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A Blast from the Past

Gemma Fagbadegun

Four years ago, when IntoUniversity was still running as a pilot at The ClementJames Centre in North Kensington, our team took a group of students on a FOCUS trip to interview David Lammy MP for Tottenham and then Junior Minister in the department of Culture, Media and Sport. David Crace, journalist, covered the story for The Guardian, in which the sparky secondary students caught David out with a series of difficult questions, and spoke about their certainty that they would make it to university one day.

Four years on, and David Lammy is still a popular man in Tottenham. He’s now been MP for 11 years, and loves his constituency as much as ever. And he’s not lost faith in the impact of IntoUniversity, either. Which is why he cut the red tape at the launch of our centre in Haringey back in January 2010, and why we welcomed him back again this morning at the Tottenham based centre to kick-start a Journalism FOCUS week with a class of Year 6 pupils from Lancasterian Primary School.

John Crace described David perfectly:

“Lammy is almost everything you hope he will be. He's charming, attentive and
unpatronising. Most important, from the students' point of view, he's not white,
middle-class and middle-aged like every other politician they've ever seen or
heard. He may not talk street - though he says he can - but he's still
recognisably one of them.”

The excitement that simmered throughout the class as they anxiously awaited his arrival (which was slightly late due to an important meeting about Tottenham Hotspur – this only served to make him cooler in their eyes) was testament to his popularity in the community. Every child, even those who described themselves as ‘shy’ or ‘nervous’, had a question to ask him, and they were all eager to scribble down his answers lest they forget a single word. And like the interviewers from four years ago, these children didn’t make it easy for him; questions ranged from “What do you think about the 1000 job losses in Haringey?” to “Do you snore in bed?”.

Huge thanks to David Lammy MP for his continual support of our charity, and for putting up with so many awkward questions. But then again... what did he get into politics for? (Ask the Year 6 class at Lancasterian – they’ll definitely know.)

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