Published: Daily Telegraph Letters, 9 June 2010
Sir,
More has been said about immigration in the past few weeks than since the public discussions in 2002 and 2003 following my agreement with Nicolas Sarkozy to close the Sangatte camp at Calais.
Few, however, have managed to be as offensive as Melanie McDonagh (Comment, June 7). In one sentence she combined deep offence relating to my blindness, with straightforward racism. In reflecting on Ben Brogan's article of the previous week, she said that "one reason why much of the influx took place when David Blunkett was home secretary is that he was blind". "Blind" meaning not being able to see the colour of individuals on our streets and in our communities.
I didn't need to see the colour of other people's skin to understand the very real challenge of rapid change, and the dangers of reaction to it. I lived with it every weekend in my constituency, in my advice surgery, and in pressures which I once graphically described in relation to GPs' surgeries and local schools.
It is also why I'm so disappointed that Philip Johnston's obsession with "freeing" us all from an identity register was again paraded in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. He failed to appreciate the contradictions of the arguments he put. We need biometrics and a clean database precisely to determine who is in the country, who is entitled to work legally, who is leaving the country (you can't have embarkation exit requirements without it), and for a clampdown on massive identity fraud, which costs us dear in so many ways.
I am very proud of the measures that I was able to push through Parliament as home secretary in the teeth of a combination of the libertarian Right and the blinkered Left. I am only saddened that in those battles I was not joined by those so keen to rewrite history in relation to getting a grip on unwarranted and unauthorised entry into our country, illegal (and thus clandestine) working, and asylum claims - now back to 1992 levels.
It may be, in the view of Melanie McDonagh, that Kensington and Chelsea have just discovered diversity. In Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough we have been living with, debating, and seeking to find a civilised way forward on these issues for a very long time.
Rt Hon DAVID BLUNKETT MP (Lab, Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough)
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