People tend to remember the old days as good, but praising Ontario's longest-serving premier of recent decades, William Davis, on his 80th birthday as if he was a Mother Theresa is a little too forgiving.

Davis was Progressive Conservative premier from 1971 to 1985. Anyone surviving to such a ripe age deserves congratulations, and even critics of Davis will recognize that he had some worthwhile policies and qualities.

But Davis is being described particularly as boldly introducing programs, being decent and civil even toward opponents and showing a sense of humour that's not seen much among current, more belligerent politicians. Only some of this is true.

This reporter remembers interviewing Davis in 1970 when he was education minister and still pretending to have no idea that premier John Robarts planned to announce his retirement next day and no thought of trying to succeed him.

Both of us knew that this reporter's newspaper was already printing the news and Davis had spent years assembling a huge team to help him run for the party leadership. But his white lie was acceptable, because aspirants to succeed are seen as pushy if they talk openly of running before a premier declares he is leaving.

Davis's programs included far-sighted expansions of schools, universities and community colleges and extending provincial funding to the end of Roman Catholic high schools, and he was praised for these.

He also talked to union leaders, in contrast to some recent Conservatives, required employers to deduct union dues from pay cheques, and banned professional strikebreakers.

But Davis often moved only after he lost majority government, which he did twice. A typical example was forcing seat-belts to be worn in cars, which he announced before the 1975 election, put off after protests and revived only when the opposition parties were able to insist on it.

The praise for extending funding to the end of Catholic high schools also did not did tell the whole story, which showed a tricky, even unscrupulous Davis.

Before the 1971 election, the Roman Catholic hierarchy publicly asked the three major parties to support extending funding. The Liberals and New Democrats agreed, but Davis was silent until a few days before calling the election and then announced he would not extend funding/ Conservative strategists maintained privately that this became the biggest issue in helping them win a majority.

Thirteen years later, as he was about to retire, Davis reversed himself, agreeing to extend funding, mainly to repay Catholic leaders who had kept their patience and continued to woo him.

There were many occasions on which Davis was not as gentlemanly as he is now portrayed. One was when he won an election in the 1980s by labeling then Liberal leader, Stuart Smith, a psychiatrist, as "Dr. Negative," because he suggested the Conservatives had allowed the Ontario economy to fall behind other provinces.

This hit Davis where it hurt most, because his party's proudest boast was it alone knew how to manage the economy, but most of Smith's claims turned out to be accurate.

Davis manipulated TV debates between leaders in elections, which voters grew to expect. In one, he refused to debate the leaders of the other parties at the same time, which has now become the normal format, fearing they would gang up on him.

In another, he announced he had accepted an invitation to debate from a network run by a friendly Conservative, who then refused to share the programs with rival networks, so no debate was held.

Davis has become an immensely popular speaker at party events, particularly because he adds a touch of levity that current Conservatives, weighed down by losing two successive elections, cannot muster.

The former premier brings smiles with such oneliners as "a lot of people told me I wasn't the world's greatest lawyer — that's why I went into politics."

And "if I had known how popular I was, I would have stayed on another 10 years."

But you, too, would be jolly if you could get away with so much.