Clare Short

Clare Short began her career as a civil servant, and was Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, where she grew up, from 1983 to 2006. She was a shadow minister in the Labour Party opposition, and with the Labour victory in the 1997 General Election she became the first cabinet-level Secretary of State for International Development. She resigned from this post in 2003, accusing Prime Minister Tony Blair of having misled the country, and misled her, about plans for the 2002 invasion of Iraq. A Conservative successor in this post, Andrew Mitchell, later described her as a brilliant development secretary.

 

In 2006, she resigned the party whip, protesting that “the exaggerated majorities in the House of Commons have led to an abject parliament and a concentration of power in No 10 that has produced arrogant, error-prone government”. She continued active service as an independent MP, standing down at the General Election of 2010. Since leaving Parliament she has worked for better management of urbanisation on behalf of slum dwellers, for transparency in the oil, gas and mining industries, and for a just settlement in the Palestine/Israeli conflict. See her website and her Wikipedia entry.