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" Being home secretary involves having to face some of the worst of human behaviour and challenges of modern society. "
David Blunkett
Challenges
Worst
Society
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" What is it that unites, on the left of British politics, George Orwell, Billy Bragg, Gordon Brown and myself? An understanding that identity and a sense of belonging need to be linked to our commitment to nationhood and a modern form of patriotism. "
David Blunkett
Politics
Identity
Patriotism
" I should have been a Trappist monk. "
David Blunkett
Monk
Should
Been
" Bishops and judges are some of the best politicians in the world. They know how to manipulate the political process. "
David Blunkett
World
Political
Know
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Working Together
Justice
Service
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Responsibility
Education
Children
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Name
Nature
Society
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Nature
Changes
I Am
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Cry
Down
Time
" We have a media that presents every politician as being as bad as the next. There is no distinguishing between one good idea or another; no explanation of why constitutional change should be uppermost in the minds of the people I represent. "
David Blunkett
Media
Minds
Bad
" Parents don't believe that lifting life-chances in one school means reducing them in another. "
David Blunkett
Believe
Parents
Them
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Government
Men
Power
" I believe Britishness is defined not on ethnic and exclusive grounds but through shared values; our history of tolerance, openness and internationalism; and our commitment to democracy and liberty, to civic duty and the public space. "
David Blunkett
Commitment
Space
History
" It is a mistake to separate learning for work and for community and personal development. "
David Blunkett
Learning
Community
Work
" Politics is about the participation and engagement of the wider citizenry - to miss that point would doom us to irrelevance. "
David Blunkett
Point
Miss
Us
" I've been fortunate when in government to have a car at my disposal, which takes away the nightmare of getting a taxi. "
David Blunkett
Government
Car
Been
" If surveillance infiltrates our homes and personal relationships, that is a gross breach of our human and civil rights. "
David Blunkett
Relationships
Personal
Human
" Back in 2003, when I was home secretary, I introduced the victim surcharge on offenders to substantially expand the support available and, I hoped, the protection of witnesses who were brave enough to come forward. "
David Blunkett
Home
Brave
Enough
" If you don't create a sense of order and stability, if people do not feel secure, then progressive politics is dead. That is a fact of history. The right has always emerged supreme when destabilisation and insecurity prevail. "
David Blunkett
Politics
History
Insecurity
" Being an MP is not a desperately hard life, like going down the pit or working in the steelworks - with which I am all too familiar, having been brought up in the city of Sheffield; and it certainly isn't badly paid compared with any of my constituents. "
David Blunkett
City
Working
Life
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Democracy
Distance
Fast
" It is certainly true that as we grow older, our need for healthcare also grows. It is also true that those who have lived their lives in the most difficult circumstances and experienced the most exhausting and challenging work places need healthcare the most. "
David Blunkett
Healthcare
Need
True
" Changes to parliamentary procedure won't transform the lives of the people whom I represent. Decentralising, devolving decision-making and renewing civil society will. "
David Blunkett
Civil
People
Society
" I have always been honest about my recollection of events. "
David Blunkett
Events
Honest
About
" Judy, we think that since the 11th of September, 2001, we've faced a similar heightened threat level. And we've been enhancing both the exchange of intelligence and security information and the assessment of that information, because that's the crucial element. "
David Blunkett
Information
Think
Level
" 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. "
David Blunkett
God
Time
Tough
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Citizenship
Democracy
Work
" Politics is only worthwhile if you are doing what you believe, regardless of the slings and arrows. "
David Blunkett
You
Doing
Believe
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Go
Law
Cry
" We've got to get back to old-fashioned politics that's in touch with the people we seek to represent and to avoid self-inflicted wounds. "
David Blunkett
Got
Politics
People
" I have made mistakes in the past, but when I have, I have always said so. "
David Blunkett
Always
Mistakes
Past