Quotes from David Blunkett

Changes to parliamentary procedure won't transform the lives of the people whom I represent. Decentralising, devolving decision-making and renewing civil society will.

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.

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

In an ageing society, it makes sense to support older adults to develop new skills, prolonging their working lives.

Faith in technocrats over politicians is not a trend from which Britain is exempt.

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.

Being a Labour home secretary in the 21st century means fighting a constant battle against both extreme Right and Left.

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.

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.

And we think that our citizens and yours would be very angry if they thought that we hadn't 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Being home secretary involves having to face some of the worst of human behaviour and challenges of modern society.

I should have been a Trappist monk.

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.

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.

I'm as keen as the next person to preserve the right to free speech.

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.

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.