Clare Short (born 15 February 1946) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003.
Short began her career as a civil servant. A member of the Labour Party until 2006, she was Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 to 2010. For most of this period, she was a Labour Party MP.
Following the 1997 United Kingdom general election, Short was made the first cabinet-level Secretary of State for International Development. She resigned from the cabinet over the Iraq War. She also resigned the party whip in 2006 and served the remainder of her term as an independent politician, leaving parliament at the 2010 general election.
Early and personal life
Short was born in Birmingham in 1946 to Irish Catholic parents from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. She attended St Paul's School for Girls in Birmingham.
She was later supportive of peaceful Sinn Féin initiatives, but never a supporter of IRA violence, some of the worst of which was inflicted in a 1974 bombing of her home city of Birmingham.
Completing her degree in political science at the University of Leeds, she became a civil servant working for the Home Office. Working as Private Secretary to the Conservative minister Mark Carlisle gave her the idea that she "could do better" than many of the MPs she dealt with, and at the 1983 general election she was elected as MP for the Birmingham Ladywood constituency, the area where she had grown up.
Short is a paternal cousin of Canadian actor Martin Short.
Political career
Member of Parliament
At the start of her career, she was firmly on the left-wing of the Labour Party. She gained some notoriety shortly after her election in 1983 when she implied the government's Employment minister Alan Clark was drunk at the despatch box. Clark's colleagues on the government benches in turn accused Short of using unparliamentary language and the Deputy Speaker, Ernest Armstrong, asked her to withdraw her accusation. Clark later admitted in his diaries that Short had been correct in her assessment.
In 1986, Short introduced a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons which proposed banning Page 3 photographs of topless models featured in The Sun and other British tabloid newspapers. In order to ensure her motion would be tabled, she slept in Parliament overnight. For this Private Members Bill, she was nicknamed by The Sun "killjoy Clare" and "Crazy Clare." One paper bought and published alleged photographs of Short in her nightwear from her ex-husband. She stated they were pictures of somebody else's body with her face superimposed. The Sun also sent a busload of Page 3 models to her home where she lived with her elderly mother. Clare gave a definitive account of her attitude towards tabloid nudity and the negative role that pornography plays more generally in society in her introduction to the book Dear Clare (1991), which presents a selection of the many letters of support she received from women in response to her campaign.
She supported John Prescott in the Labour Party deputy leadership election in 1988 (against Eric Heffer and the incumbent Roy Hattersley), leaving the Socialist Campaign Group, along with Margaret Beckett, as a result of Tony Benn's decision to challenge Neil Kinnock for the party leadership. She supported Margaret Beckett for the Labour leadership in 1994 against Tony Blair and John Prescott. She also called for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland.
In 1989 she raised the issue of abuse of police procedure and fabrication of evidence at the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, relaying concerns of Birmingham solicitors that many miscarriages of justice had taken place.
She rose through the ranks of the Labour Front Bench, despite twice resigning from it – over the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 1988, and over the Gulf War in 1990. She became Shadow Minister for Women (1993-1995), Shadow Transport Secretary (1995-1996) and Opposition Spokesperson for Overseas Development (1996-1997). Clare was also a member of Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) from 1988 to 1997 and Chair of the NEC's Women's Committee (1993-1996). At the 1995 Labour Party conference, Short denounced Liz Davies as "unsuitable" after Davies had been selected as a Parliamentary candidate by a constituency Labour Party in Leeds North-East. This was seen as an attempt to win the favour of the right-wing of the party, especially then-leader Tony Blair. However, in 1996, Short was moved to the Overseas Development portfolio, a move which she saw as a demotion. Short also called for the legalisation of cannabis.