About David Blunkett
David Blunkett, Baron Blunkett, (born 6 June 1947) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education and Employment from 1997 to 2001, Home Secretary from 2001 to 2004 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2005. A member of the Labour Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough (formerly Sheffield Brightside) from 1987 to 2015 and was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer in 2015. Following the 2001 general election, he was promoted to home secretary, a position he held until 2004, when he resigned following publicity about his personal life. Following the 2005 general election he was appointed secretary of state for work and pensions, though he resigned from that role later that year following media coverage relating to external business interests in the period when he did not hold a cabinet post. The Cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell, in a letter of 25 November 2005, exonerated him from any wrongdoing. On 20 June 2014, Blunkett announced to his constituency party that he would be standing down from the House of Commons at the next general election in May 2015. In August 2015, he was awarded a peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours. He was created Baron Blunkett, of Brightside and Hillsborough in the City of Sheffield, on 28 September. In 1970, at the age of 22, Blunkett became the youngest-ever councillor on Sheffield City Council and in Britain, being elected while a mature student. Nevertheless, he won a place at the University of Sheffield, where he gained a BA honours degree in Political Theory and Institutions; one of his lecturers was Bernard Crick.
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