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" 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. "

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" 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'm in favour of a sensible development of response units and their deployment in any circumstance where there may be a risk to the officers themselves or the neighbourhood they're in. I'm not in favour of a blanket arming of the police. "

" Politics is about the participation and engagement of the wider citizenry - to miss that point would doom us to irrelevance. "

David Blunkett

Point

Miss

" 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. "

" How to strike the right balance between our privacy and our expectation that the state will protect us and facilitate our freedom is one of the most difficult challenges facing us all. "

" It's not just parliament that requires radical modernisation. It's our democratic processes. "

" I grew up in one of the most deprived parts of Britain. I know the problems which inner-city children face. "

David Blunkett

Most

Face

" 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. "

" Bishops and judges are some of the best politicians in the world. They know how to manipulate the political process. "

" In primary schools, I set two main objectives - to cut infant class sizes and improve literacy and numeracy. "

" 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. "

" I was affected by the harshness of government, the reality of 16-hour days, and the pressures of modern communications. "

" Throughout my political life, I've not been a stranger to controversy. "

" 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. "

" That is why with enormous regret I have tendered my resignation to the prime minister today. "

" We need to use all the resources at our disposal in order to prosper. We need more employment, and we need employment to be spread more fairly across society. "

David Blunkett

Society

Resources

" When it comes to those who are accused and their right to defend themselves, it is perfectly reasonable to expect relevant evidence to be made public, and I am in favour of open justice. "

" I have never tried to fiddle my role as leader of the city of Sheffield, as an MP or as a minister. "

" As education and employment secretary in 1997, I inherited hundreds of schools where the roofs leaked, the windows rattled, and they relied entirely on outside toilets. "

" Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves. "

" History teaches us that, whatever we say, racists will always distort the words of mainstream politicians to make themselves sound more respectable. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

David Blunkett

Cards

You

" 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. "

" Politics is only worthwhile if you are doing what you believe, regardless of the slings and arrows. "

" Strengthening our identity is one way of reinforcing people's confidence and sense of citizenship and well-being. "

" I have made mistakes in the past, but when I have, I have always said so. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "