The Rest Is Politics · · Transcript & summary by WhipScribe
A former Home Secretary who has never been able to see explains, with humour and candour, what kept him going through grief, resignation and injury.
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“I'd rather be whipped than run half a marathon.” David Blunkett · at 11:36 — open in the transcript →
“I'm delivering an example of how someone with a defined disability can do a job at the highest level.” David Blunkett · at 20:07 — open in the transcript →
David Blunkett has never wanted his blindness to be the first thing people notice. Sent to a residential school for the blind at four, he went on to become the youngest councillor in the country, leader of Sheffield Council at 33 and a senior minister under Tony Blair. He tells Alastair Campbell that he deliberately avoided becoming a spokesman for disability causes, arguing that doing a top job well was the more useful example, and that disability policy should be everyone's work rather than his alone. Much of his daily independence rests on guide dogs, seven so far, each with its own temperament, and he describes the months it takes before a dog anticipates where he means to go.
The conversation is also about loss and what carries a person through it. Blunkett lost his father at 12 after an industrial accident at the gas works, a death he links to poor safety in a nationalised industry, while his mother was already living with serious illness. Decades later, resigning as Home Secretary during a fight for contact with his young son cost him the cabinet job he valued most. He credits his recovery to family, friends and small acts of kindness, including a cup of tea from the doctor who later became his wife.
Campbell frames the interview around his own coinage, perseverance, which Blunkett teases as a little pretentious before taking it seriously. His diagnosis of current politics is that it has become short-lived and quick to quit, shaped by social media. He argues for a reset in how politicians and the public treat one another, so that people with empathy can stay the course.
Former Labour Home Secretary and Sheffield MP, born blind, who became the country's youngest councillor and led Sheffield Council at 33 before serving as a minister in the New Labour government.
On The Rest Is Politics, David Blunkett told Alastair Campbell that he sees an ephemeral politics in which people quit very easily, shaped by the social media era. He called it a two-way street: how politicians treat each other and how they are treated decides whether they can stick it out. He wants a reset, with politicians setting a better example, so that people with empathy and values keep going through setbacks and mistakes instead of only the thick-skinned surviving.
David Blunkett was 12 when his father, a foreman in the gas industry who had stayed on past retirement age to train others, fell into a vat at work and was badly scalded. He died after a month in hospital. Blunkett told Alastair Campbell that safety at the works was chronic and that nationalisation had not changed attitudes, which he took as a lesson about centrally run industries.
David Blunkett named his resignation as Home Secretary as the worst setback of his political career. He said he was fighting for contact with and responsibility for his very young son, who is now nearly 24, while losing someone he thought he loved and the cabinet role he valued most. He told Alastair Campbell that recovery depended on other people as well as inner tenacity: family, close friends and small gestures of humanity.
David Blunkett has had seven guide dogs. He said it takes some months before a dog is in tune with him and can anticipate what is expected, and that he must know where he is going because a dog may assume he wants a shop he does not. His current dog, a 10-year-old cross between a German Shepherd and a golden retriever, is the one he calls the best all-rounder.
A couple of years before the interview, David Blunkett slipped between the platform and the train on the London Underground after telling his dog to hop up into the carriage. The injury led to 25 weeks of outpatient visits. He said that in the moment he felt humiliation as well as pain, and his first thought was whether the dog was all right, since it lay on the floor as if it had done something wrong.
David Blunkett said he never wanted his blindness to be the uppermost thing about him. When disability campaigners asked why he was not campaigning, he replied that holding a senior job was itself his contribution, an example to young people, parents and employers. As the minister responsible for disability in the first four years of the Blair government, he told his team it was everyone's job, not just his.
Yes. David Blunkett, who has been blind from birth, told Alastair Campbell that becoming blind after having sight is much harder because the person has to overcome the emotional trauma of the loss. Such a person can draw on pictures in their mind of places they have seen, such as a path or a stream, but in Blunkett's view that does not make up for getting over the loss itself.
Our own transcript of the public episode, with a timestamp about every 90 seconds. Tap a timestamp or the link button on a paragraph to copy a link that opens this page there.
