Evan Harold Davis (born 8 April 1962) is an English journalist, presenter for the BBC, and former economist. He has presented Dragons' Den since 2005, and PM since 2018.
In October 2001, Davis took over from Peter Jay as the BBC's economics editor. He left this post in April 2008 to become a presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. In September 2014, he left Today to be the main presenter of Newsnight for four years. On 5 November 2018, Davis began presenting Radio 4's PM programme.[2]
Davis began work as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and while there he was briefly seconded to help officials work on early development of the Community Charge system of local government taxation (better known as the Poll Tax).[7] In 1988 he moved to the London Business School, writing articles for their publication Business Strategy Review. He returned to the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 1992, writing a paper on "Britain, Europe and the Square Mile" for the European Policy Forum which argued that British financial prosperity depended on being seen as a bridgehead to the European Union.[8]
As the BBC's economics editor, Davis was responsible for reporting and analysing economic developments on a range of programmes on BBC radio and television, particularly the Ten O'Clock News. He also had a role in shaping the extensive BBC coverage of economics across all the corporation's outputs, including online.
Davis also wrote a blog for the BBC website entitled Evanomics in which he "attempts to understand the real world, using the tool kit of economics". Subjects he discussed included road pricing, care for the elderly, Gordon Brown's budget and how to choose wine.
Davis has won several awards including the Work Foundation's Broadcast Journalist of the Year award in 1998, 2001 and 2003, and the Harold Wincott Business Broadcaster of the Year award in 2002. In 2008, Davis was ranked first in the Independent on Sunday's "pink list" of the hundred most influential gay and lesbian figures in British society.[11]
On 23 May 2005, Davis crossed picket lines during a day of industrial action by BBC staff over announced job cuts. Other notable broadcasters who turned up for work during the strike included Terry Wogan, Shelagh Fogarty and Declan Curry.[12][13] Davis was also noted for breaking a strike at the BBC which had been called by the National Union of Journalists: on 6 November 2010, he arrived to present the Today Programme at 3:30 am, along with fellow presenter Sarah Montague, although this was not technically crossing a picket line as they arrived before it was formed.[14][15]
Today programme
In mid-2007, Davis was a guest presenter on the Today programme for two weeks. In April 2008, he stood down as BBC Economics Editor to join the Today programme as a full-time presenter, replacing Carolyn Quinn.[16][17] In 2009, Davis said that one of the best things about presenting on the radio is that "you can look things up on Wikipedia while on air".[18]
The Bottom Line programme
On top of his duties at Today, Davis also presents The Bottom Line. It is a weekly business discussion programme which generally includes three or four business leaders or entrepreneurs responding to several topical questions regarding business-related issues.[19] First aired in 2006, the programme is a co-production between BBC News and The Open University.[20][21][22] As of September 2013, The Bottom Line runs 26 weeks of the year in three series: at 8:30 pm on Thursdays on BBC Radio 4, with a repeat showing at 5:30 pm on Saturdays and a television recording at 9:30 pm on Saturdays and Sundays on the BBC News Channel. The programme is broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service and BBC World News.[23]
In 2012, Davis presented Built in Britain, which looked at the role of major infrastructure projects in the UK, including examining the impact of the M25 on the town of Ashtead in Surrey where he grew up.
On 21 July 2014, it was announced that Davis would replace Jeremy Paxman as presenter of Newsnight starting in autumn 2014.[25] His last appearance as a presenter on Today was 26 September 2014.[26]
In 2017 Davis was found to have breached BBC rules on due impartiality in coverage of the 2017 French presidential election on Newsnight, giving the impression that he favoured Emmanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen. The BBC Executive Complaints Unit ruled that Davis' approaches in back-to-back interviews with representatives of the Macron and le Pen campaigns was so marked as to constitute bias.[27][28]
After four years with Newsnight, it was announced that Davis would move on to become the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 PM programme.[29] His final show was broadcast on 30 October 2018.[30]
PM programme
Davis began presenting Radio 4's PM on 5 November 2018.[2]
Writing
Davis' first book, Public Spending, was published in 1998. In it he argued for the privatisation of public services as a means of increasing efficiency. Davis' second book, Made in Britain: How the Nation Earns Its Living, was published in May 2011. His third book, Post-Truth: Why We Have Reached Peak Bullshit and What We Can Do About It was published in May 2017.
Personal life
Davis, who is gay,[31] lives in London with his husband Guillaume Baltz, a French landscape architect.[32][33][34] They married on 6 July 2022, the tenth anniversary of their civil partnership and the twentieth anniversary of their first meeting.[5] He is the owner of a whippet named Mr. Whippy.[35] Davis is a keen motorcyclist, and was seen riding a Yamaha R6 motorcycle in BBC Two's The City Uncovered.[36]
Davis's father, who was 92 and seriously ill with bowel cancer and heart problems, killed himself on the day of Davis's wedding in 2022, with Davis being informed later that day.[5]
^Davis, Evan (14 January 2009). "The rocket scientists of finance". BBC News. Evan Davis looks at how the desire of financial institutions to keep pushing profits higher have made them more vulnerable.
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