Born on the outskirts of Doncaster, in Woodlands in 1948, Davies went to school in Thorne, then worked at Danum School as a teacher. He is married. He is also the Chairman of Sykehouse Cricket Club and a member of the Campaign for Real Education and the Campaign Against Political Correctness. Davies is the father of Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley.

Davies was a member of the Labour Party until 1973 when he joined the Conservatives. He remained in the Conservative Party until Prime Minister John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.

Davies then joined the strongly eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). He contested Yorkshire South at the European Parliament election in 1994, taking 2.6% of the votes cast. Three years later, he contested Doncaster Central at the 1997 general election, getting 462 votes. The following year, in 1998, a by-election arose in the Yorkshire South European constituency and Davies stood again, against the wishes of the then UKIP party leader Michael Holmes but with the support of Nigel Farage and John Whittaker, who put up his deposit. Davies came last in the poll, but saved his deposit, increasing his share of the vote to 11.6%.

Davies left UKIP and joined the English Democrats where he became the Chairman of the South Yorkshire branch of the English Democrats. He stood in Doncaster's Finningley ward in the 2008 local elections, achieving second place with 1,033 votes, over 20% of the vote and stood in both the European elections and the Doncaster mayoral election in June 2009. He was placed fourth on English Democrats' party list for Yorkshire and the Humber, a list that achieved 2.6% of the vote. In the mayoral race, Davies took second place in the first round of voting, but won by around 400 votes once second preferences had been taken into account.

Davies' mayoral campaign had called for harsher punishments for "young thugs", withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of council translation services, a reduction in the number of Doncaster councillors, and for local schools to opt out of local authority control. Once elected, Davies was interviewed on BBC Radio Sheffield and Look North where the interviewers questioned the legality and achievability of his manifesto promises.