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2:40Hi there, it's Alistair here, and welcome back The Rest Is Perseverance, the new trip series on my new word. Not perseverance, not resilience, perseverance. It's the word the world needs now. And today, an interview with a man who sums it up for me as well as anybody that I know. That is David Blunkett. David was born blind, as most of you, I'm sure, already know. Lost his dad when he was 12 in a horrific workplace accident, but he went on to become the country's youngest councillor, then leader of Sheffield Council at 33, then became an MP in Sheffield, and went on to become one of the best and most influential ministers in the new Labour government. You will hear how differently he experiences politics, not least in Westminster, but also just how he copes on a day-to-day basis,
3:31doing some of the most difficult jobs known to man or woman, and yet he does them brilliantly, not least thanks to his wonderful succession of guide dogs. Here's my conversation with David Blunkett with his dog sitting at our feet. So David, my dictionary definition of perseverance, the ability of an individual group or organization to turn any situation, setback or meaningful experience into a positive opportunity to grow, to advance and secure their core interests and beliefs. It's a bit pompous, that, isn't it? Is it? Yeah, I mean, I like the word. It's a dictionary. Come on, then, what's pompous about it? Well, it's a bit sort of, well, not pompous, pretentious would be a better word. Why is it pretentious?
4:18Well, it's a bit expecting too much. I mean, I like the word. Right. And I think the combination is very clever. Yeah. And I think it displays something more than just the sum of the two parts that's exactly what so it deserves to be a bit clever yeah yeah it's clever thank you yeah but you well thank you for that it's a fabulous way to start the interview you bastard um the but the point is the reason why i wanted to talk to you for this series is because when i think about politics you have that the ability why I wanted to talk to you for this series is because when I think about politics, you have that. The ability of an individual to turn any situation, setback or meaningful experience into positive opportunity, etc.
4:53You've devoted your whole life to the pursuit of your core values and beliefs. And you've done it with this incredible setback from life, from from the day you were born do you do you because you've always been blind do you feel maybe that's overstating it that that bit i don't think about other things that have happened on the way on the journey you obviously do you reflect on could i have done something different was did i contribute to it how did how the hell did i get out of that um and and your word comes in very handy with not being able to see from birth you kind of took it for granted i mean it took a bit before growing up and learning to speak and walk you realized that other people could see
5:40and do you see do you think if somebody is born with vision able to see and then becomes blind you think that's harder much harder because you're overcoming the emotional trauma you have the advantage of being able to reflect the picture in your mind of what you have seen so if you in the countryside you'd have a better idea of the woodland in the distance if you'd walk that path or, you know, where the stream wasn't. You could bring it back as you would do if you were flicking through a television. But it doesn't compensate, I think, for the fact that you've had to get over the loss of all that. So sometimes it's the loss, isn't it? Like bereavement, you've got a chapter in your book, haven't you, on bereavement.
6:30Sometimes it's the loss. Sometimes it's a missed opportunity. Sometimes it's just life and you're just glad that you get through it. In addition to being born blind, you also were born into a family that had a lot of struggles um and you know quite a poor background a very poor background and then your dad had this just truly horrific accident which killed him um so talk talk us through that yeah this this is obviously really serious because when you're 12, and I'd been wretchedly at a boarding school from the age of four because that's how they managed disability, loss of sight in my case, in those days. You didn't have, parents didn't have the choice. So you went to boarding school it was a school for the blind for the blind yeah but you know i loved my dad to bits and when i was
7:31home um he worked incredible shifts morning afternoons and nights and so when he was off we used to walk and talk and he'd left school at some unearthly age. I mean, we're talking now way back. So he left school at 13, but he'd learnt geography and he'd learnt current affairs just by reading and listening. And he used to test me on capitals of the world. Of course, they've all changed their names now. But in those days, I loved it. I loved being with him and learning from him. So when he was killed in the works accident, it was absolutely devastating. And what happened? He worked, he was over the age of retirement and he'd stayed on to train others. He was a foreman, as they used to call it in those days.
