This afternoon, the newly elected Conservative MP for Bishop Auckland, Dehenna Davison, delivered her first speech in the House of Commons. The northern MP, the first ever Tory to take her Durham seat since it was formed in 1885, has already caused a bit of a stir in Westminster, and been at the forefront of the new intake of ‘Red Wall’ Tory MPs who managed to seize Labour’s working-class heartlands in the 2019 election.
In her Maiden speech, the Tory MP described herself as ‘chuffed’ to be in the House of Commons and representing the people of Bishop Auckland, before delivering an impassioned defence of her constituency’s ‘industrial heartlands’, Blue Collar Toryism, the police and NHS.
And, in a sign that the new Tory intake will be paying close attention to Boris Johnson’s promise to ‘level up’ the UK’s regions, Davison said she was particularly ‘proud to be a member of this Conservative party which has levelling up and spreading opportunity at the very core of its ethos.’
The new MP also made a moving tribute to her father, a stonemason she described as ‘the very embodiment of Blue Collar Conservative values’, who was killed after being punched a single time in a pub, when Davison was a teenager.
Watch the full Maiden speech here:
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