This article first appeared in the Tottenham Journal.

AS WE meet across a bottle of tomato ketchup at a greasy spoon cafe, David Lammy clad in a sharp beige suite, much of the thriving diversity of Tottenham comes to mind.

The 36-year-old Labour MP, who has been at Tottenham's political helm for eight years, drinks iced tea as an assistant hovers in the Philip Lane café near to his weekly town hall surgeries.

Born in Tottenham, David is one of five children raised by a single mother who died recently. Her death has inspired him to reflect on memories of the area he grew up in during the Thatcher years.

"They weren't easy times. There was tension with the police, unemployment was high," he says.

"Some of the schools were failing and we were starved of money.

"But in terms of my personal recollections it was a time of joy. I have lots of wonderful memories of the borough and friends."

David loved history as a child but it was the contradictions he saw around him which led onto a career in politics.

"I enjoyed politics because in a sense it's living history," he says. "I was political. You couldn't grow up in the 1980s, be blessed with a brain and not be political.

"Why was it that so many seemed to have more than we did? Why was it that discrimination existed? Politics seemed to be about changing that?"

At 11, David won a scholarship as a chorister to attend The King's School in Peterborough, but he returned to London in 1990 to study law at the School of Oriental and African Studies and was admitted to the bar in 1994.

He later became the first black Briton to study a Masters in Law at Harvard in 1997, where US presidential contender Barak Obama was among the alumni.

David knows Obama personally and describes him as having tremendous charisma and intelligence. "His achievement is huge and it's one I know fills a community like ours, a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community, with pride," he says.

"Coming from his background and representing what he represents, if he were to become American president that would probably be the biggest achievement we've seen in politics in my lifetime. Politics is about changing people's lives."

David's own political career has seen him take on ministerial portfolios within culture, media and sport, health, constitutional affairs. He now serves as minister for skills.

But he juggles this with constituency duties and living in Harringay Ladder. Much of his time is still spent in Tottenham.

"I live here and I have kids here. I drop my son off at nursery school," he says. "We tend to be on the swings at Finsbury Park and Lordship Park at some point in the week."

Politically this also keeps him on his toes.

"The great thing about Tottenham is you buy a paper or go shopping and people tell you how it is," he says.

In the odd moment away from politics, he enjoys watching Spurs and saw their Carling Cup victory this year.

"I was very keen for a victory parade and I'm disappointed that they didn't," he says. "I thought it was a mistake not to celebrate success. Could you imagine Liverpool or Manchester not doing it?"

Married four years ago to artist Nicola Green, David has two young sons, Joshua, two and a half, and six-month-old Theo, and enjoys nothing more than having a kick around in the park.

"It's one of my ambitions to get a coaching certificate so I can coach my boys," he says.

Asked about future career dreams for the boys along political or football lines, he says "I'd definitely recommend football."

And of the other things David hopes to achieve, being the best father he can is top of the list.

"Life is not just about your CV and about the letters after your name," he says. "In the last eight years as well as being the MP for Tottenham I've lost two parents, got married and had two sons.

"For me the most important thing is being a father to my children. I learnt that this year when my mother was dying."

As someone who has known Tottenham for 36 years, David might be well placed to tempt any unexpected visitors to sample its delights.

"If you were an alien and you landed on earth but you only had a day, and so you were never going to see all this beautiful land holds and the many people that make it up, where ever it is that you land in the world get to Tottenham," he says. "You'll experience the culture and you'll experience the people that make up our world and that is a tremendous gift."