David Lammy
Politician
1972-07-19
Quotes by David Lammy
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For me, a hoodie is like a pair of slippers or pyjamas - something comfortable and well-worn that you can wear unthinkingly. Unless, of course, you happen to be a black male.
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People who have no stake in society are the least likely to have respect for it.
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A good life depends on the strength of our relationships with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers.
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In Britain, we ought to be in a position where doctors and therapists are able to prescribe mindfulness, acupuncture, osteopathy de rigueur, and it not only be available in certain fantastic surgeries in London and Brighton.
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Mum was born in 1938 in Guyana and came to Britain at the end of the 60s. She settled in Tottenham, north London, and worked for London Transport and then as a home help, a care assistant and finally a local authority officer. Bringing up five children singlehandedly with little money can't have been easy, but she did it with tremendous style.
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When I was a young child and before he had left us for the U.S., my father would give me Mark Twain novels. In the characters, the weather and the context, my father must have seen many parallels to his own youth in the Caribbean in the 1930s and 40s.
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Unemployed people should be treated as potential to be realised, not a problem to be solved.
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My father was a taxidermist, not a run-of-the-mill profession for a West Indian immigrant. Having given up on becoming a vet, he settled for working with dead animals rather than live ones. Dad was a true craftsman, an artist.
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Music, dance, literature and the visual arts open up a rich and intensely rewarding world. It is a world that should not be the preserve of the few.
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People 'demand' the opportunity to gamble away money they do not have, just like people 'demand' money from loan sharks at extortionate interest rates. This is a warped, empty type of freedom, in which the powerful are free to exploit the vulnerable.
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A workplace culture where fathers are encouraged to take paternity leave would result in stronger families, a more equal labour market and a better economy.
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Throughout her life my mother, Rose, prayed for good health. My father left when I was 12 and money was tight, so she couldn't afford to take time off work. I have a younger sister and three older brothers, and she used to panic that we'd be taken into care if she wasn't able to look after us.
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Family policy is not a zero-sum game: any gain for dads need not come at the expense of mums.
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