Kenneth Clarke

The Right Honourable Kenneth Harry Clarke, QC, MP, (born 2 July 1940) is a leading Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is MP for Rushcliffe, near Nottingham. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 until 1997, and a minister throughout all 18 years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997. He has contested the leadership of the party three times (in 1997, 2001 and 2005), failing each time. He is noted for his casual dress sense and hallmark suede shoes, his likeable, blokeish personality, and his love of jazz and birdwatching.

Born in Nottingham in 1940, Clarke was educated at Nottingham High School (then a "direct grant" school) and went on to study law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He had joined the Conservatives while at university, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. As a student, he controversially invited the former British fascist leader Oswald Mosley to speak for a second year in succession,[1] leading some Jewish students (including his future successor at the Home Office Michael Howard) to resign from CUCA in protest. Clarke was defeated for the presidency of the Cambridge Union Society by Howard, although he was subsequently elected President of the Union a year later. On leaving Cambridge, Clarke was called to the bar in 1963. He married Gillian Edwards, also a Cambridge graduate, in November 1964. They have two children.

Clarke sought election to the House of Commons almost immediately after university. He cut his teeth by fighting the Labour stronghold of Mansfield in the 1964 and 1966 elections. In June 1970, at the age of 29, he was elected MP for the East Midlands constituency of Rushcliffe, outside Nottingham, which he has represented ever since. He was soon appointed a Government whip - from 1972 to 1974 - where he helped ensure that the Heath administration won key votes on entry to the European Community with the assistance of Labour rebels. Even though he opposed the election of Margaret Thatcher as party leader in 1975, he was appointed as her industry spokesman from 1976 to 1979, and then occupied a wide range of ministerial positions during her premiership, from 1979 onwards. He was made a QC in 1980.

Clarke's served as junior transport minister, and then as Minister for Health (1982-85). He joined the Cabinet as Paymaster General and Employment Minister (1985-87), and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister at the DTI (1987-88). He was appointed Health Secretary in 1988, introducing the 'internal market' concept in the NHS. He was famously the first Cabinet minister to advise Thatcher to resign after her inadequate first-round performance in the November 1990 leadership contest; she referred to him in her memoirs as a "candid friend". He supported Douglas Hurd in the next round.

Despite the victory of John Major in that contest, he came to work with Thatcher's successor very closely, and quickly emerged as a central figure in his government. After a spell as Education Secretary (1990-92), where he introduced a number of reforms, he was appointed as Home Secretary in the wake of the Conservatives' unexpected victory at the 1992 general election. In May 1993, seven months after the impact of 'Black Wednesday' had terminally damaged the credibility of Norman Lamont as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Major forced Lamont to resign from that office and appointed Clarke in his place. With Major bruised by Black Wednesday and the massive difficulties of securing ratification of the Maastricht Treaty (1992-93), Clarke was credited with saving the prime minister at a critical time when he himself might have challenged him for the leadership. Clarke enjoyed an increasingly successful record as Chancellor, as the economy recovered from the recession of the early 1990s and a new monetary policy was put into effect after Black Wednesday. He was able to reduce the basic rate of Income Tax from 25 to 23%, as well as reduce the share of GDP consumed by government spending, and halve the budget deficit.

Differences of opinion within the Cabinet on European policy, on which Clarke was one of the leading pro-Europeans, complicated his tenure as Chancellor. He fought successfully to maintain the possibility that Britain might join a European single currency under a Conservative government, but conceded that such a move could only take place on the basis of a referendum. When the 'Eurosceptic' Party Chairman, Brian Mawhinney, (allegedly) briefed against him, on one occasion, Clarke memorably declared: "Tell your kids to get their scooters off my lawn" - an allusion to Harold Wilson's rebuke of trade union leader Hugh Scanlon in the late 1960s.

Clarke is president of the moderate, pro-European ginger group within the Conservative Party, Tory Reform Group.