8:21They call it supervisor today. And he was working for the gas industry. It was nationalized while he was an employee there, but the attitudes didn't change that much. It was a lesson to me about centrally run nationalized industries. And the health and safety was chronic and he was he fell into a vat and was badly scalded and died after a month in hospital i mean and that does rest with me i mean what was what was that month like for you what the the abiding memory I don't want to upset the listeners, but my abiding memory was of the smell of, you know, he'd been so badly burnt and they tried to do early plastic surgery, but it was hopeless. And his mind wandering, understandably um and the terrible terrible trauma for my mother because she'd been
9:30very unwell and this is a sad story i know people would like us to get back onto a bit of lighter stuff but she she'd had real problems she'd had breast cancer when it was usually fatal and managed to live 27 years and other things and she'd been looking after my grandfather because the other siblings wouldn't do it so it had been a rough rough time for her what do you see in our politics more generally? What do I see? I see ephemeralism. I see people give up very easily. I see that we are in a social media era. I'm useless at it. You're brilliant at it. I'm really not. You are. Oh, come on. You're doing a blasted podcast. All that goes with it. This is old-fashioned. This is like going back to the future.
10:25Well, this is old fashioned. It's just two old men sitting in, sitting in a nice studio. You speak for yourself, mate. No, you're good at social media. I'm not. So if I came into politics now as a young person who couldn't see, I would, I don't know. Would I find that a challenge or would i just automatically fit i think would i find it i think you would find somebody very very good to do it for you yeah so long as they did it with me so long as they didn't and this is happening by the way people working for folks who put things out thinking they're doing a clever thing rather than always always this is my special advisors were great because they always knew that they were speaking arguing on my behalf yeah yeah it was always you've got that but I think you'd
11:15be fine with social media and also I think you've you've got a sort of humanity that a lot of politicians don't know what I wouldn't do is the Great North Run you know and Andy Burnham's what I wouldn't do is the Great North Run. You know, Andy Burnham, as we speak, has just done the Great North Run. And I think, oh, God, help me. I'd rather be whipped than run half a marathon. I've done it 12 times. I know, but you're clever. You've got perseverance. Yeah, yeah. But you've got barrels of perseverance. What do you think we can do to make modern politics and modern politicians more perseverant do you agree with me that there's something lacking well it's a two-way street isn't it i mean the way we treat
11:57each other yeah and the way we are treated makes a difference to whether people can stick it out. We don't want picking up your perseverance as a future word in the Oxford English Dictionary. Has to happen, David. It's got to happen. Will you be the first to use it in Parliament? That would be a good thing. I will. Well, I shall make a note of it. Excellent. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I think that in politics, we've got to have a reset. I know people use the word. We've got to say to each other, we treat each other better. We set examples. want politicians who are insensitive uncommunitive who will just everything bounces off them then carry on the way we are at the moment but if you want people who do have that
12:56empathy and emotion but they're also perseverance in the sense that all the knocks and all the mistakes and all the sometimes tragedies they'll keep going because they have values and they want to do something and they want to carry on doing it we can do that together which were the worst setbacks in your political career that made you feel you had to dig deep into yourself? Well, obviously the time I resigned as Home Secretary because I was, I mean, without going into the detail, I was fighting, as you know, I was fighting for contact and responsibility for my very small son who is just coming up to 24 now and who, thank God, has come through it all. who is just coming up to 24 now, and who, thank God, has come through it all.
13:50And that was horrendous, because I was losing someone who I thought I loved. I was losing my son, or at least there was a potential to do so. And I was losing what I really valued most, which was being in the cabinet and being able to really make a difference. So that was a moment in time. And you know what happened? My now wife, Margaret, I went into the surgery. She wasn't my doctor, better make that clear because the GMC don't like these things. But I went into the surgery and she was the one on duty. And for the first and only time in my life, she took one look at me and said, I'll make you a cup of tea. Now, if every doctor had the time to make a patient a cup of tea, wouldn't that be a wonderful health service?
