She is a dumpy lady and has a terrible dress sense -- of the sort that makes me cringe. She has a northern working class dialect and she speaks in a curious way as though her jaws were permanently wired. She has what used to be considered the least important job in the British Cabinet -- Minister for Overseas Aid and Development. You have probably never heard of Claire Short. She has kept very quiet during the past few weeks even though she probably feels more strongly than most about the possible plight of Iraqi women and children when America and poodle-Britain invade.
Unprepossessing though she seems, she is intellectually of the first water. She often comes to decisions which are controversial and occasionally contradicts official Labour Party policy. Because she has always thought through carefully what she says, she calmly sails through any squalls that may arise. I have seen her quell an antagonistic TV studio audience by talking quietly and to the point -- and they have burst into applause at the end. She is one of the only two government Ministers whom Blair cannot sack (the other being Gordon Brown, the Chancellor). She is highly respected by the media and by her own senior civil servants -- you can't have higher praise than that. She is occasionally spoken of as a future Prime Minister. I don't know her well but we worked together quite closely in 1979 and 1980 when she and I set up the first two private initiatives in England for young people as a wave of unemployment hit the country. Mine was a city-based practical project, Jobs for Coventry Foundation, and independent of party politics; Claire's was a national pressure group, YouthAid, which worked through the Labour Party. Four or five years later I left JforC to set up a computer business (and lost my shirt!), YouthAid gradually faded away while Claire went on to become a Labour Member of Parliament. In the last few days, I have frequently thought that I might revive our acquaintanceship of a quarter-of-a-century ago and write to Claire Short, asking her to please do something to bring Blair to his senses. According to one or two BBC journalists, more than half the Cabinet are against Blair's present policy and might come out publicly against him if they could be stimulated by someone who is brave enough to stick his head above the parapet. But I've decided not to contact her. Unless she's changed a very great deal, I know what she is thinking, and she knows better than I do whether she could achieve a reversal of government policy. I have complete confidence in her judgement. By common consent of all commentators, Blair is now running the greatest risk of his political life. If his and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's miserable UN compromise resolution doesn't come off, then the present Labour Government could collapse within days of an American invasion of Iraq. Blair might just rescue himself if he could persuade middle and right-wing people in the country at large. But many members of the Labour Party in the country are already resigning and, even if Blair saves himself, the Party itself might collapse as completely as the Liberals did a century ago -- the Lib-Dems taking over as the main anti-Tory Party. Realistically, the only two politicians who might be able to stop the present drain from the Labour Party -- and what will undoubtedly be an avalanche in the next few weeks -- are Claire Short and George Brown (a power freak and an acknowledged intellectual heavyweight in the field of economics). Either of these politicians could kill Tony Blair's political career stone dead, but only Claire Short could do so for reasons of integrity. I've already intimated that Claire Short has the courage to do this if this is what she decides. Many government Ministers have been quiet in the last few weeks, making themselves unavailable to journalists out of cowardice. Because she has been *so* silent, my judgement is that Claire Short is weighing up very carefully what she must do in the next few days. I will be very surprised -- and very disappointed -- if Clair Short does not come out with a public statement quite shortly with huge consequences for UK Government policy and Blair's position. The only reason I can think of why she may not do so is that she has come to the same conclusion as I have done and wrote about in my posting of yesterday -- that even though Bush might invade Iraq and occupy the oil fields he will not dare attack the cities for reasons of world opinion (and also that his own troops will be killed in large numbers as well as women and children). (Bush is, after all, a coward, and can't even sack his own staff face-to-face but only by memos.) Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
