David Lammy | |
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![]() Lammy in 2017 | |
Minister of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills | |
In office 28 June 2007 – 11 May 2010 | |
Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
Preceded by | Bill Rammell |
Succeeded by | David Willetts (Universities and Science) |
Minister of State for Culture | |
In office 5 May 2005 – 28 June 2007 | |
Prime Minister | Tony Blair |
Preceded by | Estelle Morris (Arts) |
Succeeded by | Margaret Hodge (Culture and Tourism) |
Member of Parliament for Tottenham | |
Assumed office 22 June 2000 | |
Preceded by | Bernie Grant |
Majority | 34,584 (70.1%) |
Member of the London Assembly as the 8th Additional Member | |
In office 4 May 2000 – 4 July 2000 | |
Preceded by | Constituency created |
Succeeded by | Jennette Arnold |
Personal details | |
Born | David Lindon Lammy 19 July 1972 Holloway, London, England |
Political party | Labour |
Spouse | |
Children | 3 |
Alma mater | |
Website | www |
David Lindon Lammy FRSA MP[1] (born 19 July 1972) is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tottenham since 2000.
Lammy was born on 19 July 1972 in Whittington Hospital, on Highgate Hill, Upper Holloway, North London, to Guyanese parents David and Rosalind Lammy.[2][3][4] He and his four siblings were raised solely by his mother, after his father left the family when Lammy was 12 years old. Lammy speaks publicly about the importance of fathers and the need to support them in seeking to be active in the lives of their children. He chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood and has written on the issue.[5][6][7]
Lammy grew up in Tottenham. Having attended a local primary school, at the age of 10 he was awarded an Inner London Education Authority choral scholarship to sing at Peterborough Cathedral and attend The King's School, Peterborough.[8] He studied at the School of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, obtaining an upper-second-class[9] degree. Lammy went on to study at Harvard University when he won a place to study for a Master of Laws degree at Harvard Law School. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1994 at Lincoln's Inn and practised as a barrister.[10]
In 2000 he was elected for Labour on the London-wide list to the London Assembly. During the London election campaign Lammy was selected as the Labour candidate for Tottenham when Bernie Grant died. He was elected to the seat in a by-election held on 22 June 2000.
In 2002, he became Parliamentary under-Secretary in the Department of Health. In 2003, Lammy was appointed as a Minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. As a member of the Government, he voted in favour of authorisation for Britain to invade Iraq in 2003. After the 2005 general election Lammy was appointed Minister for Culture at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
In June 2007, Lammy was appointed as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. In October 2008, he was promoted to Minister of State and was appointed to the Privy Council. In June 2009 until June 2010 when Labour lost the election, he became Minister for Higher Education in the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
After Labour lost the 2010 general election a Labour Party leadership contest was announced. During the contest Lammy nominated Diane Abbott, saying that he felt it was important to have a diverse field of candidates, but nonetheless declared his support for David Miliband. After the election of Ed Miliband, Lammy pledged his full support but turned down a post in the Shadow Cabinet, asserting a need to speak on a wide range of issues that would arise in his constituency due to the "large cuts in the public services".[11] Deciding instead to become a backbench opposition MP. Lammy opposed the coalition government's comprehensive spending review.
In 2010 there were suggestions that Lammy might stand for election as Mayor of London in 2012. Lammy pledged his support to Ken Livingstone's bid to become the Labour London mayoral candidate, declaring him "London's Mayor in waiting".[12] Lammy became Livingstone's selection campaign chair. In 2014, Lammy announced that he was considering entering the race to become Mayor of London in the 2016 election.[13]
Following the party's defeat in the 2015 general election, Lammy was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015.[14]
Main article: London Labour Party mayoral selection, 2015 |
On 4 September 2014, Lammy announced his intention to seek the Labour nomination for the 2016 mayoral election.[15] In the London Labour Party's selection process, he secured 9.4 per cent of first preference votes and was fourth overall, behind Sadiq Khan, Tessa Jowell, and Diane Abbott.
In March 2016, he was fined £5,000 for instigating 35,629 automatic phone calls urging people to back his mayoral campaign without gaining permission to contact the party members concerned. Lammy apologised "unreservedly" for breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations.[16] It was the first time a politician had been fined for authorising nuisance calls.[17]
Lammy has commented on Britain's history of slavery[18][19][20] and on many other subjects.
Lammy has over the years publicly attributed blame for certain crimes to various specific causes and persons. He has also talked about black and ethnic minority peoples, especially younger peoples, relation with crime and how they are treated by the criminal justice system.
