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
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.
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.
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.
We need dynamic and thriving businesses and a skilled and adaptable labour force to produce competitiveness and prosperity.
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.
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.
the state has a role in helping people through rapid economic change. But not as a permanent safety net.
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.
We need to reaffirm that politics is not merely compatible with economic progress and development in the 21st century, but essential to it.