Jack Straw

Jack Straw
Born	John Whitaker Straw 1946-08-03 Buckhurst Hill, United Kingdom
Alma mater	University of Leeds, Inns of Court
Religion	Anglicanism
Children	2 daughters 1 son
Spouse	Anthea Weston
Member of	Ditchley/Governors, Ditchley/UK, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies/Fellows
Party	Labour
Shadow Lord Chancellor  In office 11 May 2010 - 8 October 2010 Succeeded by Sadiq Khan  Shadow Secretary of State for Justice In office 11 May 2010 - 8 October 2010 Preceded by Dominic Grieve Succeeded by Sadiq Khan  Shadow Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom In office 11 May 2010 - 25 September 2010  Lord Chancellor  In office 28 June 2007 - 11 May 2010 Succeeded by Kenneth Clarke, Kenneth Clarke  Secretary of State for Justice  In office 28 June 2007 - 11 May 2010 Succeeded by Kenneth Clarke  Leader of the House of Commons  In office 5 May 2006 - 27 June 2007 Preceded by Geoff Hoon Succeeded by Harriet Harman  Lord Privy Seal  In office 5 May 2006 - 27 June 2007 Preceded by Geoff Hoon Succeeded by Harriet Harman  Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs In office 8 June 2001 - 5 May 2006 Preceded by Robin Cook Succeeded by Margaret Beckett  Home Secretary  In office 2 May 1997 - 8 June 2001 Preceded by Michael Howard Succeeded by David Blunkett  Shadow Home Secretary  In office 20 October 1994 - 2 May 1997 Succeeded by Michael Howard  Shadow Minister for Local Government and Housing In office 24 July 1992 - 20 October 1994  Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science In office 13 July 1987 - 18 July 1992 Preceded by Giles Radice  Member of Parliament for Blackburn In office 3 May 1979 - 30 March 2015 Preceded by Barbara Castle

Jack Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015. Straw served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary throughout Brown's premiership. Straw is one of only three individuals to have served in Cabinet continuously under the Labour government from 1997 to 2010.

After the Labour Party lost power in May 2010, Straw briefly served as Shadow Deputy Prime Minister and Shadow Justice Secretary, with the intention of standing down from the frontbench after the subsequent 2010 Labour Shadow Cabinet election.

Impropriety

In February 2015 Channel 4 Dispatches and the Daily Telegraph accused Straw of impropriety following a meeting they set up with a fictitious Chinese company. Straw strongly denied the allegations and referred himself to Parliament’s Commissioner for Standards. In September 2015, the Commissioner for Standards dismissed all allegations that he had brought the House of Commons into disrepute and criticised the conduct of Channel 4 and the Daily Telegraph.

No Sir or Lordship

In February 2016, The Guardian reported "Jack Straw to be 'denied knighthood and peerage' under Jeremy Corbyn" explaining that Straw's support for Iraq War and comments in ‘cash for access’ sting among reasons for denial:

Having served as home secretary, foreign secretary and then lord chancellor, Straw is understood to have been lined up for a seat in the Lords during the final days of Ed Miliband’s period as party leader. But he suspended himself from party membership last February after being secretly filmed by undercover reporters while apparently offering his services to a private company for cash. This prevented an offer of a peerage at the time.

Although Straw was subsequently cleared of misconduct by the parliamentary standards watchdog, his chances of a seat in the Lords are said to have disappeared after Corbyn’s election as leader in September:

“The chances of Jeremy awarding him with either a knighthood or a peerage are close to zero,” said one senior party source, before adding: “Actually, they are zero.”

Straw, who stood down as MP at the last general election, did not respond to requests for comment. He is currently serving on a panel that is reviewing the Freedom of Information Act, although his appointment was criticised by some, as he has been a vocal opponent of the act.

On Monday, the Guardian reported that Straw led two of the Whitehall departments most likely to reject public requests for information. Straw’s ministries never ranked higher than 15 out of 21 government departments in terms of releasing information in full, according to a Guardian analysis of government-wide figures.

According to party sources, there are several reasons for the decision not to nominate the former minister for a peerage: his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq; a damages claim that is being brought against him by a Libyan couple who were “rendered” to one of Muammar Gaddafi’s prisons; an ongoing inquiry by Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) into that and other rendition allegations; and the words that were captured by the undercover reporter.

It appears Straw’s support for the war in Iraq counts most heavily against him among the Labour leader and his closest supporters.

Sting operation

Both Straw and the Tory MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the then chair of the ISC, were caught in a sting mounted by the Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 in February last year. The transcript of the exchanges indicated that Straw hoped for a seat in the Lords. The two men were filmed as they offered to use their positions as politicians in return for payments of thousands of pounds from a fictitious Chinese company. At one point, one of the reporters asked Straw about the implications of his leaving the House of Commons. Straw replied: “Well, the implications are that I can do a lot more for you.”

A Telegraph reporter then asked: “Ah ha, in what way?”

JS: “Well, it’s not subject to regulation. Obviously ... I’m still the same person – I mean, if you are a member of parliament and you have commercial interests, you have to be so careful ... if I was ever to stand up in the House of Commons and talk about sugar, I could end up being disqualified … Because there are very strict rules against advocating on behalf of companies who are paying you.”

