Category Archives: Jack Straw

Not Jack’s style

Posted on August 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Less than three months after announcing his resignation from the Opposition front bench, Jack Straw has announced it again.

This time, however, he has also announced his intention to publish his memoirs, which he says he hopes will be “readable” and not “tedious or self-serving”.  I have no doubt that, being the sort of chap he is, he will succeed on both counts.

Jack has also made clear his distaste for the recently-published memoirs of Lord Mandelson (which I am presently reading with great interest):

“I don’t approve of people breaking confidences. It may sound very old-fashioned, but I don’t approve, for example, of the way Peter Mandelson has behaved and neither do quite a number of my colleagues.”

No, I shouldn’t have thought you would approve, Jack.  Not your style at all.

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Posted in Jack Straw, Labour Party, Peter Mandelson

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Well played, Jack

Posted on May 13, 2010 | 5 Comments

Travelling back to the constituency on the morning train, I hear the news that Jack Straw has announced his retirement from the shadow cabinet.  He has had, he says, ”a good innings”.

Jack Straw’s departure is a huge loss to a Labour party in disarray after the election defeat.  He was the ultimate steady hand steady hand at the tiller: a man who could be trusted to make a decent fist of whatever office he was given.

I first met Jack Straw shortly after my election in 2005.  As Foreign Secretary, he hosted a seminar for newly-elected Members at the FCO.  He was courteous and good-humoured, and I took to him immediately.  It set the pattern for every encounter I had with him on the floor of the House; he was never anything other than a gentleman, never less than scrupulously polite, no matter how hard the questioning

Jack Straw is a politician of the old school.  He plays the game fairly with friend and foe alike.  Would that there were more of his kind. 

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Posted in Jack Straw

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Et tu, Dougie?

Posted on January 7, 2010 | 1 Comment

Jack Straw has vehemently denied the assertion made by Nick Robinson in last night’s Ten o’Clock News that he was one of six cabinet ministers prepared to back Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt’s call for a ballot on a possible Labour leadership contest.  He has accused the BBC of “substandard journalism” and also claims that he has received an apology from Nick Robinson over the matter.  We wait to hear from Robinson if that is indeed true.

Most interesting was the inclusion in Robinson’s list of potential ship-jumpers of the International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander.  Alexander is regarded as a Brown ultra-loyalist and was, indeed, anointed by Gordon in his leadership acceptance speech as co-ordinator of Labour’s general election campaign. 

If Alexander was indeed willing to ditch Gordon, it would undoubtedly be the cause of the most extreme consternation in the bowels of No. 10. 

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Posted in Douglas Alexander, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Labour Party

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Knife crime – still more to do

Posted on November 10, 2009 | 1 Comment

I approve wholeheartedly of the announcement by the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, that murderers who use knives in the commission of their crimes can expect to serve a minimum sentence of 25 years.

However, this goes only part of the way to amount to a sufficient deterrent to the spreading epidemic of knife crime.

Speaking to a group of 16 year-olds a few weeks ago, I was shocked to be told that all of them knew of individuals who routinely went out equipped with a knife.

There can be no excuse whatever for this, but the law at present is not sufficiently tough to act as a proper deterrent.  Currently, more than a third of young people found in possession of a knife are let off with a caution or final warning.

If ever the wrong message was being sent out, this is surely it.  Everyone, without exception, found carrying a knife should expect to be prosecuted and, if convicted, to receive an automatic prison sentence.

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Straw’s clarification raises further questions

Posted on September 5, 2009 | 4 Comments

The al-Megrahi affair gains further, gradual illumination via an interview with Jack Straw in this morning’s Telegraph.  Unsurprisingly, however, this clarification raises still further questions.

The interview reveals that:

  • Mr Straw travelled to Scotland in July, 2007, in order to discuss the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) with Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond;
  • Mr Straw did discuss, “at some stage”, the issue of compassionate release with the Scottish administration;
  • Trade, including the BP oil deal, was “a very big part” of the PTA negotiations;
  • Government colleagues, including Gordon Brown, did not agree to drop the exclusion of al-Megrahi from the terms of the PTA: “I certainly didn’t talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all.”

