Downing Street announced on 6 October that Quentin Davies, Member of Parliament for Grantham and Stamford, has been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence.

Quentin Davies said:

“I am very much looking forward to my new appointment as Minister for Defence Equipment & Support. I have huge admiration for the Armed Forces and the civil servants who support them and my recent report on National Recognition for the Armed Forces gave me an excellent insight to the challenges they face. Our Armed Forces are doing an amazing job in difficult circumstances and my priority will be to do all I can to ensure they get the best possible equipment and logistic support.

Quentin Davies MP, Bill Clark OBE from the Ministry of Defence and Air Commodore Martin Sharp OBE MA from the RAF have published the report on the outcome of the inquiry into National Recognition of our Armed Forces, published May 2008.

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Leaving a political party and joining another is not an easy thing to do. But what do you do as an M.P. if you become convinced that your own party has gone irretrievably off the rails, and another one really does now stand for the things you have always believed in?

There are only three things you can do in those circumstances. Leave public life altogether. Just suppress your honest judgement, and pretend to everyone that you are perfectly happy – which means mouthing falsehoods every time you make a political comment. Or “cross the floor” of the House.

I excluded the first and the second. To leave public life because circumstances had proved difficult would be an abdication.

I made two decisions last week – having contemplated both of them for months. One was to leave the Conservative party. I set out many of my reasons for that decision in my letter to David Cameron. The other was to join Labour. That I have not so far had the opportunity fully to explain.

In a sense I agreed with New Labour since its inception. After all its two cardinal principles, a competitive enterprise–friendly economy combined with social justice, are what I have stood for all my life. But it took me a long time – many years – before I appreciated the reality and the seriousness of the changes in the Labour Party. Meantime of course all my instincts were to try to get my own Party onto the right course rather than to join another. That endeavour obviously failed.

If we want to be taken seriously as an alternative government we should not do things in Opposition, or urge on the Government a line of action which no responsible government would dream of.

Why did I refuse to vote last night with the bulk of the Conservative Party ( I was not alone in abstaining) on our frontbench’s resolution to hold an inquiry into our involvement in Iraq? Not because I exclude an inquiry at some stage. Indeed I think one held after military operations are over, and in the perspective of how they ended would be a most useful way of learning lessons, military, political and other. But I was quite persuaded that the right time is not now – indeed that it would be utterly mistaken to hold such an inquiry now.

How often do you drive past Grantham Barracks, and when you do, do you ever give a passing thought to what goes on inside ?

I drive past several times a week. The barracks has in fact a rather special and sentimental significance for me – my father served there briefly during World War II when it was an RAF station. My father-in-law much later had his office there for many years as regimental secretary of the 17th-21st Lancers.

Unlike most passers-by I have been many times inside the gates – in an official role to attend meetings, briefings and formal occasions including passing out parades.

26 September 2006

Grantham Journal article

Should we rearrange Grantham cemetery so in future all new graves point to Mecca?

It’s not a stupid or an abstract question. One London borough has apparently already decided to do so. Others are considering it.

Many people will say they don’t care which way their body, or the headstone that covers their ashes, points after death. They probably never thought the matter worth a second’s reflection in the course of their lives and are likely to have either higher preoccupations, or none at all, once they have left this world. So why should non-Muslims care either way?

Quentin has published an article, “No taxpayers’ money for spin doctors, campaigning and political advertising”. Read the article and comments on the article from constituents.

20 May 2005

Grantham Journal article

“Congratulations. You are a wonderful M.P. but I fear I could never vote for you, I can’t stand your party”. “Well done. We are so glad you got back. My wife and I voted for you, but we would never otherwise have voted Conservative”.

Over the past ten days I have had dozens of people say the same thing, almost word for word –fortunately more falling into the second category than the first.

How do I react? The second type of remark is of course very touching and encouraging. The first makes me feel like a little boy who is told that however hard he tries he will never be allowed to pass the test. In both cases of course I respect the democratic decision taken by electors according to whichever lights they choose.

1 July 2005

Grantham Journal article

After the Second World War we created the Welfare State – some of which is now visibly flaking away, especially in the NHS, in pensions and with increasing means-testing. In the last decade we have been building a Nanny State – endless regulation and a vast expansion of the bureaucracy in quangos and local and central authorities to administer it.

Are we now about to construct the Surveillance State? We have more and more CCTV cameras. Last month the Transport Secretary outlined proposals for constant G.P.S. surveillance of road traffic. On Tuesday we had the Second Reading of the Identity Card Bill.