The Learning and Skills Council : strategic priorities

"This is the text of the letter sent by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to the Learning and Skills Council on 9th November 2000" -- [page 1

David Blunkett: introducing citizenship education was the easy bit. We need to do more to encourage schools to support youth participation

The previous Labour government added Citizenship to the National Curriculum in England in 2002. Last week on Democrat Audit David Kerr discussed how its prominence has fallen in more recent and called for more robust monitoring of provision. In this post David Blunkett MP, Education Secretary under Labour, discusses the importance of Citizenship and how its teaching can be strengthened. This post is part of our series on youth participation in politics

Restructuring the Homicide Offences to Tackle Violence, Discrimination and Drugs in a Modern Society

This article argues that the current law on homicide fails to satisfy the goal of “fair labelling” leading to an indirect risk of discrimination against vulnerable members of our society who are not being consistently recognized as the victims of a fatal crime. The case is put forward for two new rungs in the homicide ladder of “aggravated murder” and “aggravated manslaughter”, along with statutory offences which directly cater for the victims of drug homicides and domestic abuse leading to a suicide

Faith in democratic institutions has fallen to dangerously low levels at a time when we need democracy more than ever

The five years since the financial crisis have seen faith in democratic institutions fall to dangerously low levels, precisely at the moment when David Blunkett MP argues that we need politics (and politicians) more than ever. We must urgently address the question of how political life can be revitalised in a way which avoids the twin dangers of extremism and technocracy

Lecture given to the Technology Colleges Trust, Whitehall, London

Text of speech given as the Second Annual Lecture of the Technology Colleges Trust by Blunkett as Secretary of State for Education and Employment. The talk relates mainly to the new specialist schools introduced by the Labour government