David Lammy
We will not achieve gender equality in the workplace until we fix our system of parental leave.Collection: Equality
People who have no stake in society are the least likely to have respect for it.Collection: Respect
A good life depends on the strength of our relationships with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers.Collection: Good
We need specific work on race equality programmes and programmes targeted at helping those who are yet to fulfil their potential.Collection: Equality
From protecting consumers to establishing common standards and promoting free trade, the E.U. plays a central role. And nation states alone cannot tackle common threats such as climate change without the co-ordination that the E.U. and other supranational institutions provide.Collection: Alone
A good society is characterised not just by liberty but by mutual respect and responsibility. When this breaks down it takes a lot more than police officers to put things right.Collection: Respect
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.Collection: Dad
We should not let those with a political agenda use London's growing population to support their anti-immigration rhetoric, and we should challenge those who want to label London's global attraction a flaw rather than a strength.Collection: Strength
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.Collection: Equality
Parenting is more than a numbers game: it's a question of whether people are equipped for the toughest job they will ever be asked to do.Collection: Parenting
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.Collection: Music
The 1980s were tough for most of Britain, but nowhere more so than Tottenham.
We cannot afford to lose talented young black people, who make it to university, overseas, or worse, to let other talented black people be put off by the notion that university is somehow not for them.
While at Harvard, I was struck by the palpable sense of noblesse oblige that surrounds their sophisticated outreach and bursary programmes. It is almost as if they view extending opportunity to disadvantaged individuals as their highest mission.
A university education is a privilege, but we should be proud that in Britain it is also a right, no matter what your income or class or ethnic background.
It is hard to speak the truth about valued national institutions. But when they are not fit for purpose, we must speak out.
As the MP for an area like Tottenham you quickly learn that the factors leading to unemployment are as numerous as they are diverse.
To tackle the scourge of young unemployment we need to be ambitious.
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.
Our political class obsesses over social mobility from one generation to the next - whether or not people are doing better than their parents did - but we rarely talk about those who are already in work and want to progress.
Mum eventually graduated with a City & Guilds certificate that hung proudly on our living room wall throughout my childhood.
The idea of a family sitting round the kitchen table and carefully planning their future family size based on the certainty of years to come is a complete fantasy. Back in the real world, jobs are lost, livelihoods taken away, families break apart, partners leave or pass away.
Plenty of people are intrigued by their family history. Growing up as the son of West Indian immigrants who moved to London in the 1950s and 60s, I was especially fascinated by anecdotes about the lives of my Guyanese relatives, which seemed a million miles away from Tottenham's Broadwater Farm estate.
A loving family matters. So do male role models.
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.
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.
If we want to raise the aspirations of young men, we should be praising their achievements, not talking them down.
We have to challenge head-on the way the BNP takes legitimate concerns and manipulates them in the interests of its fascist agenda.
As a young man, I was angry about all things legal.
Reading international law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London was a wonderful experience. With its incredibly diverse student population, I began to immerse myself in the ways social, legal and political forces contribute to human rights and freedoms.
Being in opposition takes some getting used to. As a former minister, you don't just lose your job and the enormous resources of the civil service, you also have to watch programmes that you were involved in being gradually dismantled.
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.
Universities are not like supermarkets: their job is to serve the country, not just the customers who happen to walk through their doors.
Fathers matter.
It is the responsibility of all of us to create a culture that encourages and enables fathers to spend more time with their families.
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.
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.
I love to run outdoors, being outside, enjoying nature, looking up through the trees, being out among the elements... I don't think there's a better way to start the day.
The great thing about running is that so often you wake up and you think: 'I really don't feel like this.' And even when you're up and out, that first kilometre is tough. But then once you get to 3km and you're getting to the end of the run, it's really fantastic.
The pressures of being an MP mean free time is a very rare luxury.
I like the state of being self-aware, it's interesting when you start to look at your own habits.
At school, I was frequently subjected to racial abuse.
Prejudice is not just a personal sentiment - it can be institutional too.
Family policy is not a zero-sum game: any gain for dads need not come at the expense of mums.
Dads are not a risk to be managed, but a resource to be used for the benefit of the whole family.
Active dads make a positive contribution: they are good for children and they are good for mothers.
Leadership is about tough choices.
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.
I love the theatre and Miller is one of my all-time favourite playwrights. 'All My Sons' is a very socialist play, which exposes the lack of empathy that can accompany capitalism when it is left unchecked.
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.