By confirming the importance of politics and politicians in Britain, we can build from the bottom up and begin to reverse the worrying anti-politics trend, which will empower the elite technocrats and leave defenceless the man or woman in the street with a mere vote to cast.

Politics is about the participation and engagement of the wider citizenry - to miss that point would doom us to irrelevance.

We need a government which, yes, guarantees basic standards in public services, but which also steps in to protect people's wellbeing as they take part in our consumer democracy - particularly online.

David Blunkett Quotes