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
If, in the name of liberty, we allow individuals to act in a way that damages the wellbeing of the whole, it will inevitably mean the breakdown of mutuality, thereby changing the very nature of our society.
The government must give men and women without power a real say over what happens to them, and the means of engaging in a participative, invigorated and living democracy.
I said it's impossible to have an amnesty without ID cards and a clean database, because you firstly don't have any incentives for people to actually come up front and register, and make themselves available, and secondly you have no means of tracking them.
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.
Being a Labour home secretary in the 21st century means fighting a constant battle against both extreme Right and Left.
I have made mistakes in the past, but when I have, I have always said so.
If I pleaded guilty to a mistake while I was home secretary, it wasn't that I didn't get tough - my God, I put immigration and security officials on French soil for the first time.
I believe that, if the parole board decide it's necessary, such offenders should stay behind bars for the whole of their sentence and then be closely supervised for years after their release.
I am totally in favour of reform - but it must be reform that changes the nature of British politics, not simply the makeup or operation of parliament.
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.
History teaches us that, whatever we say, racists will always distort the words of mainstream politicians to make themselves sound more respectable.
Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves.
For six and a half years, I had responsibility for leading the Labour party policy on education and delivering on our promise of improved opportunities for all our children.
I encouraged Tony to serve out as much of this term as he can as PM. I think that's what he'll do, and I hope he'll want me to do this job through that period. I think he will.