Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by David Blunkett - Page 2
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British politician David Blunkett.
Last updated on April 15, 2025.
I grew up in one of the most deprived parts of Britain. I know the problems which inner-city children face.
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.
In the U.K., we have always been an open, trading nation, enriched by our global links. Contemporary patterns of migration extend this tradition.
We need dynamic and thriving businesses and a skilled and adaptable labour force to produce competitiveness and prosperity.
Privacy is a right, but as in any democratic society, it is not an absolute right.
If surveillance infiltrates our homes and personal relationships, that is a gross breach of our human and civil rights.
Politics is about the participation and engagement of the wider citizenry - to miss that point would doom us to irrelevance.
In primary schools, I set two main objectives - to cut infant class sizes and improve literacy and numeracy.
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.
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.
It is a mistake to separate learning for work and for community and personal development.
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.
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.
Speaking for the nation as a whole entails understanding and feeling the pain, as well as understanding the aspiration of the different cultural, social and political make-up of the nation.
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.
I didn't come into politics to have to deal with the issue of clandestine entry, illegal working, or an asylum system that allows a free run for right-wing bigots.
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.
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.
We need a government which, yes, guarantees basic standards in public services, but which also steps in to protect people's wellbeing as they take part in our consumer democracy - particularly online.
I'm as keen as the next person to preserve the right to free speech.
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.
Parents don't believe that lifting life-chances in one school means reducing them in another.
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.
People from all over the world were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. They came from many different cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu believers were killed together as they worked in the towers.
Faith in technocrats over politicians is not a trend from which Britain is exempt.
When I first came into parliament, there was, on average, a by-election every three months - due not to MPs bailing out, but because of the death rate.
Without the political parties and the volunteering work of their members day in, day out, we would have a very different sort of politics and society.
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.
Changes to parliamentary procedure won't transform the lives of the people whom I represent. Decentralising, devolving decision-making and renewing civil society will.
Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship.
To make sense of a world in which rapid change and globalisation create genuine insecurity, we need benchmarks by which we can judge our actions and their long-term impact.
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.
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.
I prefer a positive view of freedom, drawing on another tradition of political thinking that goes all the way back to the ancient Greek polis.
Where asylum is used as a route to economic migration, it can cause deep resentment in the host community.
Solidarity and interdependence, a sense of worth, a pride and hope in the future: these are positive gains for those who believe in progressive politics and the beneficial role of government, rather than a detriment.
As home secretary, I gained a reputation for being 'tough'; less concerned with liberty than with public protection.
It's not just parliament that requires radical modernisation. It's our democratic processes.
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.
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.
Politics is only worthwhile if you are doing what you believe, regardless of the slings and arrows.
Being home secretary involves having to face some of the worst of human behaviour and challenges of modern society.
Being a Labour home secretary in the 21st century means fighting a constant battle against both extreme Right and Left.
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.
My job as Labour Home Secretary is to ensure people are prepared to listen to us when we take on our opponents across the political spectrum.
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.
Businesses that fail to develop their staff are twice as likely to collapse. Firms seeking to reposition themselves for the economic upturn need to invest in their staff's flexibility, responsiveness and skills.
I must have been a failed football coach in a previous incarnation.
I personally guarantee that now that bear wouldn't get past Dover without being shot.
We have put over £2bn in the last three years into counter-terrorism and we are developing the electronic border surveillance and identity cards
I can hear people smile.
It is now in Gordon Brown's - and the Labour party's - best interests for those seeking the prime minister's immediate departure to back off.
Strengthening our identity is one way or reinforcing people's confidence and sense of citizenship and well-being.
I believe whoever the Labour Party chooses to replace Tony Blair will beat David Cameron.
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.
Reciprocity helps us balance the need for self-determination and creative individuality with mutual hope, and therefore what might be described as "solidarity".
I regret the time and resources needed to undertake this but... it is right to lay this accusation to rest.
None of us believe countering terrorism is about party politics
And we think that our citizens and yours would be very angry if they thought that we hadnt taken every possible step for prevention and then for joint action in the likelihood of those who threaten our lives and our well- being, taking action at the same time.
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