From closing the digital divide to after-school activities and eating well, we cannot afford to ignore the link between deprivation and underachievement. David Lammy Read Quote
Too much of the Brexit rhetoric is based on the desire to go out and re-create Empire. David Lammy Read Quote
I remember singing as a chorister in Peterborough Cathedral, having won a music scholarship to go to school there, and realising for the first time in my life what true excellence was. David Lammy Read Quote
I spend much of my time in a suit and tie with my top button done up and my sensible shoes neatly polished. When it comes to work, my appearance is about communicating professionalism and confidence. David Lammy Read Quote
I tend not to read fiction – I’ll read one novel a year during the summer – but I do read a lot of nonfiction. David Lammy Read Quote
The New Labour doctrine that skills training was the responsibility of employers was flawed. The idea that employers should take on a bigger role ignores the reality that employers have no incentive to train staff to leave. We can hardly expect Tesco to train checkout staff to become dental nurses. David Lammy Read Quote
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. David Lammy Read Quote
When I was growing up, I wanted to be Michael Jackson. I used to sing and dance and perform with my sister at parties for 50p. David Lammy Read Quote
People don’t contest that I’m British as a black man, but they do contest that I’m English. Too many people are going back to an ethnocentric idea of what being English means. David Lammy Read Quote
A good life depends on the strength of our relationships with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers. David Lammy Read Quote
