RED STAR RESEARCH - Tony Blair and New Labour's links with Company Bosses and the Rich

Gavyn Davies

Gavyn Davies was the Chief International Economist at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, until September 2001 when he became Chairman of the BBC.

At Goldman Sachs he was a senior partner, paid Ł2 million a year. In August 2000 he made Ł15 million from selling 219,000 shares in Goldman Sachs. His total shareholding is worth Ł85 million. In 1998 when thousands of people in the north east of England were losing their jobs he said that half a million job losses were a fact of life in the battle against inflation.

He is married to Sue Nye, who runs Gordon Brown's private office. Their children were bridesmaid and pageboy at Gordon Brown's wedding. He is an 'unofficial' adviser to Gordon Brown and a friend of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson. He was offered the job of Deputy Governor of the Bank of England in 1998, but turned it down when he could not get a guarantee that he would ultimately get the Governor's job. Before the 1997 election Davies and Sue Nye were involved in organising expensive dinners for City bosses as part of the Labour Party's bid to win them over.

He was born in Zimbabwe and went to Oxford and Cambridge Universities before working in the Number 10 policy unit from 1974-6 and as an economic adviser for both the Wilson and Callaghan Labour Governments from 1976-9 (where he met Sue Nye). As Callaghan's Treasury adviser he first promoted the idea of allowing council tenants buy their homes - possibly why Thatcher gave him an OBE in 1979. He worked as an economist in the City, first for Phillips and Drew, then Simon and Coates, before starting at Goldman Sachs in 1986. He was also an economic adviser to Tory Chancellor Kenneth Clarke (one of his Treasury's 'wise men') from 1993 and was ex-Prime Minister John Major's favourite economist.

He was brought in by the Government to review the funding of the BBC, coming up with a proposal for huge increase in the licence fee and the suggestion that the BBC should bring the private sector into its commercial activities. He is a director of iMPOWER, along with Robert Devereux.

In December 2000 Davies was appointed Vice-Chairman of the BBC. In September 2001 he was appointed Chairman of the BBC and he resigned from Goldman Sachs. He is paid Ł77,590 plus extensive perks. Greg Dyke is the Director-General of the BBC.


Baggy House in North Devon		Ł1.8 million house in south west London.

They have a house in Clerkenwell, London, a multi-million pound modern house in Croyde, near Barnstaple in Devon and a Ł1.8 million house in South West London. The house in Devon, called Baggy House, has an entire wall made of glass which slides open at the touch of a button.

Davies and Nye at Baggy House

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