The above, however, is contrary to the following positions adopted by Government members over the last few days:

  • Gordon Brown and David Miliband’s insistence that the decision to release al-Megrahi was one wholly for the Scottish Executive, with no input whatever from the British Government;
  • Gordon Brown’s declaration that  there was “no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi”;
  • The briefing by “a source close to Jack Straw” that ““It wasn’t just Jack who decided this. It was a Government decision. Jack did not act unilaterally.”

The Government has now arrived at the point where almost anything said by one of its members will contradict statements made by others.   Surely even Gordon Brown must see by now that this cannot continue; enormous damage is being done to his personal reputation and, more importantly, to the international reputation of this country.

He must call an inquiry as a matter of urgency.

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Posted in Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw

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Brown will have to break his silence

Posted on September 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

The disclosed correspondence between Whitehall and the Scottish Executive, as anticipated, fails to clarify the stance adopted by the British Government in its negotiations with the Libyan authorities.

The Scottish documents relate that the Libyan minister for Europe, Abdulati Alobidi, said that he had been informed by the Foreign Office minister, Bill Rammell, that neither Gordon Brown nor David Miliband wanted al-Megrahi to die in prison.  That may be true; but we will not know until Bill Rammell makes a statement on the affair, or, even better, Gordon Brown and David Miliband do.

More interesting is Jack Straw’s letter to the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, in which he writes:

 “The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom I have agreed that in this instance the PTA [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”

The question must therefore be: what where the overwhelming UK interests that dictated, at that “critical stage”, that what was previously considered a matter of the highest principle (i.e. the non-inclusion of al-Megrahi in the terms of the PTA) should be abandoned?

We will never know, unless  and until  Mr Brown and Mr Straw break their silence and make a statement supported by the relevant documents.

This, of course, will have to happen.  Everyone knows that.  The sooner it does, the better for all concerned, including Messrs Brown and Straw.

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Posted in Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, David Miliband, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, SNP

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Megrahi story won’t go away

Posted on August 31, 2009 | 10 Comments

Brown-GaddafiGordon Brown is really going to have to make a statement about the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, because, despite his best efforts to ignore it, the story is not going to go away.

This morning’s Times leads with a report quoting “a source close to Jack Straw” (wonder who that might be?) who says that the 2007 decision to include al-Megrahi in the prisoner transfer agreement, after attempts had previously been made to exclude him, was not made at his sole discretion:

“It wasn’t just Jack who decided this. It was a Government decision. Jack did not act unilaterally.”

Mr Brown’s refusal to comment on the case, on the ground that the decision was one for a Scottish minister, looks increasingly laughable.  There is an obvious factual matrix to the al-Megrahi affair that was developed at national level.  Whilst the final decision to release al-Megrahi was indeed made by Kenny MacAskill in Edinburgh, the British Government was clearly heavily involved, from Tony Blair’s meeting with Gaddafi in the tent in the desert to the letter that Ivan Lewis wrote to MacAskill shortly before the release.

Mr Brown was a senior member of the Government at all relevant times and is its head now.  The longer he remains silent, the more the British people will conclude that he is treating them, once again, as fools.  And their conclusion will be entirely correct.

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Posted in Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw

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Jack Straw tells the truth

Posted on August 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

Jack Straw has just appeared on The World this Weekend emphatically denying that the decision include Abdelbaset al-Megrahi within the terms of the Libyan prisoner transfer agreement was made for trade considerations. 

He says that it was made in order to improve British-Libyan relations generally.

I’m sure that was the case; and an easier trading relationship would, of course,  be the surest sign of that general improvement.

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Posted in Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, Jack Straw

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Straw scuppers Mandelson

Posted on August 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

jack-strawThe Guardian Politics Blog has bad news for Peter Mandelson today.

Mandelson’s supporters, it will be recalled, were enthused by a provision in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill that permits peers to resign from the House of Lords.  This would, it was thought, enable Mandelson to resign before the next general election and return to the Commons as “keeper of the Blairite flame”.

However, the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, today visited the Guardian’s offices and confided that the Bill, due to have its second reading in October, will be amended to provide for a five-year “quarantine” period before retiring peers can seek election to the Commons. 

Straw is well known to be no fan of Mandelson.  He will undoubtedly derive huge satisfaction from knowing that his  amendment will ensure that the political caravan will have moved on to the extent of putting the Labour leadership  well beyond the First Secretary’s reach by the time he is eligible to stand for the lower House again.

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Posted in Jack Straw, Peter Mandelson

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Backfire

Posted on July 19, 2009 | 3 Comments

Jack StrawJack Straw’s Constitutional Renewal Bill, due to be published tomorrow, appears already to have run into unforeseen difficulty.

The Bill will seek to prevent the funding of political parties by individuals who do not pay UK tax on all income from abroad – a measure nakedly aimed at the Conservative donor, Lord Ashcroft.

However, today’s Observer reports that two big Labour non-dom donors, Lord Swraj Paul and Sir Gulam Noon, have said that they will stop giving money to the party if the Bill goes through.  The steel magnate, Lakshmi Mittal, who has given more than £1 million to Labour, has “declined to comment” as to what he will do.

A perplexed Noon mildly commented:

“It is very surprising the government is introducing a law like this at a time when they are in dire need of money to win an election.”

Well, quite.

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Posted in Jack Straw, Labour Party

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Helpful Harriet

Posted on May 3, 2009 | 2 Comments

harriet-harmanIt’s turning out to be another eventful holiday weekend for Gordon Brown.

Just as Easter was dominated by the McBride affair, so the May Day bank holiday – surely a time, if ever there was one, for Socialist unity – is being taken over by Labour infighting that has now spread from the back benches to the cabinet itself.

Hazel Blears’s helpful Observer critique of Brown’s performance forced Alan Johnson and Jack Straw to ride to their leader’s aid this afternoon, both denying any personal ambition and pronouncing Gordon the individual supremely equipped to lead the country out of the economic morass in which it flounders.   

Now Harriet Harman, according to the Telegraph, has upped the ante by letting it be known that if Brown is persuaded to step down or is challenged by Johnson or Straw, she will not stand aside and allow an orderly succession, but will enter the fray herself.

In a perverse way, this may prove of assistance to Brown.  The last thing Labour need, twelve months out from a general election, is a lengthy leadership election that focuses prolonged attention on the party’s internal divisions.

That’s the logic, but the reality may be very different.  Labour’s mood is highly febrile and no attempt is being made to conceal the disarray within the party.  Projections such as this won’t improve matters, either.  Some members of the Parliamentary party may take the view that they have little to lose and possibly much to gain by trying to get rid of Gordon. 

If that happens, it will be a very bloody summer.

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Posted in Alan Johnson, Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears, Jack Straw, Labour Party

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All right, Jack

Posted on February 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

jack-strawI have blogged previously about how much time I have for the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw.  He is one of the more straightforward cabinet members; you rarely get much flannel from him. 

Today, in Justice Questions, however, Jack exceeded himself in candour.  I tackled him about the controversial End of Custody licence scheme.  This was introduced in June, 2007, by his predecessor, Lord Falconer, as a “temporary measure” to relieve prison overcrowding (caused by Labour’s failure to build enough prisons).  Eighteen months later, it shows no sign of being ended.  Worryingly, during that time one in fifty prisoners released on licence has reoffended, sometimes very seriously indeed.

A thoroughly bad state of affairs, but I did not anticipate just how readily Jack would acknowledge it:

Mr. Jones: When the scheme was announced by the Lord Chancellor’s predecessor in June 2007, he described it as a temporary measure. Since then, some 47,500 prisoners have been released early, of whom more than 950 have offended while on licence; those offences include three murders and two rapes. In the circumstances, does not the Secretary of State agree that when his colleague Lord Bach said last month that

“it is not entirely a satisfactory scheme”-[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 January 2009; Vol. 706, c. 1555]

he was guilty of the greatest understatement imaginable? Is it not, in fact, a positively dangerous scheme, and when does he propose to end it?

Mr. Straw: Personally, I would take out the adverb: it is not a satisfactory scheme. However, it is better than the alternative, and far better, in terms of seeking to manage the prison population to capacity, than the devices to which the Conservative Administration whom the hon. Gentleman supported used to resort. At one stage, the Conservative Administration had 3,500 prisoners packed into police cells in wholly unsatisfactory circumstances. Over a couple of months, a previous Conservative Home Secretary released 3,500 prisoners, including some who, because of the severity of their sentences, would be quite beyond the current categories eligible for an end of custody licence.