Since the Conservatives entered Opposition in 1997, Clarke has stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party three times. In 1997 he was defeated in the third and final round by William Hague, in a vote exclusively among Members of Parliament. The contest was criticised for not involving, except in an advisory role, the rank-and-file members of the party, where surveys showed Clarke to be more popular. Ironically, in 2001, after coming first in the parliamentary ballot, Clarke lost in a final round among the rank-and-file membership - a new procedure introduced by Hague - to a much less experienced, but strongly Eurosceptic rival, Iain Duncan Smith. This loss, by a margin of 62% to 38%, was attributed to the former Chancellor's pro-European views being increasingly out of step with the dominant Euroscepticism of the party membership. In Opposition, Clarke has so far refused to accept any Shadow Cabinet position, having first been offered a senior role by Hague in 1997.

As a backbencher, Clarke has taken a number of non-executive directorships and engaged in non-political media work, including serving as Deputy Chairman of British American Tobacco (BAT) (1998-2005) and Deputy Chairman of Alliance Unichem, and has faced allegations over the activities of BAT in lobbying the developing world to reject stronger health warnings on cigarette packets and evidence that his corporation has been involved in smuggling.[2] He has presented several series of jazz programmes on BBC Radio Four.

After Iain Duncan Smith lost a vote of no confidence within the Conservative parliamentary party in 2003, Clarke announced he would support Michael Howard as his successor, and accepted nomination to a new panel of senior party figures to advise the leader (called the "Wise Men", comprising himself, John Major, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith), while again declining a Shadow Cabinet post.

When Michael Howard stepped down after the Conservative's 2005 general election defeat, Clarke confirmed he would stand again for the position of party leader in autumn 2005, against the other expected contenders including Malcolm Rifkind, David Cameron, David Davis and Liam Fox. Refuting suggestions that at 65 he was too old to lead the party Clarke said that he was "overwhelmingly more popular" (amongst the voters at large) than his potential rivals. [3] Lord Tebbit accused Clarke of being "lazy" and said that voters would find his connections with the tobacco industry distasteful. [4]

Clarke's lack of involvement in frontbench politics since 1997 meant that, unlike his leadership rivals, he was not associated with the policies and electoral failures of the Tory party under the leaderships of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In his campaign speeches Clarke attacked Tony Blair's "catastrophic error" in involving the UK in the war with Iraq [5] and accused the government of being "autocratic". "We have a Prime Minister who is more George III than Clement Attlee", he said.[6]

An ICM opinion poll conducted for Newsnight on 5 September 2005 gave Clarke a 40% approval rating for leader (amongst the public) as against 10% for the man then perceived as his nearest rival, David Davis. Nevertheless, Clarke was knocked out in the first round of the 2005 leadership contest, effectively ending his ambition to become party leader. Clarke polled 38 votes against 42 for Liam Fox, 56 for David Cameron and 62 for David Davis. David Cameron became Conservative Leader after a run off with Davis in December 2005.

Ken Clarke's principal interests are jazz, birdwatching, reading political history and watching most kinds of sport (he is a big fan of Nottingham Forest). He attended the 1966 World Cup final and claims (with a little jest) to have been influential in persuading the man known vernacularly as "the Russian linesman" Tofik Bakhramov (who was actually from Azerbaijan), to award a goal to Geoff Hurst when the England striker had seen his shot hit the crossbar of opponents West Germany and bounce down, leaving doubt as to whether the ball had crossed the line. Clarke's position in the Wembley crowd was right behind the linesman at the time, and he shouted at the official to award a goal. Clarke makes this claim in jest as Bakhramov understood no English at all.

Clarke is a former President of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and a keen follower of Formula one motorsport. As a director of the tobacco giant BAT he has been involved with their Formula one team BAR and has attended Grands Prix in support of the BAR team.

Clarke is a lover of Real Ale and has been a member of CAMRA.

• Ken Clarke MP official site
• Tory Leadership blog
• "Conservative Leadership Watch" from the BBC (updated link - 2nd October 2005)
• Conservative Party - Kenneth Clarke official biography
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Kenneth Clarke MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Kenneth Clarke MP
• The Public Whip - Kenneth Clarke MP
• BBC News - Kenneth Clarke profile 15 February, 2005
• George Monbiot, The Guardian, 23 August 2005, "Smoke and mirrors"