Who is Welsh Conservative Andrew RT Davies?

The resignation of Andrew RT Davies as leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh Parliament is the second time he has left the job.

Davies, who was first elected to the role in 2011, and was replaced by Paul Davies after he stood down in 2018.

But the farmer-turned politician then returned in 2021 after a three-year break.

His latest decision to stand down comes after he only narrowly survived a vote of confidence among the 15 Tory Members of the Senedd (MSs), which he said left his position "untenable".

He had outlasted five UK Conservative prime ministers, and taken on four Welsh Labour first ministers as leader of the opposition in the Senedd.

In his resignation letter, Davies accused some of his MSs of undermining him, and it follows months of unhappiness within the Tory group, who are the main opposition to the Welsh Labour government in the Senedd.

Davies is widely known in politics by his middle initials RT, and for his idiosyncratic turn of phrase: he once described himself as "19 stone of prime Welsh beef".

The Brexit campaigner had led the Conservatives in the Welsh Parliament for most of the last 13 years and through two elections.

Davies, who is 56, was born in Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan. He was a breech baby, telling BBC Wales' Daniel Davies in 2016 that he was "blue when I was born and blue now".

It was his father who, after stints as a bare-knuckle boxer and working on fairs, began the family farming business.

Davies got involved in many of the familiar institutions of agriculture. He was a president of the Young Farmers Club in Llantrisant and was a Welsh delegate on the National Farmers' Union council.

He joined the Conservatives in 1997. After a couple of campaigns as a Westminister parliamentary candidate he won election to the National Assembly for Wales, as the Senedd was then, in 2007.

While being in front line Welsh politics ever since, Davies is still involved in the family farm in St Hilary in the Vale of Glamorgan. He is married with four children.

He first got the job as Welsh Conservative Senedd leader after the 2011 assembly election, which saw his predecessor Nick Bourne lose his seat. Davies defeated Monmouth's Nick Ramsay in the leadership election that followed.

His early years as leader saw him clash heads with his party colleagues at the other end of the M4.

A classic example is the row in 2014 over new income tax powers for Wales. Davies thought they should be devolved with fewer restrictions, against UK government policy at the time.

Davies whipped his members into opposing the so-called "lockstep" in a vote of the Senedd - and sacked those from his front bench who defied him by supporting the UK government line that all tax bands should rise or fall by the same percentage.

In 2016 the Welsh Tory leader went against the pro-Remain stance of then PM David Cameron by backing Leave in the EU referendum - a decision he said left his family receiving "quite a bit of abuse". He became one of the most prominent campaigners in the Welsh Brexit campaign - in which Wales, like the UK as a whole, voted 52-48 to quit.

During his leadership the Conservatives saw their best result in Wales in 30 years at the 2015 general election, but went on to lose three seats at the 2016 assembly polls, coming third.

He stayed on, but a decision in 2017 to take the ex-Tory MP Mark Reckless into the Conservative Senedd group angered senior colleagues.

There were briefings, rows behind the scenes, and a text he was accidentally copied in on that suggested he would be ousted. In the end, Davies quit of his own volition.

Paul Davies took over following a leadership election, but the former leader remained an outspoken figure and kept his high profile. He tweeted constantly and often provided more media comment than the leadership could manage.

Outside Wales, Davies was in the spotlight after accidentally telling a party conference in 2016 that his party would make a success of "breakfast", rather than Brexit.

He took the viral social media reaction in good spirits, but he later said that his dyslexia was the reason, causing him to misread his autocue.

In the 2021 election the Conservatives came second, struggling to unseat Mark Drakeford's Welsh Labour as Covid restrictions were being lifted.

Since then Davies led his party to oppose the Welsh government's 20mph speed limit - often annoying ministers by frequently referring to it as a "blanket" limit, which they say is misinformation.

He was judged to have brought the Welsh Parliament into disrepute over the use of the phrase.

Despite the criticism he often levelled of the former first minister, he was close to tears in the Senedd when Drakeford formally quit as first minister, explaining he had appreciated a letter the former Labour leader sent when Davies had been ill.

After a heated exchange where Drakeford lost his temper with the Conservative, Davies said people told him they must have hated each other.

Perhaps explaining his outlook on the job, he told the Senedd: “That is not hate. That is passion, that is conviction, and that is what politics should be about."

In recent months his social media activity on X, formerly known as Twitter, has become the source of controversy.

He was accused of "Islamophobic race-baiting" by a Muslim group when he wrote about allegations that non-halal meat was not available at a school. The school said that was incorrect.

Davies' X account also rankled others when it showed him asking people at an agricultural show that he was "keen to find out people's views" on whether the Senedd should be scrapped.

It caused a row as the party officially backs the existence of the Welsh Parliament and its responsibilities - although some Tory members think Wales would be better off without the Senedd.

One of his predecessors warned him not to go down a "blind alley". Despite the X post, Davies himself has frequently expressed his support for the institution. Some in his party think it should support abolition.