As Chris McCausland lights up Strictly, DAVID BLUNKETT – who shares comedian’s disability – praises his ‘have-a-go’ attitude: ‘From one blind man to another: Thank you, Chris for brilliantly inspiring the next generation’

For those who are unfamiliar with the comedian Chris McCausland, his appearance on BBC‘s Strictly Come Dancing will have come as a revelation. Many will already be familiar with his tremendous sense of humour, irrepressible personality and willingness to have a go at anything.

Some may have seen him in the Channel 4 reality show Scared Of The Dark, where contestants lived in a house devoid of light for eight days. Others may have tuned into BBC Radio 4 for You Heard It Here First, where he asks a panel of comedians to guess an object from sound only. 

Programmes like these are close to my heart because, of course, the one thing that Chris and I have in common is that neither of us can see.

We certainly don’t share a skill for dancing, for my two left feet have never done me any favours on the dance floor, which is why I’d never agree to Strictly.

As a politician, it was drummed into me to never put myself in a vulnerable situation – at least if I could help it. This is why I have turned down, on numerous occasions, appearing on Have I Got News For You; and, once, the £25,000 I was offered to go on Channel 4’s The Friday Night Project. For a comedian, though, taking such risks, as Chris has done, is second nature.

For those who are unfamiliar with the comedian Chris McCausland (seen with Dianne Buswell on tonight’s show), his appearance on BBC ‘s Strictly Come Dancing will have come as a revelation

Chris (pictured) previously appeared the Channel 4 reality show Scared Of The Dark , where contestants lived in a house devoid of light for eight days

Lord Blunkett, who is also blind, sat in Tony Blair’s Cabinet for eight years including a spell as Home Secretary

But what he is doing is more than entrancing viewers with ingenuity and talent to pull off remarkable feats of mobility and creativity.

What he is doing, and what I’ve sought to do myself over many years, is to break down barriers erected by others, whose perceptions of what a blind person can do simply gets in the way of reality.

It was the poet William Blake who wrote of ‘mind-forged manacles’, alluding to the constraints that we put on what we believe to be possible. And on occasion, our own perceptions of what other people can achieve impacts what they themselves have the confidence to go for.

So, just as the way Channel 4, over a couple of decades now, has opened up the minds and hearts of millions by covering the Paralympics, demonstrating what those with different forms of disability can achieve if given the chance, so Chris is conveying the message that if you have the self-belief to do it, you can pull it off.

His partner on Strictly, Dianne Buswell, was queried by sceptics who wondered how she would cope with the challenge. Her encouraging response was that going in ‘simply to win’ wasn’t the point. Though, given Chris’s popularity, the sky could be the limit.

My bet is that life hasn’t always felt like that for Chris.

Earlier, I said that our sight-loss was the only thing we have in common but that isn’t true, for I sense in him a tenacity, dare I say pig-­headedness – the kind that propelled me from a boy who learned to read Braille to a backbench city councillor in Sheffield, to eight years in Tony Blair’s Cabinet.

Dianne and Chris performing the foxtrot on tonight’s Strictly Come Dancing, for which they scored 29 out of 40

Chris’ partner on Strictly, Dianne Buswell, was queried by sceptics who wondered how she would cope with the challenge. Her encouraging response was that going in ‘simply to win’ wasn’t the point

From my earliest years, I’ve fought against people’s perceptions when, against the will of my parents, I was sent, at the age of four, to a residential boarding school for the blind.

That’s how things were in those days. Expectations were low, opportunities limited and the liberation of the visually impaired young today in the form of audio technology, was a lifetime away.

My lack of sight was due to the failure of my optic nerve to develop, so I’ve never been able to see more than light or dark, which is where Chris now finds himself.

He gradually lost his sight over a period of time due to retinitis pigmentosa, a condition youngsters I went to school with had, some of whom I am still friends with today. 

For me, adapting to the world was as natural as anyone else coping with the slings and arrows of life. I learned to read Braille, became numerate using tactile materials and even played with a football that jangled with ball bearings inside.

For Chris, losing his sight in adulthood was, as he has said, ‘scary and embarrassing’, where asking people for help was a life skill he had to learn fast.

Having the gift of the gab certainly helps. In his case to make people laugh; in mine to win them over to a cause, to persuade them of my ideas. It’s a dying art, no more demonstrated than at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, where I found that the tyranny of the teleprompter inhibited a spontaneity in how speakers responded to an audience.

What also helps is a willingness to embrace new technology, something I’m sure Chris has mastered much better than I have. 

While apps on phones translate emails and texts into speech, I tend to lean on my wife and others to read out what is on a screen for me.

And social media, for all its ills, has opened up a world of social connections to children unable to leave the house as much as able-bodied kids can.

The comic (seen aged 32) lost his sight in his early 20s, due to a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa

For the next generation, the exposure of people like Chris on prime-time TV is invaluable. Role models really do matter and his presence in the living rooms of the nation will encourage both parents and youngsters to think, ‘well, if he can do it, so can I’.

I grew up on a diet of Morecambe and Wise and The Likely Lads on TV, while also listening to Tony Hancock on the radio – entertainers who were all joys to behold in their own way, but none that spoke to my circumstance.

When I was Education and Employment Secretary, I was keen to encourage those who had succeeded against the odds to pass on the message to children and families that access to higher education or opportunities outside their own experience was as much for them as for ­anyone else.

Seizing those chances requires confidence and aspiration, but it’s also about a willingness to simply have a go.

That is why the success of Chris McCausland matters not just to him or to the revival of Strictly – a particularly beleaguered brand at the moment – but to all of us who believe that every single person has something to offer, and a way of making the world a better place.