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
Throughout my political life, I've not been a stranger to controversy.
History teaches us that, whatever we say, racists will always distort the words of mainstream politicians to make themselves sound more respectable.
It's not just parliament that requires radical modernisation. It's our democratic processes.
In the U.K., we have always been an open, trading nation, enriched by our global links. Contemporary patterns of migration extend this tradition.
Being home secretary involves having to face some of the worst of human behaviour and challenges of modern society.
I didn't come into politics to have to deal with the issue of clandestine entry, illegal working, or an asylum system that allows a free run for right-wing bigots.
I prefer a positive view of freedom, drawing on another tradition of political thinking that goes all the way back to the ancient Greek polis.
the state has a role in helping people through rapid economic change. But not as a permanent safety net.
If you have a sense of irony or humour, you're usually cut down, as you're usually distorted or misinterpreted. So it does lead to us being slightly more dour and staid and predictable than would otherwise be the case, which I personally find quite frustrating - because if you don't laugh occasionally in my job, you cry most of the time.
Speaking for the nation as a whole entails understanding and feeling the pain, as well as understanding the aspiration of the different cultural, social and political make-up of the nation.
Read my lips. No selection by examination or interview.
No one is going macho, no one's trying to do this for the sake of promoting some sort of vitriolic or anti-human rights agenda,
We need to reaffirm that politics is not merely compatible with economic progress and development in the 21st century, but essential to it.
When I first came into parliament, there was, on average, a by-election every three months - due not to MPs bailing out, but because of the death rate.