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It is not often that someone of the calibre of David Blunkett speaks at York. He has been an MP since 1987 and was appointed Education Secretary in 1997. In 2001 he was appointed Home Secretary but had to resign in 2004 due to his involvement in scandal. Following the 2005 General Election he was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions but had to resign the same year due to a huge amount of media pressure over his business interests outside of parliament.
After a brief introduction he stood up and immediately lightened the mood with a personal anecdote. After being attacked by a cow whilst attempting to protect his guide dog last week he claimed that the injuries he suffered left him feeling much like the Labour party at present, "broken, bruised but still walking".
Much of what he said one would have expected from a Labour MP. He claimed that Labour was the only party that was apt to deal with the current economic recession. He also participated in some Tory and Lib Dem bashing, claiming they did not have the policies in place to run the country effectively, and saying there was, "no vision of future policies coming from the other two opposition parties".
He was also honest - a trait some people feel politicians are lacking presently due to the expenses scandal – readily admitting that the Conservative Party is in a stronger position than Labour to win the next election. The Labour Party needs to do more than stabilise the economy if they want to win back their disillusioned voters and regain some of the ground they have lost to David Cameron.
Blunkett also spoke of the issues relevant to us as university students. There are now 700,000 people under the age of 25 who are currently unemployed. This is expected to rise even further in the upcoming year making it one of the biggest challenges that the current government faces. Sadly though, for most of you reading this, Blunkett was not able to come up with any significant ideas or policies on how to combat this unemployment. For all our sakes I hope that Labour, or any other party for that matter, does come up with a solution to this problem and fast.
After the speech came the Q and A session. One question referred to what might happen if the next General Election resulted in a hung parliament, which, according to experts, is a real possibility. In response he said that if Labour obtained the majority they would still be able to govern by themselves, although they would have to be extremely clever in order to do so effectively. What surprised me was the other alternative he saw in this scenario. He said that if there was a hung parliament then Labour would have to question whether they had the legitimacy to take the reigns of power, even in the case that they were in the majority. In this case they might offer the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats the chance to form a coalition government.
Now either he is being extremely clever or very sincere. He might think that a Tory-Lib Dem coalition would be a disaster thus possibly catapulting Labour back into the position they were in in 1997. Alternatively he might be genuine in admitting that Labour would have had their chance over the last 12 years and it would be time for the other parties to have a chance. Either way I would love to see him tell Gordon Brown that, even if he managed to scrape a majority in a hung parliament in the next General Election, he should give the other two parties a chance. I do not really see Gordon Brown, who spent years hovering over Tony Blair waiting to move into 10 Downing Street, just giving up his premiership due to feelings of illegitimacy. If he did feel that way he would have called a General Election when Blair resigned.
All in all it was great to have a politician as important as David Blunkett come to speak at York. Hopefully there are more high profile names to come in the future and with a bit of luck it might not even rain when they get here.
What's he doing speaking in Canada and not at The University of York? 
pedantic
"Sadly though for most of you reading this Blunkett was not able to come up with any significant ideas or policies on how to combat this unemployment".
Be fair to the guy Michael, he did propose a quasi-solution in the form of a Youth Volunteering Scheme, which, as someone who was unemployed for a few months at the start of last year, I thought was a very good suggestion. It would get unemployed graduates out of the house, top them up with new skills, and most importantly, keep their minds and bodies busy and keep their morale up hopefully. I see no reason why it couldn't work in terms of being a skills-building and morale-boosting project that also contributes something to the community. Something I've found when I've done volunteer work or work experience is that it more often than not leads to other opportunities as well.
I was disappointed I could not attend the talk last night, sounds like it was interesting. Also, credit to the Labour club - they have done well in terms of attracting speakers this year.
There are ways to reduce the impact of an unemployment crisis - particularly when combined with other aspects of social policy.
We have council house waiting lists longer than ever and widespread anger about the availability of these houses. We have councils willing to spend money to build them, builders ready to go to work, site managers ready to manage and suppliers waiting to get back to work to supply materials.
Yet labour won't let councils build more houses unless they are part-privatised.
The government will step in to keep fat cats afloat in banks, but not people in ordinary jobs. No help for builders, no help for LDV workers, no help for oil refinery workers, no help for postal workers...
Right here in York we have several public building schemes stalled because of council incompetence. When local building firms are laying off workers and the money is there to be spent, why is the city council stalling on the swimming pool, the barbican, the new council headquarters?
It's a shame that while labour are obviously a lame party in the death throes of its very existence as one of the 'big two', the tories have no ideas, and based upon this local authority, the lib dems don't have many either.
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