In many ways a model politician

The great controversialist (Photo: Simon Ridgway)

Alun Davies is in many ways a model politician. Combative, committed, canny and even sometimes charming, he combines the zest for battle with the asides and anecdotes of a bon viveur. His background in a diverse range of industries and political roles gives him a depth and perspective that contributes to his world view.

One of the Assembly’s most natural orators, he speaks neither in code nor in muted tones. His interventions are often brutal and memorable. When Ieuan Wyn Jones was deemed by Davies to have been “economical with the actualite” around the Heads of the Valleys programme, the many panes of the Assembly building shook at their mutual rage. And it has been Alun Davies who has been the most ferocious critic of the new UK Government, choosing twice to write on the subject on this site; and making full use of his Twitter feed to spray the bullets ever further. Some examples of sharp tweets include:

The last crack, building on an accusation in the Chamber that Kirsty Williams was now the Deputy Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, was perhaps the sharpest barb that has been hurled in the Assembly Chamber this year. Yet he isn’t always so precise. When Cheryl Gillan came to the Assembly recently it was redoubtable Davies who kept up the assault for the full two hours without drawing much blood. His machine gun style that day was perhaps more suited to Westminster knockabout than the new Welsh democracy.

He is also known as a particularly harsh critic of Plaid Cymru, being unafraid to rock the coalition from time to time. His anti-Plaid vituperation is fired by his former membership of that party, when he was equally fierce Labour as a critic – so much so that Dafydd Wigley was said to see him as a possible future leader.

But he clearly doesn’t mind being seen as harsh, because Alun Davies loves a bit of real politics. Not for him cosy consensus. Where there is injustice, he seeks to bring right. There is a strong social conscience below the hard-faced exterior. He is totally, passionately committed to alleviating poverty be it rural or in Blaenau Gwent. Poverty of opportunity, aspiration and ambition enrages him.

Perhaps this is because he knows how to seize opportunity, gives off such an aspirational aura, and is not scared to respect the value of ambition. Much has been made in the past of his own ambitious streak but his ambitions are more than personal. He is ambitious for politics, for the Assembly, for Wales and for the party he has now chosen. If he seems frustrated sometimes it is not really because of a lack of personal advancement, but because so much of what he sees lacks drive and ambition.

He is also a considerable risk taker. Few took him seriously when he declared his intention to leave Mid and West Wales at the next Assembly election and instead contest Blaenau Gwent, where he was born and raised. But to him this leap in the dark – done with drive and ambition for a place he loves – was more than an easy headline. Davies thinks you need to take risks in politics and he was finding it frustrating that no-one would challenge incumbent Independent AM and win back what was once Labour’s safest Assembly seat. Roll on two years and the result in the Parliamentary election in May 2010 seems to point to a risk that will pay off: independent MP Dai Davies lost with a 29% swing to Labour. The wide Davies smile was much in evidence in TV studios and in the Bay in ensuing days. And he had a right to smile.

His ambition for Wales is married to a total commitment to Wales. Acquiring the powers for the Assembly to do its job properly isn’t a debating point for Alun Davies, it is a fundamental requirement in order for politics to better serve the people of Wales. To him that isn’t pseudo-nationalist nation building, it’s common sense. Expect him to be prominent in any coming referendum campaign, and if he isn’t then that’s a big mistake. Because when it comes to selling a message, in the Assembly or on the media, they don’t get much better than Alun Davies.

One of his important characteristics is his diligence. His record in debates in plenary is in the top ten per cent, and his speeches clearly have a personal edge. On scrutiny committees too he has shown real adeptness at identifying the flaws in evidence or pursuing ideological incoherence. The shoddy offends him – his ambition for the Assembly encompasses a view that those giving evidence to the place should put the maximum effort in too. He would make a superb chair of one of the main Assembly Committees and in time will probably do so – and maybe attain ministerial office too. All of which, of course, depends on whether his Blaenau Gwent gamble has paid off…

Has he really just been an Assembly Member for three years? For everyone around him, it seems much longer. And that’s meant in a nice way, Alun.