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
As home secretary, I gained a reputation for being 'tough'; less concerned with liberty than with public protection.
As a former home secretary, I have access to and knowledge of the workings of the system in a way that individuals unfamiliar with the courts can never hope to have.
At school, I was brought up on revolting food - sausages, sausages and Spam - but at home, I had the most wonderful sponge puddings, which I don't indulge in very often now.
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.
History teaches us that, whatever we say, racists will always distort the words of mainstream politicians to make themselves sound more respectable.
Our first duty is to protect our people.
respecting our fundamental civil liberties and ensuring that they are not exploited.
If surveillance infiltrates our homes and personal relationships, that is a gross breach of our human and civil rights.
Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves.
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.
My view is that heads should roll. There are too many people in the system who simply don't care. I fully support Charles Clarke in getting to the bottom of this.
Being a Labour home secretary in the 21st century means fighting a constant battle against both extreme Right and Left.
Being home secretary involves having to face some of the worst of human behaviour and challenges of modern society.
At this very moment in time there will be people making, breaking relationships, regretting deeply what they've done, and causing hurt, but that is a fact of life, and if we weren't full of emotion, we'd be automatons, and I don't think people want us to be that.