Ian Davidson (British politician)

Ian Davidson
Member of Parliament for Glasgow South West
In office 5 May 2005 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Chris Stephens
Majority	14,671 (46.2%)
Member of Parliament for Glasgow Pollok
In office 1 May 1997 – 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Jimmy Dunnachie
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of Parliament for Glasgow Govan
In office 9 April 1992 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Jim Sillars
Succeeded by	Mohammad Sarwar
Personal details
Born	(1950-09-08) 8 September 1950 Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Political party	Labour Co-operative
Spouse(s)	Morag Mackinnon[1]

Ian Graham Davidson (born 8 September 1950) is a Scottish Labour Co-operative politician, who was a Member of Parliament for successive Glasgow seats from 1992 until 2015; from 2005 to 2015 he represented Glasgow South West. Davidson previously worked as a Community Service Manager and for Janey Buchan when she was a Member of the European Parliament.

Davidson was the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee.^[2]

Political career

He became an MP in 1992, originally for the seat of Glasgow Govan and, following boundary changes, for Glasgow Pollok from 1997 to 2005. After further major boundary changes across Scotland, Davidson stood in the 2005 general election for the new constituency of Glasgow South West, where he won the second biggest swing to Labour in Scotland. He is a member of the Public Accounts Select Committee and has lobbied to support the Scottish shipbuilding industry. He is also secretary of the Trade Union Group of Labour MPs.

In 2002 he criticised Prince Michael of Kent for 'squatting' in Kensington Palace. More recently he has criticised the Prince of Wales over his personal finances. He was the chair of Labour Against the Euro before it ceased campaigning following the 2003 decision by Gordon Brown that the five economic tests for Britain to join the euro had not been met.

During the debate in the House of Commons over the decision whether to have a referendum over the EU Treaty of Lisbon (5 March 2008), Davidson drew jeers from his Labour colleagues for branding New Labour supporters "Maoists and Trotskyists". Davidson was putting forward the case for disobeying the party line and voting for a referendum.

He is Chair of the Centre for a Social Europe,^[3] a pro-EU but mildly eurosceptic left-of-centre think tank. He has been a member of the Scotland Office Select Committee since the 2005 General Election.

From 1973 to 1974, Davidson was Chair of the National Organisation of Labour Students.^[4]

He is a supporter of Republic, a campaign to replace the British Monarchy with an elected head of state.^[5]

In June 2011, Davidson accused the Scottish National Party of "narrow neo-fascism". The choice of language resulted in the Labour Party distancing itself from Davidson's comments, saying the use of the word "neo-fascist" was unacceptable, even in the heat of debate,^[6] and Angus Robertson to call on him to resign as chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee.^[7]

On 25 October 2011 it was alleged that Ian Davidson had threatened to inflict "a doing" upon fellow committee member Eilidh Whiteford if details of the committee's discussions during a private session were leaked to the media. Following the allegations Dr Whiteford withdrew from the committee and a formal complaint was made by the SNP Parliamentary Leader, Angus Robertson, to the Speaker of the House.^[8] Davidson made a public apology to the committee "for any offence that might have been caused" by his remarks but continued to deny that the remarks had been in any way threatening.^[9] Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative committee members all stated that no threats were made.^[10][11][12] After an investigation the Labour Party stated that it amounted to a "smear campaign" against Davidson due to the forthcoming investigations chaired by Davidson into the SNP's referendum proposal.^[13]

A member of the SNP politician Joan McAlpine's staff, Gail Lythgoe, was found to have emailed a women's equality group, supporting Whiteford and alleging that Davidson has a history of bullying women and called on them to demonstrate against him whilst asking them not to reveal SNP involvement in its instigation.^[14][15] The email was later leaked and Lythgoe publicly apologised for making unsubstantiated allegations, with the Labour Party alleging that this was a result of an SNP "dirty tricks campaign" against Davidson and calling for an investigation.^[14]

In September 2013, Davidson caused anger after he suggested the debate on Scottish independence was continuing only "in the sense there is a large number of wounded still to be bayoneted"^[16]

In May 2015 he lost his seat to Chris Stephens of the SNP. Since then Davidson has indicated that he may support Britain's withdrawal from the European Union^[17]and he has taken up a key role in Vote Leave.^[18]

Expenses

During the 2009–10 Expenses Scandal, it emerged that Davidson claimed £87,699 in the four years to 2007; only £30 below the maximum permitted. He has since admitted that he wished he had a larger mortgage on his London flat to allow him to claim more in allowances and that new expenses rules, brought in after the expenses scandal, would leave him out of pocket. He also used £5,500 of public cash to pay a friend to carry out some renovating work at his flat – he later took the same friend shooting at an annual Commons v Lords competition.^[19]

References

External links

• Official site
• Profile at the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: Ian Davidson MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com – Ian Davidson MP
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Ian Davidson