David Lammy, 46, is a Labour party politician, former minister and MP for Tottenham. Born to Guyanese parents, he was one of five children raised by his single mother in north London. He trained in the US at Harvard Law School and worked as a barrister, before entering politics. He was a leading voice in the call for justice after the Grenfell Tower fire; he led the campaign for the home secretary to guarantee the citizenship of Commonwealth nationals after the Windrush scandal. He has written the foreword to a new anthology, Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children, and last week was named politician of the year by the Political Studies Association.
Mother Country features poets, actors and playwrights, including Lenny Henry and Corinne Bailey Rae alongside a Windrush generation centenarian and other Caribbean Britons. Who do you hope will read it?
I hope the book will be read by many and varied readers and that it becomes a staple on the bookshelves of black British homes across the country, but also that school libraries will draw on it, particularly for Black History Month events. The myriad themes that convey the modern black experience, and that run through the anthology, are fundamental to the understanding of modern Britain.
Lenny Henry recalls Richard Pryor’s words on visiting Africa: “When you go to your home country, you feel your heritage run through your veins. You suddenly come alive.” What do you feel when you visit Guyana?
I go every year and love the warmth, the smells, the food. My parents are no longer with us but I can feel them in the air. I take tremendous joy from watching my children sucking the flesh from a mango stone. I’m not sure I could do this job without that umbilical cord I have to the region; I couldn’t be a black MP in Britain without keeping in touch. To put it in the context of the recent rise in hate crime and abuse directed at me, the Caribbean is like soul food.
What do you read when you are off-duty from politics?
I tend not to read fiction – I’ll read one novel a year during the summer – but I do read a lot of nonfiction. I’m in the business of ideas, and I skim a lot of books too. Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish) was wonderful; David Olusoga’s new book has prime position on my mantelpiece. Equally, I’ll read books whose opinions I won’t agree with, such as David Goodhart’s The Road to Somewhere because I don’t want to live in an echo chamber.
At the age of 10 you were awarded a choral scholarship. Might you have been a singer in another life?
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. 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. In the end I landed on law and now, as a politician, my job satisfaction remains tremendously high. I bounce out of bed to do the job but if I wasn’t doing it, I’d quite like to be teaching young people at sixth form or university.
Do you still sing?
I sing in the Parliamentary choir when I can, but this year has been so busy for me that I’m not in the Christmas choir. When I can get to practise, it’s like meditation; after an hour of singing, I feel uplifted, clear-headed, connected.
What music do you listen to?
I have very eclectic tastes. I love soul and Motown; I listen to some rap – Stormzy, Tinie Tempah, Drake. I also love classical music, American country and the folk tradition. I often start the day with gospel on my way to work. The only thing I have never got into is punk.
As a politician, you have spent a lot of your professional life speaking passionately about the failings in society, but what heartens you?
The millennials. I think they are a great generation who will do great things. We are all living longer and the baby boomers are still running the world, from Trump through to Theresa May. The millennials will have to fix a lot of things when they get hold of the levers of power, from climate change to the rise of right-wing politics, but I have every faith in them.
I get ever so slightly irritated when I’m called passionate. How could you possibly not be passionate about the preventable death of 72 people in a burning inferno? How could you not be moved by innocent people who came to this country, who took so little and gave so much, and yet who were being deported for no reason? It should enrage most of us. The fact that I am described like that says much more about the establishment than it does about me.
You are active on Twitter and have a big following. What do you think of it as a platform for debate?
I would not be on it if I weren’t an MP. I’m not entirely sure it is good for your mental health. When I’m no longer an MP, I won’t be on it. I will happily be digging up earth in my garden. I only tweet an opinion now because my constituents and other people like them want to know what I think, and I’ve come to realise that a lot of people are heartened by it.
Where do you want Britain to be in a year’s time?
I would like to see us having taken the decision to remain in the EU and to press for reform, look outward and deal with the gross inequality in wealth, not just in my constituency or in London but in seaside towns and former northern industrial cities that need serious improvement and opportunity.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Work on your resilience because you will get a lot of people telling you that you can’t do things at every stage: “You can’t be a lawyer”; ‘“You can’t go to Harvard”;“You can’t be an MP”; “What do you mean you want to be a minister?” You have to work at your resilience. But there are also adults, most often who do not look like you,like teachers and youth workers, who can help and support you. You have to throw off any pride and ask for help.
• Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children, edited by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, is published by Headline (£20). To order a copy for £17.60 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
