The former secretary general of the Council of Europe (CoE), Terry Davis, who has died aged 86, was a West Midlands Labour MP for 28 years, and was popular in his constituency because he understood the problems of the area, where he had been born and where he had himself worked in the car industry. At Westminster he won a reputation as a serious-minded, conscientious MP, but he never held ministerial office and thus chose to focus his later career on the international stage.
Like many of his generation of Labour politicians, Davis was unlucky that his party was out of government for 18 years of his period at Westminster. He was in his early 30s and too inexperienced for office when first an MP between 1971 and the February 1974 general election when he lost his seat. He returned to Commons in 1979, but by the time Labour next won an election in 1997 and Tony Blair became prime minister, Davis was close to 60 and his image did not concur with the New Labour Britpop youthfulness of the era.
