Constituency : Plymouth Sutton 1966-74, Plymouth Devonport 1974-81 ( Labour ), 1981-90 (SDP) 1990-92 (Independent Social Democrat )
One of the more controversial figures to feature here, David was one of the Gang of Four that led the defections from Labour.
David was born near Plymouth to Welsh parents. He was educated at Mount House School and Cambridge where he studied medicine. He qualified as a doctor and worked in neurosurgery at St Thomas Hospital. In 1964, he contested Torrington, coming a poor third. In 1966, he unseated the Tories at Plymouth Sutton. He became a junior defence minister in the Wilson government. David hung on by a slim margin in 1970. He was a defence spokesman in opposition but resigned in order to support British membership of the E.E.C. Following boundary changes, he switched to Plymouth Devonport in February 1974 and narrowly won the seat. He increased his majority in October. He was appointed a junior health minister by Wilson then moved to the Foreign Office by Callaghan.When the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Crosland died, he was the surprise appointment to the job, the youngest occupant for many years. Much of his time was spent on Africa trying to achieve a peace settlement with Rhodesia and dealing with Uganda's Idi Amin whom he once proposed to assassinate. He became notorious for getting through a number of drivers during his tenure. He was widely tipped to lose his seat in 1979 but held on by just over 1,000 votes. Callaghan dropped him to energy spokesman in the Shadow Cabinet; David responded with his "fudge and mudge" speech, a coded message for Callaghan to stand down.
David was not particularly close to Roy Jenkins and paid little heed to the Dimbleby Lecture in 1979. What spurred him to leave was the election of Michael Foot and commitment to unilateral disarmament. He was roundly booed for a combative speech on the subject at the 1980 Conference. The Gang of Four's statement of intent became known as the "Limehouse Declaration" because it was composed at his house. Having failed to persuade Shirley Williams to stand for the SDP leadership in 1982, David challenged Roy Jenkins and got over 40% of the vote. He took a robust stand on the Falklands War and reaped the reward a year later when he retained his seat by a convincing margin.
David soon let it be known that he would be challenging Jenkins who stepped down without a fight. David's major concerns as leader were to maintain a high public profile which he did brilliantly, to keep the Alliance strong on defence and to resist calls for merging the parties. His relationship with David Steel was difficult but he respected Steel as someone doing the best for his own party. His clear respect for Margaret Thatcher as a radical and general distaste for the Liberals worried many of his colleagues.
I saw David speak in autumn 1984 when I was at Leeds. The hall booked was only just big enough. David didn't want to make a big entrance and was sat on the platform as the hall filled up. My friend Frank started to struggle with the crowd and when he saw this, David got up and took over the stewarding of the meeting himself. The looks on the faces of students coming in as they were directed to their seats by the man they'd come to see were priceless.
The Alliance went into the 1987 contest in reasonably good shape but were soon outspent by Labour and dogged by the perception that the two leaders were not in harmony, a point underlined by a disastrous joint interview with Sir Robin Day. The Alliance vote slipped although David got another good result in Plymouth.
As soon as the election was over Steel called for merger of the parties, a call supported by the other members of the Gang of Four. David was determined to resist this and resigned the leadership when the party voted to begin negotiations. The ultimate success of these, after a highly acrimonious slanging match , left David leading a parliamentary party of three and for the next two years indulged in a guerilla war against the merged party without ever articulating a credible vision of what the continuing SDP could achieve.
David's prestige slowly ebbed away and in 1990 the SDP candidate finished behind the Monster Raving Loony party in the Bootle by-election. David acknowledged the game was up blaming misleading membership figures for the futility of the past two years. He soon announced his own intention to stand down at the next election. He spent much of his remaining time in Parliament trying to secure the seats of his remaining two comrades. The Tories wanted him on board but wouldn't stand down in those seats. In the end, David gave a half-hearted endorsement of John Major but went to the Lords as a crossbencher.
Major nominated him as the EU co-chairman of the Conference on the former Yugoslavia alongside former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The appointment of David as a peacemaker caused much amusement to his former colleagues. David and Vance did come up with a peace plan but Bill Clinton didn't get behind it and David was criticised for getting too close to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
David eventually stepped down in 1995 and embarked on a business career with various directorships all over the world. He started returning to politics in 2007 with a book on the effect of illness in world leaders and the intoxication of power. In 2010 he got involved with longtime friend Mike Thomas's Charter 2010 movement advocating a hung Parliament.
David's recent political shifts have been perplexing to say the least. After backing the coalition, he was strongly critical of its health care reforms and started leaning back towards Labour. In 2014 he donated money to Labour which ended his status as a crossbencher. He now sits as an "independent social democrat". He then backed leaving the EU. He gave more money to Labour in 2017 despite it being led by the man who ousted his friend John Grant and who represents everything he most despised about the far left.
He is now 80.
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