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" In primary schools, I set two main objectives - to cut infant class sizes and improve literacy and numeracy. "
David Blunkett
Class
Sizes
Literacy
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" I have always been honest about my recollection of events. "
David Blunkett
Events
Honest
About
" The Home Office culture was one of being just above the problem, of hovering just out of reach of knowing what was going on on the ground, whether it was crime or immigration. "
David Blunkett
Reach
Crime
Culture
" It is a mistake to separate learning for work and for community and personal development. "
David Blunkett
Learning
Community
Work
" I should have been a Trappist monk. "
David Blunkett
Monk
Should
Been
" Much extremist activity falls short of directly inciting people to violence or other crimes and so is not caught by laws on incitement. Neither does the Public Order Act, used to protect groups of people from harassment, deal with the problem. "
David Blunkett
Short
People
Violence
" I don't like prolonged, highly expensive commissions, especially if they are chaired by judges. We seem to have overwhelming faith in judges. "
David Blunkett
Like
Judges
Expensive
" Despite being in public life, I value my own privacy immensely and would be as concerned as anyone else if I thought my mobile phone records could be easily available to officials across government. "
David Blunkett
Thought
Government
Phone
" That is why with enormous regret I have tendered my resignation to the prime minister today. "
David Blunkett
Resignation
Regret
Why
" The clash between capital and labour, between those seeking to maximise profit and those with only their toil to sell, was the driving force for the creation of the trade unions in the 19th century. "
David Blunkett
Driving
Profit
Trade
" 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 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
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Answer
Same
Home
" With the commissioning of new schools undertaken by a local director of school standards, decisions will be fair and transparent, rooted in the needs of the local community. The admissions code and the role of the adjudicator will also be strengthened to provide fairness for all children. "
David Blunkett
School
Children
Decisions
" It would be dangerous territory if I wasn't practising what I preach which is to always accept responsibility, always accept the consequences of your actions. "
David Blunkett
Responsibility
Consequences
Accept
" Throughout my political life, I've not been a stranger to controversy. "
David Blunkett
Political
Stranger
Life
" My integrity had been called into question; I was being called a liar, and I am not a liar. And I just think it is time that we stop viewing public figures as fair game. "
David Blunkett
Liar
Game
I Am
" 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 am not a parliamentarian. I am a politician. Some MPs leave and are itching to get back. I don't feel that. This is just a work environment. "
David Blunkett
Back
Environment
Feel
" 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
" Nothing is more important for young people than enhancing their life chances, liberating their potential and encouraging their contribution to a globally competitive and modern economy. "
David Blunkett
People
Potential
More
" 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
Up
" But any perception of this application being speeded up requires me to take responsibility. "
David Blunkett
Up
Perception
Me
" We need dynamic and thriving businesses and a skilled and adaptable labour force to produce competitiveness and prosperity. "
David Blunkett
Force
Need
Prosperity
" 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
" We must draw on our early roots and remind people why the Labour party was created and who it sought to represent. We have never been a sectional party promoting self-interest, but instead a force for engaging self-reliance and self-determination. "
David Blunkett
People
Why
Roots
" By confirming the importance of politics and politicians in Britain, we can build from the bottom up and begin to reverse the worrying anti-politics trend, which will empower the elite technocrats and leave defenceless the man or woman in the street with a mere vote to cast. "
David Blunkett
Man
Vote
Street
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Way
Never
Knowledge
" 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
" 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. "
David Blunkett
Outside
Employment
Education
" Privacy is a right, but as in any democratic society, it is not an absolute right. "
David Blunkett
Society
Privacy
Right