Philip Davies

Philip Davies
Name	Philip Andrew Davies (born 5 January, 1972)
Nicknames	Phil (fandom, George Galloway), the lobbyist for blacking up (disgusted hacks)
Politics
Party	Conservative
Constituency	Shipley (2005 - present)
Likes	Margaret Thatcher, filibusters, trolling, the gambling industry, David Nuttall
Dislikes	Political correctness, the European Union, taxes, trade unions, foreign aid, Liberal Democrats
Friends	David Nuttall, Jacob Rees-Mogg, PETER BONE, Christopher Chope, George Galloway (sort of)
Enemies	Ethnic minorities, the disabled, LGBT people, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Whips' Office
Relationships
Partners	Deborah Gail Hemsley (1993 - 7 June 2011)
Children	Oliver (born ?) and Charlie (born ?)
Personal Attributes
Nationality	English
Religion	?
Sexuality	Straight
Height	5' 9"
Eye Colour	Hazel
Handedness	Right
Accent	Yorkshire

A genuine Tory.~ Peter Hitchens

Far right backbencher Philip Davies is best known to the general public for his suggestion that employers should be allowed to hire disabled people for less than the minimum wage and to the Tory Whip's Office for his staggering record of 68 rebellions in the last parliamentary session. But among loliticians Philip is also famed for his incisive questioning of the Murdochs over the phone hacking scandal and most of all for the beautiful love he shares with fellow Conservative backbencher David Nuttall.

Life and Career

Early Life

Philip was born in Doncaster to religious education teacher and budding rightwing lunatic Peter Davies and his wife Marylin, a bookmaker. One of three children, young Philip was sent off at the age of eleven to the comprehensive Old Swinford Hospital boarding school in Stourbridge while his father embarked on a rightward political journey that sent him hurtling from the Labour Party through Thatcher's Tories to UKIP and finally landed him in the English Democrats, under whose nationalist banner he now serves as the elected Mayor of Doncaster. Peter is notable for pledging in his election manifesto to withdraw Doncaster from the EU (the legal framework by which this is to be achieved remains unclear) and for his praise for the Taliban, who "at least appear to have some decent sort of family affairs. In fact probably...they have an ordered society." Under the circumstances it's remarkable Philip grew up to be as progressive and Europhilic as he has.

Philip went on to attend the University of Huddersfield, where he earned a 2:1 BA honours degree in History and Political Studies in 1993. His first job was as a manager in his mother's bookmaking business, where he worked from 1990 - 1992 before becoming a cashier in a second bookmaker's for a year and then taking a job as the manager of a third. After graduating from university he began working at Asda, where he worked as a cashier for four years before becoming a customer service manager in 1997. In 1999 he became Asda's senior marketing manager for Leeds, where he remained until he entered Parliament in 2005.

Early Political Career

Peter Davies, still a Tory himself before John Major betrayed him over Maastricht, encouraged his sixteen-year-old son to join the Young Conservatives in 1988. It was a decision he may later have come to regret, since Philip has remained unshakably loyal to the party ever since. Philip contested the three-way marginal of Colne Valley in 2001 and lost, but in 2005 he managed to wrest conservative Shipley from the incumbent Labour MP Chris Leslie by a narrow majority of 422 votes, with a little help from Lord Ashcroft's dodgy campaign contributions. His constituents may not have realised quite what they were letting themselves in for- no one could have predicted some of the things that would come out of Philip's mouth in the next five years, certainly not whoever it was at Conservative Central Office who signed off on his selection- but they returned him with a majority of almost 10,000 votes in 2010. Either they have no idea what he's been up to or they like having an MP who isn't afraid to speak his mind.

Parliamentary Career

On the Backbenches

"You shall not pass!"

In his maiden speech Philip vowed never to accept a front bench position. Between his willingness to defy the whips and his refusal to bow to political correctness, or some might say to basic human decency, it seems unlikely he will ever be put in a position to choose between his principles and a promotion. Instead Philip spends his time on committee work and on talking out Private Member's Bills every Friday morning with his friends in the CBCJS. Philip hates legislation and he has devoted himself selflessly to making sure as little of it as possible gets through. He may not always be able to block the Government with its programme motions and its inbuilt majority, but he at least he can stop his fellow backbenchers from doing their job. His speeches tend to be better argued than those of other CBCJS members, but they're still long enough that fandom has coined the term 'Philibuster' to describe them.

