Craig Browne tried to discover what makes Jack Straw MP tick when he visited Exeter to give a lecture on Human Rights.
It is with some trepidation that you wait, and you will be made to wait, for one of the most senior figures in British politics over the past 15 years. You sit, fidgeting with your sheets of questions, wondering how you will steal that memorable quote from under his nose. Will he let his guard down? 33 years as part of the Westminster furniture would suggest not.
Questionable tie and stilted small talk at hand, he arrived but it was not long before my cynicism was disarmed. We quickly found our common ground, my Arabic degree and his Middle East experience as Foreign Secretary, and could move away from the awkward-chatting-over-canapés scene.
I was quickly able to see just how fondly Jack Straw recalls his radical days as the socialist president of Leeds’ Student Union and later of the National Union of Students. He recollects with glee “keeping the grants system going and beating back Margaret Thatcher when she was Education Secretary.”
While acknowledging the importance of student politics to his own career, he appreciates this is not for all and sundry. Cue another fascinating snippet: “Tony Blair and I used to sit and talk about this. He was out of student politics doing Rock ‘n’ Roll but for me it [student politics] was very important.”
What with his ‘Nay’ vote in the House of Commons in 2010, when the raising of tuition fees up to £9000 was debated, it is hardly surprising that he labels the rise as an “ill thought through policy.” His frustration with the current government extends to the “unnecessary and vulgar” visa controls on overseas students and with these complaints came tacit approval of the student demonstration that took place in London on the 21st November, “provided it speaks for all students.”
Even in such a relaxed setting it was at times difficult to see through Straw’s heavily guarded answers, “One thing less likely to produce a result than a public demo is no demo” being one such fence-sitting answer. His support for the ‘Save Our Streetlights’ campaign was, however, unequivocal as, “if this [turning off streetlights] leads to a greater level of crime it will be a false economy. Certainly I’d be worried about that.”
Straw, who studied and practiced law before becoming an MP, was in Exeter to give a lecture on ‘The Human Rights Act and Europe’ as part of the Hamlyn Lecture Series, whose speakers have included such luminaries as former Lord Chief Justice Bingham. The lecture conveyed Straw’s dismay at the “extravagant extension” of authority from the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg past its “agreed narrow remit about basic human rights” and into areas such as “night flights at Heathrow.” In spite of his annoyance at this overreaching from Europe, Straw was keen to clarify the difference between the Council of Europe, from which the ECHR is derived, and the European Union, the legal jurisdiction for which “everyone signed up for.”
When it came to the extremely relevant topics of Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, the MP was tight-lipped and back into his well-rehearsed political mode, simply suggesting that “we’ve got to create speedier processes for deportation.” He was similarly well-drilled in his Iraq-themed answer: “If we had known then what we later discovered, would there have been a case for military action? Well the answer is no because the threat that we assessed was not there.” He is, however, keen to add that there was no way the government could have known that the intelligence they were given was incorrect, a comment that many people may find hard to believe.
If we skip forward a decade, and to the crumbling regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, Straw appeared less than keen on intervention as “unfortunately, just because there is a problem, there is not necessarily a solution.” Perhaps this answer would seem less than satisfactory to some but there is no doubt that it reflects the uncertainty shown by governments the world over.
We concluded on the much lighter topic of his beloved Blackburn Rovers, and the smile returned while he spoke of the importance of football clubs to local community spirit. There’s no doubt that Jack Straw cares deeply about his constituents, or to use his word, his employers, and, while his policies may be highly debatable, his desire to do what he thinks is right is anything but that. If there were more politicians like him, while the country may not be in better shape, there would be no question about the morality of those who run the nation.
exeposedev 