I owe a lot to Bradford University,
not just getting a degree,
but because I think Bradford proved that education at university level,
and the real world,
could and should be part of the same thing.
I’ve done a lot on education over the years
and one of the frustrating things
is the way in which so many universities
don’t always engage in the real world as I think they should
and indeed don’t always treat their students as I think they should
and I think Bradford
is a place that has got a lot to offer,
is achieving a great deal,
isn’t always recognised for what it’s achieving
and I think I can perhaps help
in terms of developing that future.
When I went to Bradford I was already very active politically,
which is one of the reasons I wanted to study politics,
but the thing about Bradford was that Mishella Lowie
who was Head of Department
was also the agent for one of the local MPs,
was also a budding psephologist
who did swingometers on Yorkshire Television
and all of this was terribly new,
people were analysing political behaviour
in a totally new way
and so that was absolutely fascinating and not like studying at all.
I mean the idea that you could
study something you enjoyed 24/7
was really quite amazing,
there wasn’t a bookish approach to politics,
yes you read everything you were supposed to read
and yes you did political history and constitutional law
and all those sorts of things
but there was a reality about what we were talking about,
discussing and writing about and that made it very exciting.
So I didn’t start out thinking:
oh I want to be an MP I’ll go to University and study politics,
quite the reverse.
Being a Member of Parliament has changed over the years,
when I first arrived it was quite intimidating
but there wasn’t the security,
you could wander in with your suitcase and say I’m a new MP,
nowadays there’s a lot more public scrutiny,
a lot more expected,
a lot of pressure on MPs that has built up over the years,
some of it good, some of it not so good.
When I first opened a constituency office
I was considered to be unusual in that I had surgeries every week
and things of that kind,
now with emails and people on Twitter
and all the social pressures
MPs are supposed to be everywhere, all the time.
Being in the House of Lords is very different from being in the House of Commons,
the atmosphere is different.
I was a minister in the Lords in defence
and actually the procedures in the Lords for asking questions
is a bit more interrogating than it is in the Commons
so you’ve really got to be on top of your game
because there are so many experts
but actually the atmosphere is easier at one level as well.
In many ways, being in the Lords if you’ve been in the Commons
means you get the best of both worlds
because you can go down to the Commons' tea room,
dining rooms
and catch up on what’s going on in the Commons
and I think I wouldn’t have liked us
to come into the Lords without having that experience.
I think that politicians need to be team players
and I think I’m a good team player
and therefore I think of political achievements
in terms as what you achieve as a part of your team,
not necessarily just as individuals.
So I think that things that were achieved from ’97,
such as the minimum wage and rescuing the health service and the investment in education,
all I think we were part of a team achieving.
Because of Harold Wilson’s approach in the early years
was really at the centre of the white heat technological revolution,
I think that that made Bradford
an exciting and vibrant place.
At the moment it has many departments that are also
very exciting and vibrant
and I think the rest of the world doesn’t realise that,
but Bradford’s got to keep on top of all the changes and challenges that exist
and find ways of engaging with the cutting edge
of whichever department we’re talking about
and I think that’s something the University understands
and something that the Council can help to deliver.