For immediate release
Rt Hon David Blunkett, MP for Sheffield Brightside, has fired the starting gun on his bid for re-election with a passionate speech to the House of Commons – calling on the country to balance the “siren voices” of the wealthy and privileged by getting out and casting their own vote.
Speaking in the debate on the Budget, Mr Blunkett blasted as “nonsense” the Conservatives’ claim that Gordon Brown is single-handedly responsible for a global economic crisis, arguing that they “knew better”.
Mr Blunkett reminded the House of the bleak inheritance that Labour faced in 1997 – and that he took up as Education & Employment Secretary. “Schools were falling apart … roofs were leaking. Primary schools were reliant on outside toilets, the teaching profession had collapsed and there were four-day weeks … teachers with no training had to be placed in the classroom … books were being recycled and parents were being asked to pay for them,” he recalled.
Returning to those days, as the Conservatives’ economic and social policies would do, would, he said, be less George Osborne than “John Osborne – look back in anger and see just what happened when the Conservatives put their friends before the electorate of the country’s most disadvantaged constituencies”.
Noting that post-World War II debt similar to that now facing the nation was not paid off until the 2000s, Mr Blunkett called for a “rational, thoughtful and careful” approach that protected frontline services – and promised to continue to “speak on behalf of the people who have no other voice” and act “as a counterweight to those who will not feel the cuts – who will be immune to what happens in education, health, transport, the environment and housing, because they can buy their way out”.
Mr Blunkett is the Labour Candidate for the new constituency of Sheffield Brightside & Hillsborough at the coming General Election.
ENDS
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