really significant political differences spoil relationships,” she said.
When she escapes Cardiff Bay she and her husband enjoy a takeaway.
“For us, because we don’t see each other that often, a Saturday night in is just as nice as a Saturday night out,” she said. “The establishment that does best out of us in Powys is the Machynlleth kebab shop...They are the best kebabs I’ve ever eaten.”
The first album she ever bought was Abba’s Arrival. She’s excited at the thought of going to see Mamma Mia 2.
“There’s nothing wrong with lightness and triviality,” she said. “I think the world could do with a little more of it occasionally.”
She was a founding board member of the Welsh International Film Festival and her favourite movie is the Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life. “I just love that idea of one small individual making a huge difference,” she said.
A Jane Austen fan, she says: “I think y you can learn an enormous amount a about the human experience through fiction,” she said. “A book that really resonates with me and that I like enormously is Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson.”
Myfanwy Alexander’s Bloody Eisteddfod is on her desk – but it may be a while before she can pick that up.
PAUL Davies, 49, did not grow up in a hotbed of Conservatism. The last time a Conservative was elected to represent Ceredigion was in 1874.
You might have expected a firstlanguage Welsh schoolboy growing up on a small farm in Pontsian, near Llandysul, who has an interest in politics, to tap into the area’s Liberal or Plaid Cymru traditions.
Not a bit of it. Mr Davies’ friends yanked his leg about his heartfelt commitment to the Conservative cause.
When Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax was a focus of controversy he was nicknamed Paul Tax.
Iori, his dad, was a committed Conservative.
He said: “I joined the Conservative Party [in] Margaret Thatcher’s heyday. I think it was her inspiration, her motivation, her leadership that persuaded me to join the Conservative party.
“I’m a Conservative because I believe in choice; I believe in the freedom of the individual; I believe in opportunity and I believe in personal responsibility.”
Politics was a regular subject of conversation around the dinner table with his dad and his mum Mair. Thatcher’s arrival looked like a moment of national rescue.
He said: “When she became PM the country was facing bankruptcy. Britain was still reeling from Labour’s winter of discontent, which left people not being buried, rubbish not being collected and our homes in the dark for days on end – and it was Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party, in my view, that came to Britain’s rescue at the time.”
He describes his childhood home as “very traditional”.
He said: “I would go to church with my mother... I was a church warden when I was 21, believe it or not. I’m still a Christian. I don’t go to church as much as I should perhaps but that remains an important part of my life.”
After his A-Levels, he said, he was “OK in mathematics” so he joined Lloyds and worked for the bank for nearly two decades.
This gave him an insight into the challenges facing businesses in West Wales.
In November 1994 he moved to the Cardigan branch and a few weeks later a new member of staff named Julie joined. They are now husband and wife and live in Blaenffos, north Pembrokeshire. It was not love at first sight. He said: “It took us a number of years, actually, to get together... These things develop, don’t they?” Mr Davies became a business manager, looking after between 300 and 400 businesses in Pembrokeshire. His commitment to Conserva-tism deepened. In his view the party had used its time in government to turn Britain’s economy around.
He served as chairman of the Ceredigion Conservative Association and deputy chairman of Mid and West Wales Conservatives, and got stuck into local election battles as a candidate. In the 2000 by-election and the 2001 UK election he stood in Ceredigion (finishing third), and in 2003 he was the candidate in the Preseli Pembrokeshire Assembly contest.
He had another go in 2007 and this time ousted Labour. Politics was now a full time job.
“Cross-party friendships are still possible,” he said. “Of course, in the Assembly chamber we make our political points as we should, but afterwards we can have a cup of tea or a drink together and I think that’s crucial because at the end of the day we’re all human beings.”
He arrived when the Conservatives looked, briefly, like joining Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats in a non-Labour coalition.
“We have to win more first-past -the-post constituency seats if we are ever going to have a chance of being in government,” he said.
A further challenge is ensuring that internal divisions over Brexit do not hold back progress.
He said: “I’d like to think that I’ve got the ability to bring the different strands of the Conservative party together – the Assembly Members, Members of Parliament, activists, supporters, and bring them together to create that ‘team Wales’ approach.
“I’m confident that I will be able to do that if I become leader.”
Mr Davies lives a high-mileage life, journeying between Pembrokeshire and Cardiff, and when he is at the wheel of his car he enjoys listening to Bohemian Rhapsody by his favourite rock band, Queen.
He admits that the worst part of the job is the “travelling back and forth, being away from your family on a weekly basis”. There is no sign of him starting to flag. “I just keep going,” he said. “I don’t need much sleep, if I’m honest, so I’m very lucky.”