14:35And that was a stepping stone, by the way, to pulling around because small gestures of humanity, as well as my close family and wonderful friends they they saw me through so perseverance doesn't just depend on what's inside you although that is pretty crucial whether you've got that tenacity but it actually also depends on other people around you yeah for sure tell me about the role of how many dogs have you had now? I've had seven. I thought we'd get done to dogs. I've had seven. Yeah. This one is a cross between a German Shepherd and a Gola and Treva, although he's black and all the puppies were black. So the Shepherd, the mum must have been pretty overwhelming. And he's 10 and he's a fantastic dog absolutely superb have you
15:28can you have you got memories and a sense of all of them yeah all very different everyone different what's it like building the relationship with a dog takes time some months before the dog's in tune and can almost anticipate what is expected of you. You've got to know where you're going because sometimes they anticipate you're going into a shop that you're not going into. I mean, all dogs love butchers, for instance. They just do. So the dog will drag you into a butcher? Well, not exactly. It's apocryphal. Guide you. Yeah. Guide me, not drag me. I don't need dragging into a butcher's, by the way, because I'm not vegetarian. That's fine. Right. Back to the sensible question that you asked me.
16:18This is a sensible question. I want to talk about your dogs because I think that, think it must be this you can't function without the dog well you can function but you can't function as well no other people do some people with a white cane yeah fantastic and i have nothing but admiration for those who manage the underground in london because it's a nightmare i mean whether you've got a dog or not it is a nightmare yeah and i had this tremendous accident a couple of years ago where I slipped between the platform and the train. And actually, obviously, it was the damage it did that was the main thing in the 25 weeks of going to outpatients. But actually, on that moment, I felt humiliation as well as pain
17:04because I thought, god help me you know i don't ever want to be in a position where people think oh poor sod you know people presumably were incredibly helpful yeah i mean they they picked me up off the floor um and dusted me down i mean at that moment i didn't know quite how much damage I'd done. Yeah. Because you don't. So I carried on going to, I was going to a football match. I was going to Brentford versus Sheffield Wednesday in the League Cup. Yeah. Brentford were, and still are, in the Premier League. And when I got there, the chairman of Brentford got their team doctor to come and see me. So that was great. Yeah. And was your thought for yourself or were you thinking for the dog? I thought immediately, is the dog all right?
17:55He'd done what he was supposed to do. I dropped the handle of the harness. And so I just had the lead. And I told him there's a command which is hop up which means gotta get jump the gap get on the on the underground which he did and then i didn't quite make it behind him yeah and of course the dog was desperate i mean he thought i think in his dog head that he'd done something wrong so he laid on the floor afraid in case he'd done something terribly wrong. And of course it wasn't the dog's fault at all. So, you know, you, and you have to be sensitive to that. So when you said that you've had a horror of people surrounding and feeling pity for you, was that a, is that stuck with you because that was a rare feeling the sense that other
18:45people felt pity for you well sometimes it's it's just funny when i was young with my mom people would say to her does he take literally does he take sugar there was a program yeah yeah years and years ago does he take sugar yeah more more presciently i've had when i was a youngster i did hear this is more cruelty than than and then than anything else where i heard a mother say we'll cross the road because there's a blind boy coming and that that's bound to hurt isn't it i mean that's bound to get you that's not pity though that's not that's that's that's a to hurt, isn't it? I mean, that's bound to get you. That's not pity, though. That's nastiness. No, that's a misunderstanding about blindness.
