Born to a single mother, Betty Brown, in York on 23 December 1948, Davis was initially brought up by his grandparents there. His maternal grandfather, Walter Harrison, was the son of a wealthy trawlerman but was disinherited after joining the Communist Party; he led a 'hunger march' to London shortly after the more famous Jarrow March, which did not allow Communists to participate. His father, whom he met once after his mother's death, is Welsh. After his mother married Ronald Davis, the family moved to London, where they lived initially in a flat in Wandsworth which Davis has described as "a terrible little slum".

Whilst a student, Davis was active in the Federation of Conservative Students, becoming national chairman in 1973. Davis was first elected to Parliament in the 1987 general election as the MP for Boothferry which, in 1997, became the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden. He was a government whip when parliament voted on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, angering many of the Maastricht Rebels on his own right-wing of the party. Davis's progression through the Conservative ranks eventually led to him becoming a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1994-97).  He rejected a shadow ministerial position under William Hague, opting instead to chair the Public Accounts Committee. In 1999, Davis presented the Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill to the House of Commons, in which he proposed to transfer ministerial exercise of the Royal Prerogative to the Commons in the following areas: the signing of treaties, the diplomatic recognition of foreign governments; European Union legislation; the appointment of ministers, peers and ambassadors; the establishment of Royal Commissions; the proclamation of Orders in Council unless subject to resolutions of the Commons; the exercise of the powers of the executive not made by statute; the declarations of states of emergency; the dissolution of Parliament.  Davis used his first interview as Shadow Home Secretary in November 2003 to state his personal support for a reintroduction of the death penalty for people convicted of multiple murder "where there is clear evidence and no doubt" surrounding the offender's guilt, citing "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe and Moors Murderer Ian Brady as examples of offenders who would fall into this category. This interview came almost 40 years after the abolition of the death penalty for murder. As Shadow Home Secretary, Davis turned the Conservatives away from the Labour Party's plan to reintroduce identity cards, citing spiralling costs and libertarian issues. He turned initial Conservative support into one of concern and abstention, making the final change to one of opposition much easier. Davis believed that once the true cost and unreliability of the ID card scheme was explained to the general public, they would turn against it. He was also credited, by some commentators, with "claiming the scalps" of two Labour ministers, David Blunkett and Beverley Hughes after both were forced to resign.

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