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'm guilty of a mistake and I'm paying the price of it,
Simple numbers of people of a particular age tell us nothing about the condition of their health, the environment in which they live, and the support systems they can afford to pay for.
In government, you are pressed by the security agencies. They come to you with very good information, and they say, 'You need to do something.' So you do need the breath of scepticism, not cynicism, breathing on them.
That is why with enormous regret I have tendered my resignation to the prime minister today.
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've had a guide dog since 1969. Not the same one, of course: I've had five.
I want to go back to a time when I was very young, when you expected the police to be part of the community and the community to be part of policing.
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.
We all accept that there is a compelling need for more effective powers to exclude and remove suspected terrorists from our country,
There is always an effort to link the public and the private.
Crucially, I'd like to thank Labour party members up and down the country for sticking with us. For their active citizenship, their willingness to engage in our democracy, and for being there at the cutting edge of making our democracy work.
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.
Tony asked me to stay. It could only have damaged the Prime Minister if I had stayed on.