When I was seven we came to England from a small village in Pakistan to join my father who was working in Sheffield’s steel works.
Firth Hall holds a special significance as a reference point in my life. As a teenager studying for my A-Levels, I attended a conference there chaired by the then very left wing David Blunkett. One of the topics of discussion was “Under the new Electoral Boundary changes, would a Labour Government ever come to power again”. I remember standing up and asserting that “unless the Labour Party were to adjust their policies towards the centre right they would be unelectable”. Of course, I was vindicated subsequently when Tony Blair did exactly that and the Labour Party was re-elected again for the first time in 1997.
I subsequently went on to read Law at the London School of Economics, and I have spent a lifetime of travelling, learning, questioning and challenging the status quo through my chosen path of being my own man.

Firth Hall, University of Sheffield