David Blunkett (born 6 June 1947) is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, having represented Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2010. Blind since birth, and coming from a poor family in one of Sheffield's most deprived districts, he rose to become Education and Employment Secretary, Home Secretary and Work and Pensions Secretary in Tony Blair's Cabinet following Labour's victory in the 1997 general election.
He was promoted to become Home Secretary following the 2001 general election, a position he held until 2004, when he resigned following highly publicised matters related to his personal life. Following the 2005 general election, he was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, though he resigned from that role later that year following a large amount of media coverage relating to external business interests in the period when he did not hold a cabinet post.
Read more about David Blunkett: Early Life, Local Council, Member of Parliament, Personal Life, Popular Culture References, Television
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“Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)