Tel: “Right.”

JS: “ ... Well obviously if I’m not in the House of Commons, I’m not in that position. I could end up in the House of Lords, so you’re aware ... you may have seen that ...”

Tel: “That’d be good. You mentioned.”

JS: “ ... I mean there’s speculation in the paper at the moment – no one has said anything to me officially. But the rules there are different and plenty of people have commercial interests there.”

Tel: “Ah great, so you’ll be able to help us a lot more potentially?”

JS: “I’ll be able to help you more, Claire, I’ll be able to help you more.”

Both politicians denied any wrongdoing, and said that they had acted in accordance with parliamentary rules. Rifkind was suspended from his parliamentary party while Straw suspended himself. Senior Labour sources say Straw had been in line for a peerage until this point.

In September, Conservative sources briefed journalists that Rifkind would be “near the top of the list” the next time David Cameron proposed a list of new political peers.

The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Kathryn Hudson, and the House of Commons standards committee cleared both of any wrongdoing and criticised the way the exchanges had been reported.

Both the Telegraph and Channel 4 were angered by the commissioner’s conclusions. The Telegraph published a leader which condemned them as “deeply troubling” and “shameful”, while Channel 4 reported itself to the regulator, Ofcom.

In December, Ofcom found that the reporting was of significant public interest and did not unfairly represent the two politicians. It also concluded that the undercover filming was “proportionate and warranted”.

Rendition

A damages claim is being brought against Straw by Abdelhakim Belhadj, who was abducted in Thailand and flown to Tripoli along with his pregnant wife, Fatima Bouchar, in March 2004, with the assistance of MI6 and the CIA. Straw was foreign secretary at the time.

A cache of secret documents that detailed the involvement of MI6’s then head of counter-terrorism, Mark Allen, in that rendition was discovered during the 2011 Libyan revolution. After Straw gave an interview to the BBC in which he said that “no foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence agencies are doing at any one time”, well-placed sources told the Guardian that the rendition operations were “ministerially authorised government policy”.

Government lawyers are arguing that the claim should be thrown out on the grounds that the case will involve the acts of other countries. A decision is expected from the Supreme Court in the next few months.

A Scotland Yard investigation, Operation Lydd, examined the Libyan rendition operation. A police file was given to Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions. In 2016, the CPS announced their decision "that there is insufficient evidence to charge the suspect with any criminal offence."

The treatment of Belhadj and Bouchar is also being investigated by the ISC, after an interim inquiry by Sir Peter Gibson, a retired appeal court judge, reported that there were “serious allegations of UK involvement” which “plainly require investigation”.

When asked about the Libyan renditions in the past, Straw has said:

“At all times I was scrupulous in seeking to carry out my duties in accordance with the law, and I hope to be able to say more about this at an appropriate stage in the future.”

In June 2017, it was reported that the FCO wants the Abdelhakim Belhadj rendition case against Jack Straw to be held in private.

 

A Document by Jack Straw

Title	Document type	Publication date	Subject(s)
Document:Jack Straw Memo 25 March 2002	memo	25 March 2002	Iraq War 2003

 

A Quote by Jack Straw

Page	Quote	Date
UK/Torture	<nowiki>“Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that [[[U.S. Secretary of State]] Condoleezza Rice] is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop.”</nowiki>	2005

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Craig Murray	“Can I just say how pleasant it is to be vindicated ten years after being sacked by Jack Straw for opposing the torture and extraordinary rendition programme – which Blair and Straw claimed I was inventing.”	Craig Murray	December 2014

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
WEF/Annual Meeting/2004	21 January 2004	25 January 2004	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2068 billionaires, CEOs and their politicians and "civil society" leaders met under the slogan Partnering for Prosperity and Security. "We have the people who matter," said World Economic Forum Co-Chief Executive Officer José María Figueres.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2006	25 January 2006	29 January 2006	Switzerland	Both former US president Bill Clinton and Bill Gates pushed for public-private partnerships. Only a few of the over 2000 participants are known.

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Peter Ricketts Memo 22 March 2002	memo	22 March 2002	Peter Ricketts
Document:Priti Patel's Israel links undermined British diplomacy in the Middle East	Article	23 December 2021	Martin Linton	Home Secretary Priti Patel, who was fired from her previous government post by Theresa May for holding secret meetings with Israeli ministers, spearheaded the blacklisting of Hamas as a "terrorist organisation" in a move that angered Palestinians and undermined British diplomacy
Document:The Rejection of Starmerism	blog post	5 July 2024	Craig Murray	"I don’t think any Prime Minister has ever come to power with less popular enthusiasm than Keir Starmer."
Document:What Really Happens in Blackburn	blog post	24 June 2024	Craig Murray	"When my candidacy for Blackburn was announced in March, Jack Straw issued an attack on me on 3 April 2024, stating that I had 'no cause' to stand in Blackburn. Then lo and behold, two months later after the election was called Jack Straw’s old fixer turns up with an 'Independent Candidate' to split the pro-Palestine vote."

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.