The position of Minister of State for Communities and Local Government was a cabinet-level position in the United Kingdom Government. It was created by Tony Blair in 2005 following his victory in the general election of that year. The minister held many responsibilities which were formally held by the Deputy Prime Minister, to whom he reported.
David Miliband became the first holder of the post. His selection was not without controversy, as some speculated that Tony Blair had wanted to give David Blunkett the position as a Secretary of State, but this was opposed by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. On 5 May 2006, it was announced that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister would be losing its responsibility for local government and housing, and Ruth Kelly would be appointed Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
Famous quotes containing the words minister, state, communities, local and/or government:
“He had a gentleman-like frankness in his behaviour, and as a great point of honour as a minister can have, especially a minister at the head of the treasury, where numberless sturdy and insatiable beggars of condition apply, who cannot all be gratified, nor all with safety be refused.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self- congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.”
—Clifford Geertz (b. 1926)
“It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”
—Graffiti. London (1970s)