Jack Straw

Jack Straw

John Whitaker "Jack" Straw (born August 3, 1946 in Buckhurst Hill , Essex ) is a British Labor Party politician . From June 2007 to May 2010 he was Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice in the government of Gordon Brown .

Straw has been a Member of the House of Commons for Blackburn constituency since 1979 and was Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 and Foreign Secretary in the government of Tony Blair from 2001 to 2006 . From May 2006 to June 2007 he was group leader in the House , and the same Lord Privy Seal ( Lord Privy Seal ), a more representative position with cabinet rank.

Life

John Whitaker Straw was born in Essex in 1946 , where he lived in a public house with his single mother. After graduating from a private school in Brentwood , which he was able to attend thanks to a scholarship, he studied law at the University of Leeds . During his school days he was nicknamed Jack , by which he later became known. His political career began when he was elected president of the student union there. The following year he became president of the national student association. During this time he was considered to be radical left and was noticed by the Minister for Health and Social Security Barbara Castle , who hired him as a consultant in 1974.

In 1977 he spoke out against a coalition of the Labor Party with the Liberal Democrats and gave up his advisory work. Just two years later, however, he successfully ran as the successor to Barbara Castle for the House of Commons. After Labor lost the election, he became the opposition spokesman for economic affairs. In the 1980s and 1990s he was successively education, environment and interior minister in the Labor shadow cabinet . During this time he was instrumental in the restructuring of the party, which went into the 1997 election campaign as New Labor .

After the Labor Party won the election, he became Interior Minister under Tony Blair. During his tenure, the anti-terror laws were tightened and the rights of the police against suspects were strengthened. At the same time, on his initiative, the European Convention on Human Rights was adopted into British law and the fight against racism in the police force was intensified.

After the Labor Party's renewed electoral victory in 2001, he was surprisingly appointed foreign minister to succeed Robin Cook after he was actually under discussion for the office of transport minister. His efforts to open Libya to the West received particular attention . He also initiated negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program, which Great Britain is conducting together with Germany and France. After the third consecutive victory in the general election on May 5, 2005, Jack Straw continued to hold the office of foreign minister. After a bitter defeat for Labor in the British local elections on 5 May 2006. Straw was dismissed following a reshuffle of Prime Minister Tony Blair as foreign minister and with the more representative cabinet post of Lord Privy Seal ( Lord Privy Seal ) and the Office of the Majority Leader Under House ( Leader of the House of Commons ). The previous Environment Minister Margaret Beckett took over from Straw in the Foreign Office . From June 2007 to May 2010 Jack Straw served as Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice. After losing the general election in 2010, Straw announced that he would not run for office again at the subsequent Labor Party congress and would therefore leave the shadow cabinet.

In January 2011, Straw sparked controversy when he said there was a problem in England with Pakistani men who viewed white young women as easy victims of rape.

On February 23, 2015, Straw temporarily resigned from the Labor Party after allegations of bribery and illegal use of advantage had been raised. Undercover reporters from the Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 , posing as representatives of a Hong Kong-based company, approached Straw, who had offered them his lobbying services and told reporters that he had already paid for £ 60,000 used his influence to change relevant EU laws. The conversation with Straw had been filmed undercover. Straw himself denied the allegation of corruption. Similar allegations, also made through the Telegraph and Channel 4 , have been leveled against conservative politician Malcolm Rifkind .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jack Straw: Some white girls are 'easy meat' for abuse. In: BBC News , Jan. 8, 2011.
2. ↑ David Batty: White girls seen as 'easy meat' by Pakistani rapists, says Jack Straw . In: The Guardian , Jan. 8, 2011. 
3. ↑ Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw have whip withdrawn over 'sting'. BBC News, February 23, 2015, accessed February 23, 2015 . 

Web links

Commons : Jack Straw  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jack Straws MP website