Professor Jon Davis OBE
Professor Davis is the lecturer and co-ordinator of four postgraduate modules at King’s:
- ‘Prime Minister’s & No.10 Downing Street 1945-79′
- ‘Prime Minister’s & No.10 Downing Street since 1979’
- ‘Chancellors and the Treasury: Managing the British Economy’
- ‘Making modern Britain: Pivotal Prime Ministerial Decisions’
In March 2019, Oxford University Press published Professor Davis’s ‘Heroes or Villains?: The Blair Government Reconsidered’ co-written by Visiting Professor John Rentoul of The Independent. Professor Davis’s Cabinet Office-sponsored PhD was published as Prime Ministers and Whitehall, 1960-74 in 2007.
Professor Jon Davis was the historical adviser on the acclaimed six part BBC Two series ‘Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution’, first broadcast in 2021.
Professor Davis is currently supervisor to three doctoral studies:
- History of Bank of England independence
- The Labour Government’s economic policies, 1974-76
- Jonathan Powell as Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff, 1997-2007
And previously advised:
- The Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit, 2001-05
- The Treasury and the Financial Crisis, 2007-09
- The creation of Canary Wharf
- A history of financial sector cyber security
Before joining King’s, Professor Davis spent a total of eighteen years at Queen Mary, University of London, and rose to be Director of the Mile End Group (2004-14), overseeing more than 100 increasingly high-profile events over more than a decade. This pioneering unit was funded by the computer-giant HP, staffed by postgraduates and hosted the biggest figures in government past and present including former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Sir John Major, then Director of MI5 Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, Treasury Permanent Secretary Sir Nicholas Macpherson and many more.
Major project partnerships included those with No. 10 Downing Street and HM Treasury. Prof Davis was also a lecturer of the undergraduate courses ‘Cabinet, Premiership and the conduct of British Central Government since 1945’ and the MA courses ‘New Labour in Government’ and ‘The Hidden Wiring of British Government’. His undergraduate special subject ‘The Blair Government’ led to Prof Davis being shortlisted for the Times Higher Education’s Most Innovative Teacher award in 2010. Moreover, Prof Davis was Associate Director of Corporate Affairs at QM from 2008-2011.
Professor Davis worked for five years in investment banking at JP Morgan, Banque Paribas and Hambros Bank, and spent the year 2000 in the Modernising Government Secretariat of the Cabinet Office.