Petronella Wyatt

A bastard? Me?

Petronella Wyatt talks to David Davis, the Tory leadership contender, and finds a mixture of charm and ambition

issue 01 October 2005

David Davis is the first prospective Tory leader to have been born in a council house to an unmarried mother. The bookies’ favourite to take over from Michael Howard, Davis, 56, is said by his supporters to have garnered the necessary qualities on his way to the top: determination, spirit, tenacity, a sense of social justice and an understanding of ‘the man and woman on the street’.

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