Rowenna Davis

Early life and education

Davis was born in Lewisham and spent her early years in Portsmouth and Catford before her family moved to North London, where she attended the comprehensive Hampstead School. At the age of fourteen, she organised a protest against the quality of the school meals provided by Serco. Home-cooked, healthy food was offered in a rival, all-you-can-eat tuck shop and the students boycotted the official canteen, forcing them to change their menu within two weeks. In 2003 she and two schoolfriends organised 'Hands Up For Peace' in response to the war in Iraq. This led to thousands of other students making a hand-print bearing their name and a message of peace. These were then printed out, attached to sticks and planted in Parliament Square to make a protest with the intention of influencing Prime Minister Tony Blair.

After leaving school, she read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford. In 2005, while still an undergraduate, she won the Oxford Leadership Prize which is a contest requiring an essay on a contemporary issue of political leadership. Her winning essay, "Invisible Leaders", was presented in a novel audio format and won her the prize of £4,000. Her leadership models were those that "create space and opportunity for action". She subsequently undertook a postgraduate MA degree in journalism from City University London.

Journalism

Since graduating from Oxford University, Davis has worked as an intern at Bloomberg News and as a freelance journalist, writing for publications such as The Guardian, The Independent, the New Statesman, the Mail on Sunday, The Economist, The Times, the Times Higher Education and the Financial Times. Davis has appeared as a political commentator for a variety of current affairs television and radio programmes such as Daily Politics, The Politics Show, Newsnight, Sunday Politics and Sky News.

In September 2011, she published the book Tangled Up in Blue, which is an account of the development of Blue Labour, a movement within the Labour Party founded by Lord Glasman.

Political career

In 2010, Davis stood as the Labour candidate for the Cathedrals ward of Southwark, but lost to a Liberal Democrat candidate. She entered a Microsoft contest of ideas for the 18–25 age group and won £10,000 of sponsorship for her plan to engage unemployed, young people in local government, encouraging them to become councillors. In May 2011, she was herself elected to Southwark Council as councillor in the Lane ward of Peckham which she won with a swing from the Lib Dems of 12%. As a councillor, she campaigned against the proliferation of betting shops in the borough.

She is an active member and supporter of several charitable, political and trade union organisations including Blackfriars Settlement, Crisis over Christmas, Headliners, Make Justice Work, National Union of Journalists and Unite. Davis also supports Envision, and was one of the first Envision Graduates; Davis explained how this experience had influenced her work for the community.

On 13 July 2013, Davis was selected as the Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Southampton Itchen, in the 2015 general election, to succeed John Denham. Although Davis was criticised for her lack of connections to Southampton, Denham endorsed his successor, saying "I know that Rowenna Davis has the drive and vision to represent Southampton superbly in the years ahead..." In February 2015, Iain Dale predicted that she would increase the Labour majority, but an unpredicted swing to the Conservatives confounded this prediction and she lost to Royston Smith by 2,316 votes (5.2%).

After politics

In June 2015, Davis announced via Twitter that she was training to become a teacher and subsequently began working at Oasis Academy Mayfield in Southampton.

Email hacking

Davis' email account was hacked in 2011 and the hacker tried to extort £500 from her for its return. The hacker also impersonated her in fraudulent emails to her five thousand contacts, friends and relatives, trying to persuade them to send money to a Western Union account. The email account was provided by Google who Davis felt were unhelpful initially. After several days, she regained control of the account, following the intervention of a contact who worked at Google.