David Blunkett was elected as the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside in 1987. However, his outstanding political career began in local government as a member of Sheffield City Council where he worked for eighteen years, seven of those years as Leader of the Council.
In Parliament, David led Labour's assault on the poll tax as Opposition Local Government Spokesman. Promoted to the Shadow Cabinet in 1992, he took on, in turn, responsibility for Health, Education and then Education and Employment.
Following the 1997 Labour election victory, David became Secretary of State for Education and Employment. There he oversaw massive improvements in the basic standards of literacy and numeracy, substantial class size reductions and the introduction of university tuition fees. He led on the implementation of the New Deal, saw unemployment fall to below 1 million and was committed to increasing equality through responsibility for the Equal Opportunities Commission and the establishment of the Disability Rights Commission.
With Labour returned in 2001, David became Home Secretary, where he concentrated on fighting terrorism, crime and anti-social behaviour, and managing immigration and asylum. David resigned as Home Secretary in December 2004 and then took a leading role in fighting Labour’s 3rd term election campaign in spring 2005.
From May to November 2005, he was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions where he set a clear vision for reform of the welfare state, and established a nationwide debate to find a long-term solution to pensions challenges.
Since then, he has been undertaking constituency and parliamentary duties and, in addition, to producing a book of his diaries, The Blunkett Tapes, has become involved with a number of local, national and international charities, and has further engaged with his long-standing commitment to the third sector in promoting voluntary and community activities, and social enterprise. He is currently leading work for the Prime Minister on the third sector for Labour’s next manifesto, as well as developing a project on welfare reform. He has recently completed significant work on the issue of social mobility and is deeply engaged in anti-poverty work. David is also a regular contributor to the British media through newspapers and journals, radio and television, including with a weekly column in The Sun, Britain’s biggest selling daily newspaper.