Originally recorded onto tape and now transcribed into a full narrative, with the addition of David Blunkett's contemporary reflections on the political events of the past nine years, The Blunkett Tapesare a rigorously honest self-portrait as well as an astonishingly cogent and intimate insight into New Labour's years in power, the personalities, the triumphs and the debates. Not only are they an unprecedented and immediate record of life in government with all its excitement and frustrations, they are a testimony to the extraordinary achievements of a man born into a working-class Sheffield family who though blind reached one of the highest political offices in the country. David Blunkett is fascinating about the consequences of his disability and the steps he took to compensate for it, as he made his way through arguably the most people-sensitive business in the world. The book will be as unsparing in its depiction of the events of the last year as it will be about the making of policy and the daily grind of putting it into practice from 1997 to the present day. The Blunkett Tapesreveal a man and a politician passionate about making life better for people.
This extraordinary autobiography includes new chapters and has been updated since it was first released in 1995. This is by no means a conventional 'political' autobiography, but rather an inspiring, and often hilarious account of a man overcoming disability and beating the system - with the help of a dog. David Blunkett was born blind, which makes his struggle to the top - he is now the Home Secretary - all the more remarkable. At the Manchester Road School for the Blind he began learning braille and at sixteen joined the Labour Party, then Sheffield University beckoned. David chose to train with a guide dog, and Ruby, his golden labrador, was allowed to sit by him in the Commons, as were her successors, Offa and Lucy. Being an MP meant that the author could start to bring about the changes he hoped to effect. David Blunkett talks candidly about the good times and the bad.
A collection of three conversations between artists and public servants. Intended to inspire public servants of all kinds to reconnect fearlessly with their fundamental humanity, the three conversations in Art, Imagination and Public Service present a way of thinking about imaginative, compassionate, and intelligent public service. The book consists of three dialogues: between former UK Home Secretary David Blunkett and poet Micheal O’Siadhail, former UK Supreme Court president Brenda Hale and painter Hughie O’Donoghue, and UK Permanent Secretary Clare Moriarty and musician James O’Donnell. Together they explore how art and imagination can sustain public servants and enable them to find new ways of addressing the problems facing government, parliament, and the law—problems that resist utilitarian responses in which people end up being treated only as statistics in a target-driven world. Through these conversations, the speakers discover surprising connections in approaches to their work.
Working within the spirit of David Blunkett's visionary foreword to The learning age: A new renaissance for Britain, David H. Hargreaves' analysis challenges the myth that lifelong learning can or should be separated from school education. It asks what changes are needed for the culture and process of lifelong learning to become a reality?
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