Philip also devotes a fair amount of time to voting against his government, winning him third place in the "Most Rebellious MP" competition in the 2010-2012 session of Parliament. He claims that it hurts him every time to vote against his Prime Minister, and he's sweet-natured enough that this may even be true, but he will stop at nothing to protect Britain from the corrupting, liberalising influence of the Liberal Democrats. So far this Parliament he's on 89 rebellions and counting. When Philip first came to the Commons he was mentored by the great Tory troll Eric Forth, and he has proudly carried on his sensei's legacy.

Phil got into a bit of a publicity tangle when he decided to block a backbench Labour bill which would give carers free parking at hospitals. He filibustered the bill by talking for 90 minutes meaning there wasn't any time left to vote on the proposals. The papers the started digging through his expenses - like they usually do - and found that he claimed parking charges of as little as £1 on expenses.

He also pushed for a debate in parliament on International Men's Day, citing that there's debate on International Women's Day so there should be one for men. When it was pointed out to him that the reason there wasn't one is because he failed to fill in the forms necessary for requesting such a debate, Phil didn't care. Instead he went on TV to argue with Labour MP Jess Phillips about the need for the debate. When he pointed out that he believed the debate was necessary to promote equality, Jess asked him how he voted on other issues of equality such as the Same Sex Marriage Act. He replied "I don't believe in gay marriage".

Committees

On most issues, I would consider these three [Philip Davies and the greater and lesser BONES] as the axis of eurosceptic, lefty-bashing, "political-correctness-gawn-mad" evil – but, in relation to the business of the House, I have to admit they are saints.~ Chris Bryant

Although he is widely hated for his filibustering stunts in the Chamber, Philip has done good work on committees. He joined the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in 2006 because of his interest in sport and gambling, but when the phone hacking scandal hit he stunned everyone by proving himself the committee's most incisive interrogator. He cross-examined the Murdochs and their minions without mercy and repeatedly hauled Tom Watson's arse out of the fire by rephrasing his poorly worded questions so that the witnesses would be compelled to answer them. Although Philip ultimately voted with the other Tory members of the committee to let the Murdochs off the hook, the stellar work he did to crack open the conspiracy places him in the phone hacking firmament alongside such luminaries as Watson and Chris Bryant.

Philip has also had a longstanding interest in the running of the House of Commons. He served on the Modernisation of the House of Commons Select Committee in the last Parliament and on the Backbench Business Committee during the first section of this one, before being voted off with the other independent backbenchers in a Cameroon putsch.

Full List of Appointments
• 1922 Committee Executive (2006 - 17 May, 2012)
• Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (3 March, 2006 - current)
• Modernisation of the House of Commons Select Committee (13 March, 2007 - 11 May, 2010)
• Chairman's Panel (2010 - current)
• Backbench Business Committee (15 June, 2010 - 12 June, 2012)

Personal Life

Philip steals a prize from a small child.

Philip met his ex-wife Debbie at university and married her in July 1994. They have two sons, Oliver and Charlie. She worked for Philip as his PA, running his diary and managing his surgeries and constituency casework, but despite their close and ongoing working relationship the marriage broke down and in 2011 they separated after seventeen years of marriage. Philip blames the pressures of the parliamentary lifestyle for causing them to drift apart, but we wonder if she saw how he was looking at David Nuttall.

When not trolling his colleagues Philip enjoys cricket, football and rugby, but most of all horse-racing, a sport which combines his twin loves of the gambling industry and rich people. Philip participates as both an owner and a breeder.

He is not much of a drinker, a failing in a Yorkshireman for which his dad mocks him.

Philip is an extremely heterosexual man. There is no reason at all to question that.

Especially not this photo.

Political Beliefs

He is a troglodyte.~ John Bercow

An Asian woman! Yikes! Phil hopes multiculturalism isn't contagious.

Philip has strong views about the European Union (it is destroying Britain and the UK should withdraw from it post-haste), foreign aid (he doesn't even want to spend money on poor people in his constituency, why the hell should it go to poor foreigners?), taxes (scrap 'em), and the minimum wage (scrap that too). He's so far right on foreign and economic policy that UKIP decided not to field a candidate against him in 2010 and campaigned on his behalf instead. Philip also has strong views on law and order (who need civil liberties?) and crime (string 'em up!).

But he has distinguished himself most of all by the stance he's taken against political correctness. Philip is the parliamentary spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, and between 2008 and 2009 he did his bit to make Britain more offensive by spamming the Equality and Human Rights Commission with nineteen letters containing pressing questions like "Why it is so offensive to black up your face, as I have never understood this?" "Is it racist for a policeman to refer to a BMW as 'black man's wheels'?" and last but not least "Should we extend anti-discrimination legislation to bald people?" (By this point in their correspondence the chair of the commission had realised Philip was trolling, and sent back a letter that said simply "No.")

Look at all the fucks Philip gives about the disabled.

Perhaps Philip's most spectacularly offensive comment came in June 2011, when he said in a parliamentary debate that people with a disability were by definition less productive and employers should be allowed to hire them for less than the minimum wage. Tory spin doctors were hospitalised for concussion after slamming their heads repeatedly into their desks and Philip was invited to do the rounds of the television and radio circuits so that people could ask him WTF was wrong with him, because the British media have yet to learn the key lesson about feeding trolls.

Greatest Moments
Date	Summary	Video	Transcript
3/11/2015	Philip talks about the need for a debate on International Men's Day
10/11/2011	Philip pwns the crap out of James Murdoch on the CMS Select Committee		"Given that your organisation is so successful, I can't believe you've been so successful by being so cavalier with money... I guarantee that if somebody had gone to [the Chief Operating Officer of ASDA] and said, 'Here, we've got a problem, a legal case is going to cost us in the region of half a million pounds', any Chief Operating Officer of ASDA I've ever dealt with in my entire life would have said 'For God's sake, let me have a look at that.' And I find it incredible, absolutely incredible, that you didn't say 'How much? Quarter of a million pounds- let me have a look at that.'"
17/6/2011	Philip explains why disabled people should work for less than the minimum wage	Watch it here	Debate in Hansard
19/12/2009	Philip has a surprisingly cordial debate about his spam campaign with fellow troll George Galloway on George's radio show

Personality

Upon detailed observation Philip presented the fandom with a ideological conundrum, because his personality is as likeable as his views are revolting. He is funny, charming, endearingly self-deprecating, and congenial to colleagues on all sides of the House unless they are unfortunate enough to have formed a coalition with his party. He is always eager to give praise and credit to others, especially if those others happen to be David Nuttall, and when he filibusters he presents well-constructed and thoroughly researched arguments for whatever absurd position he is defending. He's also one of the brightest MPs in the Commons, although no doubt Philip would vehemently deny it. He's even nice to people on Twitter.

Much to many a lolitician's dismay it is very hard to hate him.

Appearance

Philip is notable for his round, cheerful face, which resembles that of a delighted five-year-old, and for his reading glasses, which are apparently delicious:

Nom nom nom.

Also notable are his terrible haircuts. Most politicians limit themselves to one terrible haircut, or better still, none, but Philip is a fashion pioneer who can be relied upon to come back after every recess sporting some new atrocity.

Portrayal

In the Media

Philip is given a Spectator Award by his favourite politician.

Commentary on Philip is sharply divided between articles saying "Right on! At last, someone with the balls to tell it like it is!" (The Telegraph, the Daily Mail) and articles saying "The fact that this troglodyte is sitting in our legislature is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with this country." (The Independent, The Guardian). Occasionally both sides express some admiration for his independence, and it has not gone unrewarded by the political wonkosphere: in 2011 he was elected the Spectator's Readers' Representative Parliamentarian of the Year.

In Fanon

Meme

Philip occasionally shows up as a villain in fics written from a Labourite POV, but since he won the heart of the fandom with his interrogation skills and his love for David Nuttall most of his portrayals have been positive, either as one half of the popular Nutvies ship or as a major player in the phone hacking saga.

Shipping

Philip's main ship is Nutvies, which depicts his closeted romance with his backbench BFF David Nuttall. Both Philip and David are portrayed as being in vehement denial of their homosexuality, giving the fics a saccharine topping of fluffy romance underpinned by a tangy layer of heavy irony, like a lemon meringue pie. In one series fellow CBCJS member Jacob Rees-Mogg gets in on the action as well.

Thanks to Philip's stellar work on the phone hacking scandal, he has also been shipped with fellow CMS select committee member Tom Watson and with James Murdoch.

Finally Philip has quite a crush on Deputy Speaker Dawn Primarolo:

Philip Davies: It is a red letter day for me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have just found out that you were listening to my speech.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I say, Mr Davies, that I listen to every Member of the House's speech, and I particularly listen when you are speaking. As you are such an accomplished parliamentarian, it behooves the Chair to concentrate.

The House: Aww!

Philip Davies: You are very kind, Madam Deputy Speaker. It really is a red-letter day now. I shall put that in the literature I will distribute at the next election.

No one has written this pairing yet, possibly because it's self-evident Red Dawn wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole.