Sunday 3rd August, 2014
Malmaison Hotel, Leeds
Not surprisingly for a man with such a difficult upbringing, Sir David Blunkett always projects an image of angry resignation.
Recently knighted in the Birthday Honours, the former First Secretary of Yorkshire carries himself with the air of man refusing an overdraft. Sir David may be fondly remembered by many as the man who nursed the infant Assembly to maturity, but his latent authoritarianism and unwillingness to speak out in support of the immigration that the county so clearly needs has always annoyed me - something that I think he detects.
His suits are as crumpled as ever - as his his face, the latter of which gives him the impression of a lovestruck bloodhound.
“It is not that I agree with what the Prime Minister is doing,” he states, “only that I feel that former Ministers should try and remain as out of the spotlight as possible, There’s nothing much more embarrassing than the sight of a former statesman going around trying to convince himself that people still think he is worth listening to.”
I get the feeling that Sir David has a specific person in mind.
To resolve the silence, I pour some tea for us both. Blunkett has been blind since birth, and being brought up in the grinding poverty that typified South Yorkshire in the 1970s (my own father recalls not having indoor plumbing until his teenage years...) was clearly a tremendous influence on his early firebrand socialism.
After graduating with a degree in Politics from the University of Sheffield, Blunkett entered local politics, eventually rising to the Leader of the City Council for much of the Eighties. Under his tenure, he was the public face of the ‘People’s Republic of South Yorkshire’ and later one of the most prominent leaders of protests over the Thatcher government’s ‘Rate Capping’ policy. Entering Parliament in 1987, he entered the Shadow Cabinet shortly after, and became Blair’s Education Secretary after the Labour landslide in 1997.
Did he ever intend to go back to local politics back then?
“The thought never even crossed my mind,” he replies, “I wanted to make changes that would improve the lot of every child in this country, not just the ones that happened to live in Yorkshire - otherwise why would have bothered to enter the Cabinet at all?”
I take his point. Indeed, my distaste for certain aspects of his politics notwithstanding, I cannot deny his crusade for Sure Start, his promotion of teaching as a career, nor his school modernisation programme. All Education Secretaries are routinely despised by the teaching profession, but - to paraphrase my dad once again - “David was not as much of a bastard as most of ‘em.”
I decide to keep that epitaph to myself.
“What made you change your mind?” I continue.
“Competency played a part," he notes, "but I think that the main incentive was when the Deputy Prime Minister’s Department was split up during the ‘99 Reshuffle. Mo took over the Local Government side of things, whilst John had to settle for Transport and Planning, My heart didn’t exactly bleed for him.”
That was not really the question that I asked - I chide.
“I am coming to that,” he snaps “Mo - sensibly - had a massive re-think of the Department, but decided that their was some merit in the idea of further devolution to the English regions, especially those that had been hit so hard by Thatcherism. Tony was aghast at the idea, but Mo was always far more tenacious than John.”
There is a shake in Sir David’s voice, I get the impression that Mowlam’s early death hit him far more that he lets on.
“I am not really the sort of person to talk to about with regard to the referendum campaign,” I am pleased at that - I have a meeting at the University of Leeds after this, and I did not want to get a jaundiced view prior to it, “but when the whole thing passed - I still didn’t have any idea that I would be put forward for the First Secretaryship.”
He takes a sip of tea - I have to admit that his spacial awareness is excellent.
“Was it forced on you?”
“Not in so many words,” he replies, placing a saucer of tea on the floor for Cosby “but I think I got the Dobson treatment - Tony wanted someone more malleable at Education, but I think that I had already done all that I felt that I could achieve, the DoE was always a dreadfully conservative sort of place.”
I ask him if he enjoyed the role, despite his apparent misgivings. For the first time in the interview, he smiles, and I realise that under the brogue and bluster, he is at heart a decent man.
“It was the best job in the world,” he says, in a manner that I feel must be genuine, “I was going around, getting money back from the grasping money counters in Whitehall! I don’t think that I ever enjoyed myself so much before or since!”
I get the impression that he still thinks that I’m a native Londoner, but I decide not to correct him.
Blunkett’s time in office was not as brief as some of his fellow regional leaders - I remind myself of Alun Michael’s eight month damp squib in Cardiff, or John Swinney's seven in Holyrood - but at three years, it seems that Blunkett still wanted double that. The revelations about the awarding of a government contract to a firm that he held shares, coupled with an affair with a
Daily Mail journalist was enough for the knifes to be brought out amongst the unforgiving regional media. In the end - and facing a vote of confidence amongst by his LibDem coalition partners, Blunkett stepped down in September 2003. It was enough to ensure that Labour was comfortably re-elected the following May, but I learn that Sir David is still angered by the lack of recognition for his role in making the Assembly what it is today.
“I always think people care so much about regional politics because the stakes are so low” he says as I make to leave.
I feel that I should ask for a Blue Plaque to be erected on the side of the hotel, given that that is the first time that Sir David Blunkett has ever uttered a self-deprecating sentence.