David Lammy Quotes

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David Lammy

Profession : Politician

Birth : July 19, 1972

I was obsessed with Nelson Mandela. I had big posters of him in my bedroom and he became my proxy father figure. He was in jail, so I could project all sorts of things about what he would say to me.

David Lammy

I'm just not convinced that the British people I know and love are interested in revolution.

David Lammy

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis' by JD Vance made me entirely rethink U.S. republicanism, Donald Trump and the American white working class.

David Lammy

The 1980s were tough for most of Britain, but nowhere more so than Tottenham.

David Lammy

Supporting Spurs is a bit like being in the Labour Party. It's a labour of love, believe me.

David Lammy

I knew what it was to be poor... my mother worried about putting food on the table. I knew what it was to feel excluded and shut out, but I also knew what it was to experience love and generosity.

David Lammy

I certainly knew the hard side of urban life, stop-and-search.

David Lammy

Ultimately, we must either abandon our reliance on stop and search or abandon any hope for a criminal justice system grounded in equality, impartiality and fairness.

David Lammy

The ingrained image of black men being searched by the police feeds into the collective illusion that black men everywhere need to be policed more than others.

David Lammy

We cannot have different policing for different communities. It is inherently unfair.

David Lammy

Stop and search is an integral cog in a racially disproportionate criminal justice system.

David Lammy

I'm a legislator, but it's hard to legislate when my party's out of power.

David Lammy

I'm so bored of tribal politics. That's part of the problem. I'm so bored of it. I'm not a tribalist. That's not what turns me on.

David Lammy

I'm not going to be cowed by the rampant racism, the organised racism, that comes from parts of the alt-right.

David Lammy

We look around at our national politicians, we do not see national politicians who are without fault. And, actually, we see quite a lot who get very far - let's take Boris Johnson- with considerable. White. Privilege. Failure after failure after failure rewarded.

David Lammy

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

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

There were a lot of things I thought of doing as I was growing up, from becoming a singer to a priest to a pilot.

David Lammy

Courts are too distant from the communities they put on trial.

David Lammy

As I have consistently recommended, we desperately need to find more black judges, particularly females, who are chronically underrepresented in our courts across London and the U.K.

David Lammy