On 11 August 2011, in an address to Parliament, Lammy attributed part of the cause for England's riots of a few days earlier to destructive 'cultures' that had emerged under the prevailing policies."[21] He also stated that a ban on smacking children was partly to blame for current youth culture, that had attributed to the riots.[22]
Lammy has blamed the Prime Minister and Home Secretary for failing to take responsibility over fatal stabbings in London.[23] Lammy also blames inequality, high youth unemployment among black males, also local authorities cutting youth services and outreach programmes.[24]
Lammy has stated that the criminal justice system deals with "disproportionate numbers" of young people from black and ethnic minority communities, despite saying that although decisions to charge were "broadly proportionate", he has said that black and ethnic minority people still face and perceive bias.[25] Lammy said that young black people are nine times more likely to be incarcerated than "comparable" white people, and proposed a number of measures including system of "deferred prosecution" for young first time offenders to reduce incarcerations.[26] Lammy has asserted that black and ethnic minority people offend "at the same rates" as comparable white people "when taking age and socioeconomic status into account". They were more likely to be stopped and searched, if charged more likely to be convicted, more likely to be sent to prison and less likely to get support in prison.[27]
On 5 February 2013, Lammy gave a speech in the House of Commons on why he would be voting in favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill 2013, critically comparing the relegation of British same-sex couples to civil partnerships to the "separate but equal" legal doctrine which justified Jim Crow laws in the 20th-century United States.[28] US television host Lawrence O'Donnell praised Lammy's speech, relating it to Oscar Wilde's testimony on "the love that dare not speak its name" during his 1895 trial for sodomy and gross indecency.[28]
Lammy has criticised the University of Oxford for admitting relatively few black students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.[29]
Lammy believes the Windrush scandal concerns injustice to a generation who are British, have made their homes and worked in Britain and deserve to be treated better.[30]
Lammy described the Grenfell Tower fire as "corporate manslaughter" and called for arrests to be made.[31][32] His friend Khadija Saye was one of the victims of the fire.[33][34]
Lammy also commented adversely about what he saw as failure of authorities to come up with figures for how many people had died.[35]
Lammy has written about what he believes to be the shortcomings of the housing market."[36]
On 23 June 2018, Lammy appeared at the People's Vote march in London to mark the second anniversary of the referendum to leave the European Union. People's Vote is a campaign group calling for a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union.[37]
Lammy has prompted controversy and rebuttals for comments he has expressed regarding race, the factual accuracy of some his statements and views he has posted on the social media platform Twitter.
In January 2016, Lammy claimed that one million Indians sacrificed their lives during the Second World War, not for the survival of Britain and to fight Nazism, but instead for the "European Project." The statement was strongly criticised by The Spectator.[38]
Writing in an article for the The Spectator journalist Rod Liddle disputed Lammy’s claim that he was raised in a family reliant on tax credits that were introduced to the United Kingdom when Lammy was at the age of 31.[39]
In January 2019, Lammy attracted controversy on twitter for describing Rod Liddle having a column in a weekly newspaper as a "national disgrace" and accused Liddle of having “white middle class privilege” for expressing the view that absent fathers played a role in violent crime involving black youths. A number of twitter users responded by accusing Lammy of hypocrisy given that the MP had previously expressed similar opinions in 2012.[40]
In February 2019, Lammy criticised Stacey Dooley for photographs she posted on social media of her trip to Uganda for Comic Relief, and said that "the world does not need any more white saviours", and that she was "perpetuating 'tired and unhelpful stereotypes' about Africa".[41][42] The donations received for the Red Nose Day broadcast in March 2019 fell by £8 million and the money raised that year was the lowest since 2007, which some have blamed on Lammy's remarks. Critics of his view included Jimmy Wales[43] and Conservative Party MP Chris Philp.[44]
Lammy sparked further controversy when he likened opposing the policies of the European Research Group to opposition to the Nazi Party during the Second World War and South African apartheid when speaking at an anti-Brexit rally. When asked Andrew Marr in April 2019 if he stood by the comments, Lammy responded by claiming the comparisons "didn’t go far enough,"[45] before comparing Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees Mogg to Nazis, referencing Johnson’s alleged contact with Steve Bannon, and added "I don't care how elected they were, so were the far right in Germany." Conservative Party MP Conor Burns criticised the comments with “I used to have regard for David Lammy. But this is bats**t. Comparing ERG to Hitler is quite something. Fully lost it.”[46]
Lammy married the artist Nicola Green in 2005;[4] the couple have two sons and a daughter.[47][failed verification]
In November 2011, he published a book, Out of the Ashes: Britain After the Riots, about the August 2011 riots.[48]