Speeches & Articles: Sun columns

Published: The Sun, 12 March 2009

THE lives of Britain’s 367,000 registered blind or partially sighted people would be very different if not for a man born 200 years ago. Louis Braille invented a code that can be read by blind people. Here Labour MP DAVID BLUNKETT, blind since birth, explains the importance of Braille.

Picture a little boy of four arriving at boarding school for the first time — worried, sometimes frightened, determined not to cry.

Picture then that boy with a contraption in front of him on his desk the following morning. A stylus which he’s expected not only to press downwards to make a “hole” in thick paper, but to operate from right to left.

That little four-year-old was, of course, me.

And yes, I was expected to use an old-fashioned writing frame which had the six-dot system invented by Louis Braille, born in 1809, to produce the alphabet and much more.

We had to write from right to left because, then, without electronic Braille production, the dots had to be pressed down then turned over — so it wasn’t just necessary to write from right to left, but also to reverse the letters.

If it sounds complicated, it damn well was!

Despite all its difficulties in those early days, the system is a liberator for me and hundreds of thousands of blind people.

Invented by Braille at the age of 15, the idea came from a soldier who had served in Napoleon’s army.

He attempted to create a system that could allow messages to be sent and instructions to be passed from hand to hand.

It didn’t work. The system was too complex and the soldiers didn’t get it — unsurprisingly, because to read Braille, without being able to see, you need to develop sensitive finger ends.

Finger ends which, unlike mine, need to be protected from cooking burns or gardening cuts.

My fingers have developed what in a sighted person might be called “cataracts” but I still plough on.

All those years ago, Braille (blind since the age of three when he accidentally stabbed himself in the eye) decided it was crucial he should be able to read and write down his thoughts.

For me, when chairing a meeting it is vital to have an agenda I can refer to without reference to someone else — and that I have speaking notes, even when I shy away from actually reading out speeches word for word.

Braille has been a way of ensuring I can work on equal terms, using my own initiative and doing it my own way.

For others, it’s an absolutely vital way of keeping, for instance, bank statements private.

So, as we celebrate the 200th birthday of Louis Braille, we lift a glass to thank him for the ingenuity that ensured others like him gained independence, equality and dignity.

Organisations like the Royal National Institute of Blind People work with and for blind people and their support is crucial in making this old invention come alive in new ways.

And 2009 is a chance to recognise this window on the world for children reading their books (under their bed covers, as I did!), or adults being able to go about their business with confidence — knowing that very few other people will be able to read their secrets.

Published: The Sun, 28 January 2009

IN these tough times it would be easy to be a do-nothing-else Government, dropping everything to concentrate on the economy.

But hard decisions have been taken — Heathrow's third runway and restructuring the Post Office, for example — and we need to take on other challenges. Such as immigration.

It has always been a tricky subject. People are understandably worried about whether someone else is taking their job.

And this could lead to racial tension as work becomes harder to find.

But those who came here from Europe are now going home in droves.

The huge number of asylum seekers has been reduced to 23,000 a year — a quarter of what it was early this decade.

But, and it is a big but, there is still an issue.

I am referring to the large number of people who will be coming into the country over the years ahead who are neither economic migrants nor asylum seekers.

They are the family and spouses of people in arranged marriages who keep arriving here under the "family reunion" arrangements.

No political party or respectable pressure group is prepared to question this. The reason? It is such a hot potato.

When, as Home Secretary, I raised the issue by asking Muslim and Hindu communities to debate the issue of arranged marriages in the UK, there was a predictable reaction from the liberals and even a deathly silence from those on the right of politics.

So let me raise it again. It is a matter for us all, but particularly for the communities affected.

After all, would we, if we emigrated to Australia, Canada or the US, expect to have an automatic right to bring our grannies, or someone who we may never have met but who our parents think would be a good person to marry?

Of course not. And neither should we.

Many non-British passport holders believe they are entitled to be reunited with their extended families here, and together they constitute the largest number of people coming into this country who are not of British origin.

My answer?

Anyone granted the right to stay here should have to specify those members of their extended family who they think would want to — or in their view have a right to — join them in the future.

It is then, right at the beginning, that the terms of residency could be agreed and predictable numbers planned for.

And one other thing. A much bigger effort needs to be made to integrate hard-pressed communities.

Professor Sir Bernard Crick, who died just before Christmas, helped me invent the programme of study to teach newcomers about British ways.

But there is one piece of business that still needs tackling.

Professor Crick believed strongly that we need to assist communities faced with rapid change to cope — and to help legal immigrants to understand the importance of their behaviour and how it will affect people already here.

That agenda is definitely unfinished.