[citation needed] At the beginning of 1980, the opportunity arose for him to go into London-wide politics in a by-election for the Greater London Council at Vauxhall, which he won easily as a Labour candidate.

Among the first decisions taken under Davies' control was to allow GLC teachers paid leave to attend the People's March for Jobs, a protest against unemployment, but a rebellion by more moderate Labour councillors defeated the plan.

Davies' early priorities included a reduction in the price of school meals, which he eventually pressed through in spite of defeats caused by Labour rebellions and efforts to have it declared illegal.

However Davies never had to deal with the abolition of ILEA, as his deputy Frances Morrell used her connections within the GLC Women's Group to depose him in April 1983.

He remained as a backbencher long enough to prove his left-wing credentials by supporting the strategy, subsequently held to be illegal, of refusing to set a GLC rate as a protest at ratecapping.

[7] Davies was made a Baron in the Dissolution Peerages 2019 by the Leader of the Labour Party at the time, Jeremy Corbyn.