The truth, the whole truth and everything but the truth... Her political career may be crumbling but Birmingham MP Clare Short is set to make a killing with her new book. Sunday Mercury writer LORNE JACKSON braves the lioness's den.
Byline: LORNE JACKSONPORTCULLIS House is an intimidating place.
Rifletoting guards pace and prowl the lobby, their bullet-beady eyes penetrating your skull, tearing into every nonconstitutional thought you've ever had.
Theyseem to be digging deep until they discover that minor indiscretion when you were seven years old. You remember - the one involving a neighbour's window and a fast accelerating leather football.
But the hired security aren't the most terrifying thing in this building.
When it comes to being scary, Clare Short has them beat.
Having just sat down with the Birmingham MP for Ladywood, a guard is already striding towards us, ready to reprimand my photographer for carrying a camera in a government building. Ms Short immediately seizes control of the situation - and how!
'Right, what's the problem here? Say it to me,' she snaps.
Realising who he has inadvertently confronted, Mr Security immediately turns into Mr Insecurity.
Short makes short work of the quivering guard. Moments later he's in full retreat.
The feisty Labour backbencher has successfully dominated her immediate environment in this way ever since she was a schoolgirl in Handsworth.
'I can remember when I was 10 years old and the Suez Canal Crises had just started,' she tells me. 'Kids in my playground were singing 'We'll all throw Nasser in the Suez Canal.' 'I had to gather them all around and explain that the Egyptians were entitled to their own canal.
'I don't know if they ever stopped singing that song. But when I look at myself at 10 years old doing that, it's obvious that politics was in my nature.'
The story is clearly important to Ms Short.
In it she portrays herself a a toughtalking outsider, standing up for what is right, even when she's ignored.
And then there's that Middle Eastern angle, which curiously echoes her fall from grace after the last Iraq War.
By the end of that conflict Saddam Hussein hadbeen deposed, GeorgeBush was vilified, Tony Blair's popularity perished and Ms Short was reviled by both the left and right wing of her own party.
Out of all those participants, only Saddam seemed in a worse position than Short - and at least he could console himself with his new found passion for gardening.
So how did it come to this? Simply put, Clare Short's career crumbled because when it came to the crunch, she lacked the one quality everybody presumed she had in abundance.
Certainty. Even with strong reservations about the Iraq invasion, she held on to her cabinet job, only resigning after Britain and America had tasted victory.
Supporters of the war despised her manoeuvring, while those who argued against the military campaign despaired of her.
But in her new book, An Honourable Deception, she fiercely criticises Blair, while helping herself to a large portion of exoneration.
'Tony Blair persuaded himself it was the right thing to do to go with Bush to Iraq,' she tells me.
'He gave his word to Bush. He didn't tell Britain that he had given his word to Bush.
'He therefore had to engage in a series of deceits and deceptions and halftruths to get Britain to war.'
Tough talk indeed, but exactly what I'd expect from a woman who can make a burly security guard quiver like sherry trifle during an earthquake.
But I have a niggling problem with Ms Short's account. She was one of the few members of Cabinet privy to Secret Service intelligence before the conflict began.
By allowing Blair's remarks to go publicly unchallenged in the lead-up to war, surely she shares the blame for this alleged deception?
'I did say things. I said things repeatedly,' she explains, her voice simmering with indignation.
In public?
'My view was there was a very serious problem in Iraq. Wehad nearly 12 years of UN sanctions. The people were suffering terribly. I didn't believe containment was working...'
Like most successful politicians, Ms Short is adept at answering questions. Just not the ones you happen to ask her.
Which leaves me still waiting for some sort of clarification.
So once again, Clare: 'You had all that Secret Service info at your fingertips. You believe the PM made false statements about it. So why didn't you tell the British public BEFORE the war.
Short is now looking at me as if I'm that gun-toting guard.
Or perhaps even worse - the hated Tony Blair himself.
'Excuse me,' she says through gritted teeth. 'I'm answering your question. All right?
'The intelligence said the regime wanted to have nuclear weapons. But it didn't say there was an imminent threat......'
Exactly, Clare.
So why didn't you... oh, what's the use?
I change tack and try discussing her allegations that Blair has been deceptive.
'I didn't call him deceptive,' she says. 'I called him reckless.'
Hold on.
Let's rewind the conversation.
Didn't she just tell me the Prime Minister engaged in a series of 'deceits and DECEPTIONS and half-truths?'
Ah, never mind.
Perhaps Mr Blair isn't the only person dealing with half-truths.
Of course, in some quarters the PM has been slammed for refusing to apologise for the Iraq invasion.
As an active Cabinet member duringthat war, does Ms Short believe she also owes the British public an apology?
After all, the principle of collective responsibility means every Cabinet member shares the blame, doesn't it?
Not at all, according to Ms Short.
She tells me she only stayed in government to influence Blair at close quarters, trying to persuade him to give the UN a mandate for the reconstruction of Iraq once the battles were over. When this didn't happen, she had no choice but to resign.
'I still think that was the right thing that I did,' she continues.
'I don't regret it even though I took a lot of flak for it. It damaged my reputation but for my own conscience I had to do it.'I say that it must have been a difficult time for her.
'I don't think it's for you to tell me it was a difficult time,' growls Ms Short. Our chat is degenerating into Talk Quan Do - a martial art of menacing mutterings.
Her face, blunt and brutish as a boxing glove, has turned grim as grey granite. It's probably time to ask some less contentious questions. What's her favourite Liquorice Allsort?
Does she prefer gloves or mittens in the winter?
But I'm more interested in discovering what her Brummie constituents think of her currently crumbling career.
Discussing her home town, Short cheers up immediately.
I sigh with relief. Perhaps there's still a small possibility I'm going to escape Portcullis House alive.
'When I'm walking down the streets in the centre of Birmingham, people shout 'Keep going Clare. Don't let them shut you up. Somebody's got to tell the truth!' she says.
Silence the mighty Miss Short? Pity the fool who'd try.
But when it comes to the truth, I remain as confused as ever.
Especially when it comes to the actions of the honourable member for Ladywood.
An Honourable Deception? by Clare Short is published by The Free Press, priced pounds 15.
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Pictures by DARREN QUINTON
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| Publication: | Sunday Mercury (Birmingham, England) |
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| Date: | Oct 31, 2004 |
| Words: | 1188 |
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