I met David Blunkett, former Labour Home Secretary and MP for Sheffield Brightside, in July 2007 at New College Worcester, a school for blind and visually impaired students, only two weeks after Gordon Brown moved into Number 10. Brown was on the verge of calling an early election, Labour was going strong and, of course, Northern Rock had not yet fallen to its knees. Eight years later, we meet again at The Cambridge Union, a week after Labour’s crushing election defeat. It is fair to say that the times have changed since 2007 – I am much fatter and he’s got a new Labrador. The world – that funny old place – is not what it was back then, although Mr Blunkett points out that he still uses “one of those old mobile phones that has a long battery life”.

I wonder if the battery on his phone will live longer than the Human Rights Act 1998. Does he want the Act to remain on the statute books? “I am in favour of The Human Rights Act,” he tells me. Unsurprising, you might think, given that Labour vehemently attacked David Cameron’s plan to repeal arguably the most constitutionally significant piece of legislation of the 20th century. 

I was, however, very surprised to learn of Mr Blunkett’s support for the Act. As a law student, I have had the privilege – or, perhaps, the misfortune – of studying his hard-line views on “airy fairy” civil liberties. He was part of the Labour government that enacted legislation allowing the indefinite detention of foreign nationals following 9/11.

Such draconian measures were, naturally, brought to the attention of the judges sitting at The House of Lords – the highest court in our land at the time - in the famous Belmarsh case. The judges made a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ under Section 4 of the Human Rights Act, forcing Parliament to debate the legislation once again. Mr Blunkett – and, indeed, the whole Labour government – was furious. Livid, they repealed the legislation, only to replace it with even more liberty-crushing measures: all nationals – whether British or foreign – could now be detained.

So, for a man who once said that he was “fed up with having to deal with a situation where Parliament debates issues and the judges then overturn them”, I was taken aback by his new love for The Human Rights Act. Perhaps he now regrets the Belmarsh saga? “I do not regret Belmarsh”, he says. 

“We’ve had a phenomenal history of welcoming people whose views we not only disliked but also deeply opposed – Karl Marx, for example. When I was Home Secretary, I took the view that it was necessary that the government could protect people. I took the view that it was necessary to be clear about security,” he told members of the Union. I am left perplexed.

Invoking national security arguments to mute, muzzle and gag critics is exactly what the Tories are doing, isn't it? Yet, even as “someone who is seen as being tough on security”, Mr Blunkett says he is “worried” at David Cameron’s plans to pass new laws in response to the radicalisation of British Muslims. Criticising Theresa May’s “waffle”, he was keen to draw a distinction between the Tories’ proposed measures and what he called Labour’s “modest” war on terror. What the Tories have proposed sends out a clear and different message: “if you don’t agree with our [British] values, you’re not allowed to speak”. I do not see the distinction myself.

Of course, it is to be welcomed that Mr Blunkett is now an advocate of The Human Rights Act – he was keen to remind me that he was a part of the government behind its conception. However, in the same way that blood ties alone do not exonerate the neglectful parent, Labour cannot now deny that the Human Rights Act had been ill-treated long before Theresa May’s scaremongering tactics and Chris Grayling’s factually inaccurate statements about judicial review. It is increasingly likely that the HRA will go, but will the judges come to our rescue?

“They will have to be very careful. The common law has the advantage of being flexible, unlike our Romanic [European?] counterparts. The judges in Strasbourg do not have access to the common law and do not interpret legislation in the way our judges do.”

With all due respect, I cannot be deferential about Mr Blunkett’s views on The Human Rights Act, civil liberties or human rights protection as a whole: they are riddled in incoherence and hypocrisy.

Let us be clear, Labour did bring in the Human Rights Act – kudos. But, since 9/11, human rights scepticism has been rife amongst both left and right wing politicians. Tony Blair himself threatened to repeal the HRA if it got in the way of Labour’s anti-terrorism measures. Now that Labour has been ousted, the same politicians who battered and bruised the HRA now come to its defence. The Human Rights Act has been used as a mere rhetorical device to make or break elections.

The Conservative’s attack on it is neither unheard of nor novel. If the Act goes, it is because Labour infected it, leaving it susceptible to a Tory attack. The Act has been vulnerable for many years - Mr Blunkett is partly to blame for the Tory crusade.

Yet Mr Blunkett told the Union: “Where there is a chaos, where there is instability, where there is fear, the right benefits, not the left”. When I met him in 2007 as a pre-pubescent schoolboy, I would have accepted this as the gospel truth.

Today, however, I cannot be won over by the inspirational story behind the man who I look up to: Labour created the fear he speaks of – and, indeed, were re-elected in 2005 because of it. But, as in 2010, the scaremongers were beaten at their own game. Mr Blunkett described the yellow-wash in Scotland as the “SNP tsunami” – a wave of Scottish nationalism that the Tories capitalised on to keep out a Labour-SNP coalition. Asked whether he thinks Scotland will go independent, he said that Nicola Sturgeon has one of two options.

“You can choose the Smith Commission’s recommendations or you can have full fiscal autonomy. She [Nicola Sturgeon] would refuse full fiscal autonomy. This would bring home the absurdity that a small country, with the population of Yorkshire, cannot do it alone”.

Similarly absurd, Mr Blunkett thought, was Labour’s belief that it didn’t need to work hard for the student vote. “We need to stop believing our own propaganda”, he said. For too long the Labour Party has assumed that “if you educate people properly, they will believe the philosophy of mutuality and reciprocity”. Going forward, then, Labour has a “big challenge on its hands”. It needs to unchain itself from the public perception that it is anti-business. Most of all, however, it needs a “sense of purpose”. I could not agree more.

I remain inspired by David Blunkett. He has had a formidable career. He tells me that, even in Parliament, having a disability is tough, and spoke candidly of how he overcame the “condescension and bewilderment that someone with a disability could do the job better." Nevertheless, as I revise for my Constitutional Law exam next week, I cannot bring myself to accept his views on civil liberties and The Human Rights Act.

Our reunion was bittersweet. He encouraged me once more to achieve and overcome. But he also reminded me of what I already know: that the human rights engagement of our Parliamentarians is questionable, if not deplorable.