David Blunkett
David Blunkett
David Blunkett, Baron Blunkett, PCis best known as a British politician and more recently as an academic, having represented the Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency for 28 years through to 7 May 2015 when he stepped down at the general election. Blind since birth, and coming from a poor family in one of Sheffield's most deprived districts, he rose to become Education and Employment Secretary, Home Secretary and Work and Pensions Secretary in Tony Blair's Cabinet following Labour's victory in...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth6 June 1947
I did not in late November start the plethora of linking my private life with public events again.
I have never tried to fiddle my role as leader of the city of Sheffield, as an MP or as a minister.
I don't think anyone can say I have said one thing in public and done another in private.
I have built my reputation on honesty, I have sometimes been too honest.
We've got to get back to old-fashioned politics that's in touch with the people we seek to represent and to avoid self-inflicted wounds.
The government wants to be able to attack extremism and hatred wherever it occurs.
Yes, it will go through the disciplines that all puppies go through including house training and puppy walking, then at twelve month old it the training becomes a lot more rigorous which has to be done carefully otherwise you are in danger of stressing the dog.
To punish MPs because of the distance they live from London - those with fast train journeys quite close to London as well as those at some distance from both the capital or an appropriate airport - is perverse, but also dangerous to democracy.
We didn't consider closing Heathrow Airport because those who are threatening us would have been the victors,
Throughout my political life, I've not been a stranger to controversy.
The people we are dealing with are sophisticated, well organized and entirely ruthless, but they are also in a position to exploit the very freedoms we seek to protect.
What I am clear about is that I have made a mistake, ... I thought there was going to be increasing damage done to the government by me.
There are some really good experiments with the youth offending service, joining up youth offending teams with the youth justice board, and good local authority and primary care trusts working together.
Where asylum is used as a route to economic migration, it can cause deep resentment in the host community.