Nothing in his previous 30 years of political activity quite prepared Quentin Davies, Lord Davies of Stamford, who has died aged 80, for the intensity of the emotional anguish to which he subjected himself in advance of his decision to abandon his membership of the Conservative party and cross the floor of the House of Commons to sit on the Labour benches.
His defection in June 2007 was prompted by despair about the mounting antipathy towards Europe that had been steadily growing throughout his 20 years as a Tory MP, in direct conflict with his own passionate conviction about the need for Britain to remain within a united European Union.
