A good life depends on the strength of our relationships with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers.
David Lammy
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.
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.
We will not achieve gender equality in the workplace until we fix our system of parental leave.
Like many black men growing up in London, I have been stopped and searched by several policemen. I was 12 years old when I was first groped and frisked by police for walking down the road. It terrified me so much I wet myself.
We cannot have different policing for different communities. It is inherently unfair.
Family policy is not a zero-sum game: any gain for dads need not come at the expense of mums.
Parents' evenings were a big event in our social calendar and school reports were taken very seriously; 'C' was not a grade my mother recognised. Her favourite shop was WH Smith, where every week there would be a new book or pen or calculator to buy. But most importantly, she was my best friend.
People who have no stake in society are the least likely to have respect for it.
From closing the digital divide to after-school activities and eating well, we cannot afford to ignore the link between deprivation and underachievement.
Cities can be paradoxical places. In the mornings they buzz with commuters, in the evenings they come alive with diners and partygoers, at weekends the streets fill with shoppers and market traders. But amidst the hustle and bustle, even the greatest city can be a lonely place.
To tackle the scourge of young unemployment we need to be ambitious.
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.
When I was a young child and before he had left us for the U.S., my father would give me Mark Twain novels. In the characters, the weather and the context, my father must have seen many parallels to his own youth in the Caribbean in the 1930s and 40s.
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.
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.
My wife does all the driving.
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.
Many black youths are defying stereotypes, achieving good academic results, finding employment and contributing to their communities. But helping those who fall behind is not an exercise in political correctness, it is a precisely what a compassionate - and sensible - state should concern itself with.
The ingrained image of black men being searched by the police feeds into the collective illusion that black men everywhere need to be policed more than others.
I knew what it was to be poor... my mother worried about putting food on the table. I knew what it was to feel excluded and shut out, but I also knew what it was to experience love and generosity.
We need specific work on race equality programmes and programmes targeted at helping those who are yet to fulfil their potential.
I'm not going to be cowed by the rampant racism, the organised racism, that comes from parts of the alt-right.
I grew up under Thatcher; the era of apartheid; the era of the poll tax; the era of riots. I remember Neil Kinnock was a hero.
As I have consistently recommended, we desperately need to find more black judges, particularly females, who are chronically underrepresented in our courts across London and the U.K.
I think that's always something when you're working class, when you're aware of things that you haven't had; there are moments when you question yourself, definitely.
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.
White supremacy is not confined to strange men in the Deep South who put on white cloaks, it is not confined to strange gatherings of the English Defence League.
Stop and search is an integral cog in a racially disproportionate criminal justice system.
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.
I certainly knew the hard side of urban life, stop-and-search.
You can't be in business with international development and not understand basic issues of colonialism, postcolonialism and white privilege.
For me, a hoodie is like a pair of slippers or pyjamas - something comfortable and well-worn that you can wear unthinkingly. Unless, of course, you happen to be a black male.
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.
People don't contest that I'm British as a black man, but they do contest that I'm English. Too many people are going back to an ethnocentric idea of what being English means.
I'm just not convinced that the British people I know and love are interested in revolution.
I'm a legislator, but it's hard to legislate when my party's out of power.
I'm so bored of tribal politics. That's part of the problem. I'm so bored of it. I'm not a tribalist. That's not what turns me on.
We look around at our national politicians, we do not see national politicians who are without fault. And, actually, we see quite a lot who get very far - let's take Boris Johnson- with considerable. White. Privilege. Failure after failure after failure rewarded.
I tend not to read fiction - I'll read one novel a year during the summer - but I do read a lot of nonfiction.
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.
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.
Courts are too distant from the communities they put on trial.
Football is a great way for me to catch up with my sons, and to let off some steam from my professional life.
Supporting Spurs is a bit like being in the Labour Party. It's a labour of love, believe me.
Separate but equal is a fraud.
When I make a contribution in debates and in our public life, the House wants to hear what I say. It goes quiet - it wants to know what my opinion is.
I'd always been the kind of lawyer that was attracted back to policy.
If you're in the business of law you're in the business of representation and precedent.
