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 have taken this step not only to avoid continuing misinterpretation of the position, but also to protect family and friends from further intrusion and hope that will be respected.
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.
In the U.K., we have always been an open, trading nation, enriched by our global links. Contemporary patterns of migration extend this tradition.
In today's world, learning has become the key to economic prosperity, social cohesion and personal fulfillment. We can no longer afford to educate the few to think, and the many to do.
I grew up in one of the most deprived parts of Britain. I know the problems which inner-city children face.
In an ageing society, it makes sense to support older adults to develop new skills, prolonging their working lives.
I'm convinced that quite a lot of young people, when they get in trouble with the law, it's a cry for help there. Because it's not that they go out to offend. It's that their behaviour is self-parading, it's the big 'I'. And sometimes that means they're really lacking in confidence.
I may be blind, but I can see how inspiring it is to be me.
I'm as keen as the next person to preserve the right to free speech.
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.
In primary schools, I set two main objectives - to cut infant class sizes and improve literacy and numeracy.
By confirming the importance of politics and politicians in Britain, we can build from the bottom up and begin to reverse the worrying anti-politics trend, which will empower the elite technocrats and leave defenceless the man or woman in the street with a mere vote to cast.
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, in hosting the G20 summit and in the budget, must display the same boldness in tackling the instability at home that they do in promoting a worldwide answer to the global meltdown.
If I can't actually remove somebody ... I will detain them instead