19:29Yeah. Pity. I've been so robust and so belligerent and pig-headed, it's been quite hard to pity me, hasn't it? Really, over the years. Yeah. Well, I think you're amazing. One of the reasons you're such an extraordinary character is that i mean i don't your blindness isn't the first thing i think of when i think of you well i'm glad about that a lot of people it probably is i i never wanted the blindness to be uppermost you know people the disability sphere, campaigners, sometimes, not very often, used to say, why aren't you campaigning on disability issues? I said, I am. I'm delivering an example of how someone with a defined disability can do a job at the highest level. That's my contribution
20:22to youngsters growing up, their parents to employers that that's what i can do best and if i became the spokesperson firstly i i why would i why should i and secondly actually it lifts it off other people's shoulders i used to say to the team when i had responsibility for disability issues in the first four years of the blair government i used to say to everybody it's your job not mine you know we're all we're all involved in this yeah and we all have some sort of thing in our lives that require change and improvement and understanding don't we yeah we do we do i know this is like asking your favorite kid but have you got a favorite dog at of the seven? Well, they're all different. Very, very different. You loved Sadie though, didn't you? Yeah, but she was a kind of magisterial
21:12dog. It sort of, you know, nose in the air a bit. Who's the most Percivalian dog you've had? This one, because he's an all-rounder. The daftest dog i had was called ruby she was my first dog she was a pedigree labrador labradors are food crazy i found her upside down in the outside bin one day took two days to get the gas out of her i mean why i had a second dog i do not know they've all since then been brilliantly trained i ought to, and this one in particular. But they are different. My previous one who sadly died of liver cancer, Cosby, he had this sort of way about him where we'd go out in the morning and he'd say, I don't really want to do this. And I'd say to him, you're going to do it, Cosby.
22:00He'd say, well, all right then, but I'm going to do it a bit slowly today. You know, sort of. it cosby he said well all right then but i'm i'm going to do a bit slowly today you know and he weighed 46 kilos so he's a massive dog he could pick things up off the kitchen off the kitchen side without actually having to put his paws up you know well listen as ever lovely to talk to you lovely job barley barley's now asleep yeah and it's great shame to have to wake him up but every good thing comes to an end and you know when i'm in this interview when i've waffled on a bit sleep is a great thing for him yeah yeah so cute though so thank you to the audience for sticking with us that's perseverance thank you david you've so got the word even if it is pompous and pretentious you
22:47yeah hey five foot eleven go well thank you thank you hi it's alistair here if you're enjoying the interview do please sign up at the rest is politics.com to hear the whole thing you can also hear other trip plus exclusive interviews with extraordinary people, including one of my favourite interviews with MP Kim Leadbeater, whose sister Jo Cox was murdered during the 2016 Brexit campaign, alongside my lifelong friend, Lindsay Nicholson, who's lost both her husband, my best friend, John, and her daughter, Ellie. Both women who, despite suffering unbelievable loss, are some of the brightest, most positive and inspiring people I know. All that and more at therestispolitics.com. Hi there, it's Alistair here, and this is a mini-series about my new word,
23:36perseverance. No, not perseverance, not resilience, perseverance. It's how do you take everything that happens to you and turn it into an opportunity to move in the opposite direction, to move forward, not backwards. It's a bit pomp take everything that happens to you and turn it into an opportunity to move in the opposite direction, to move forward, not backwards. It's a bit pompous, that, isn't it? It's it. How do people overcome extraordinary challenges in life? Ten years ago, nine years ago, I was sat in a psychiatric hospital on the edge of life, and now I am here. Ellie was diagnosed with the same form of blood cancer when she was nine years old. And knowing that someone you love was murdered. Jo Cox, MP for Batley and Spenborough has died as
24:11a result of her injury. Jo was killed because of who she was. People said why weren't you bitter? I said you can't send bitterness like an email. All it does is corrode and erode you. It destroys you from inside. I'm becoming conscious of losing control of my own mind. And what does that feel like? I know this is an insane thought, but I thought I was going to be killed. How can you heal and grow from unimaginable trauma? What we see when these horrific things happen is the true strength of human resilience, and it is outstanding. How can we build more perseverance, both personally and in our politics? I used to walk up that lane and breathe fresh air and think, I'm still alive. Greek mythology, Pandora's box,
24:49and all the terrible things fire. Hope is hard and hope is what's left at the bottom of the box. So to kick things off, Rory will be interviewing me about my own story. You're both a kind of tough guy and you're somebody who takes things unbelievably hard. I don't know how we got through it, to be honest. So I don't care how I'm defined anymore. Yeah. As you know, I think young people get a very bad rep. I think the world is a pretty messy place and a complicated, difficult place. That's why I think it's the word the world needs now. Very good. If you want to hear more about perseverance from people who I believe really have it, head to therestlesspolitics.com and become a member today. Or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.
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