You can’t say fairer than that.  Jack put his hands up to the charge and responded with a bit of political knockabout.    I can name at least a dozen other ministers who wouldn’t have been so decent.

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Being Himself

Posted on December 31, 2007 | 2 Comments

Multiple signs of concern among the top echelons of the Labour party about Gordon’s performance. Jack Straw, Secretary of State for Justice, and arguably the safest pair of hands in the Labour high command, has admitted that David Cameron’s campaign is “resonating” with the public and warns that the government must “adapt” if it is to keep power.

Tessa Jowell, Olympics minister, has also called on the Prime Minister to be “authentic”, true to himself and to Labour’s values, saying that there is no quick fix to restore the government’s battered standing.

David Miliband has also put his own two pennyworth in, urging Gordon to counter the perception that he has “run out of steam” and “lost the will to fight”.

Jowell’s advice to Gordon is amazingly blunt. Conceding that Gordon is not the most attractive of personalities, she advises him to “be himself” and accept that people will not necessarily like him:

“What people want in modern leaders is to know them, not necessarily to like them, to feel that they want to go on holiday with them, but to know them, to know their frailties, their strengths, what they like about them, what they don’t like about them, to understand their attitudes and core beliefs.”

The problem with Gordon, however, is that he usually is “being himself” and it is all really pretty unattractive. Consider, for example, his New Year message to the British people. I won’t cherrypick extracts, but will let you read it here. To say that it is wooden, turgid and boring is grossly to understate its awfulness. There is not a single shred of humanity in its whole 1,057 words. Nothing to inspire, nothing to motivate, nothing to enthuse. It is, as Tony Blair might have said, just clunking.

And it is that clunkiness that makes it extraordinary unlikely that Gordon will ever win the hearts of the people of this country, no matter how much Straw, Jowell and Miliband try to talk him up.

He is, after all, just being himself.

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Posted in David Miliband, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Tessa Jowell

Right flank exposed

Posted on November 16, 2007 | Leave a comment
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, has spoken out on the issue of prison overcrowding. Addressing the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Chief said:

“Unless Parliament is prepared to provide whatever resources are necessary to give effect to the sentences that judges choose, in their discretion, to impose, Parliament must re-examine the legislative framework for sentencing.

“I do not believe that these simple propositions have been fully appreciated by those responsible for formulating criminal policy.”

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said that he welcomed this “important contribution”.

Much in the same way, no doubt, that Napoleon welcomed the important contribution of Blücher to the battle of Waterloo.

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Posted in Jack Straw, Prisons

Had a go. Blew it.

Posted on September 27, 2007 | 1 Comment
Dreadful performance by Jack Straw, the Labour frontbencher for whom I usually have most time, on the Today programme this morning.

Jack was pre-announcing the review of the law of self-defence, thrown into sharp focus some years ago by the case of Tony Martin, which was unveiled formally later in the day at the Labour conference.

The interview, conducted by Sarah Montague, started well enough for him, as he recounted, with some relish and justifiable pride, four separate incidents when he himself had acted as a “have-a-go hero”. He came over as quite an action man. He wanted, he said, to clarify that the law was on the side of the citizen, not the criminal. People should not be deterred from defending themselves or others. We should all, when the chips are down, feel free to follow Jack’s example, and no ass of a law should stand in our way.

You could almost hear the harrumphs of approbation echoing out of the front parlours of Tunbridge Wells. For there, sipping their tea, buttering their toast and munching their muesli, were Jack’s target audience.

It all went badly wrong, however, when Ms Montague politely enquired why Jack, in his former incarnation of Home Secretary, had failed to support Conservative private members’ Bills aimed at addressing the very mischief he was now apparently so exercised about. He had, indeed, opposed them. Very strongly and vociferously.

Jack stammered and vacillated and hummed and hahed and ultimately had to admit that, truth to tell, he hadn’t been very happy about his previous stance, either. It was, he implied, all Tony’s fault. Tony had made him do it. Jack was just following orders. But now Gordon was at the helm, all would be different. Really different. Honestly.

Sarah Montague wasn’t at all convinced. Neither was I. The interview ended on a rather subdued note. Jack delivered the first audible blush in radio history. The weather forecast followed.

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Posted in Jack Straw