Charles Rodway Clarke (born 21 September 1950) is a British
Labour Party politician who held various
Cabinet positions under
Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
Tony Blair from 2001 to 2006, lastly as
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
from December 2004 to May 2006. Clarke was the Member of Parliament (MP) for
Norwich South from
1997 to
2010
The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...
.
Early life

The son of Civil Service
Permanent Secretary
A permanent secretary is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are ...
Sir Richard Clarke, Charles Rodway Clarke was born in London on Thursday, 21 September 1950. He attended the fee-paying
Highgate School where he was
Head Boy
The two Senior Prefects, individually called Head Boy (for the male), and Head Girl (for the female) are students who carry leadership roles and are responsible for representing the school's entire student body. Although mostly out of use, in some ...
. He then studied Mathematics and Economics at
King's College, Cambridge, where he also served as the president of the
Cambridge Students' Union.
A member of the
Broad Left faction, he was president of the
National Union of Students from 1975 to 1977. Clarke had joined the Labour Party by then and was active in the Clause Four group. Clarke was the British representative on the Permanent Commission for the World Youth Festival (Cuba) from 1977 to 1978.
Local government
He was elected as a local councillor in the
London Borough of Hackney,
being chair of its Housing Committee and vice chair of economic development from 1980 to 1986. He worked as a researcher, and later chief of staff, for
Labour Party leader
Neil Kinnock from February 1981 to 1992. He was
Kinnock's chief of staff from 1985 onwards.
His long association with Kinnock and with the
general election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
defeat in 1992 was expected to handicap him in his career, but Clarke bounced back. He spent the mid-1990s away from national politics, working in the private sector – from 1992 to 1997, he was chief executive of Quality Public Affairs, a public affairs management consultancy – and subsequently emerged as a high flyer under the Labour leadership of
Tony Blair.
Member of Parliament
Elected to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
in the
Labour landslide of 1997, Clarke served just over a year on the back benches, before joining the government as a junior education minister in July 1998. He moved to the
Home Office
The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...
in 1999, and joined the
Cabinet as
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is a government minister without specific responsibility as head of a government department. The sinecure is particularly common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet with decision-making authorit ...
and
Party Chair
In politics, a party chair (often party chairperson/-man/-woman or party president) is the presiding officer of a political party. The nature and importance of the position differs from country to country, and also between political parties.
Th ...
following the
2001 general election.
Education Secretary
He returned to Education as Secretary of State on 24 October 2002, after the resignation of
Estelle Morris.
As Education Secretary, he defended
Oxbridge, encouraged the establishment of specialist secondary schools, and allegedly suggested that the state should not fund "unproductive" humanities research.
In 2003, he said in a speech to University College, Worcester: "Universities exist to enable the British economy and society to deal with the challenges posed by the increasingly rapid process of global change." He explained:
He also oversaw the introduction of Bills to enable universities in parts of Britain to charge
top-up fees, despite a Labour manifesto commitment that it would not introduce such fees and indeed had 'legislated to prevent them'.
Home Secretary
Following the first resignation of
David Blunkett on 15 December 2004,
Clarke was appointed
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
, one of the senior positions in the Cabinet.
He was swiftly at the centre of attention for his advocacy of proposals for countering terrorism. Critics suggest that his reforms to the judicial system undermine centuries of British legal precedent dating back to the 1215
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardin ...
, particularly the right to a
fair trial and
trial by jury. He was also criticised for the
Identity Cards Act 2006, seen by some as serious infringement of privacy, but Clarke insisted that identity cards were necessary to combat terrorism.
During the 2005 British Presidency of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
, Clarke pressed other member states to pass a directive to require communications data to be stored for law enforcement purposes. The directive was criticised as infringing civil liberties and privacy, and critics also noted that the directive had been approved very quickly.
In 2006, Clarke scrapped an ex-gratia discretionary scheme under which compensation to those wrongly convicted of a criminal offence could be awarded. Professor John Spencer QC, of Cambridge University described the move as "monstrous".
Foreign prisoners scandal
On 25 April 2006 it emerged that 1,023 foreign prisoners had been freed without being considered for deportation. Among the offenders, five had been convicted of committing sex offences against children, seven had served time for other sex offences, 57 for violent offences and two for manslaughter. There were also 41 burglars, 20 drug importers, 54 convicted of assault and 27 of indecent assault.
Former Home Secretary
David Blunkett supported Clarke but said that "heads should roll" over the scandal, though many of the releases had occurred during his period as Home Secretary. The Home Office later stated that 288 were released from prison between August 2005 and March 2006, which implied that prisoners continued to be released after the matter had been brought to the attention of the government.
Out of government
The foreign prisoners scandal led many to call for Clarke's resignation, not only from the opposition; Clarke reportedly offered to resign, but
Tony Blair, the prime minister, refused to accept. However, in the wake of a poor Labour performance in the local council elections of 4 May 2006, Clarke was dismissed in a
cabinet reshuffle, labelled biggest cabinet upheaval in the history of the Blair governments, and was replaced by Defence Secretary
John Reid. Having reputedly turned down the offer of Defence Secretary by
Tony Blair, Clarke became a
backbencher.
At the end of June 2006, he did a series of interviews in which he criticised John Reid for claiming that the Home Office was "unfit for purpose", and that the Prime Minister ought to have defended him to enable him to continue seeing through the reforms he had initiated when first appointed to the post. However, he did state that although
Tony Blair had lost his sense of purpose, he wanted to see Blair continue as PM.
In September 2006, Clarke took up a consultancy post with a leading London law firm, leading to speculation he anticipated not returning to frontline politics.
Labour leadership controversy
On 8 September 2006, Clarke gave an interview to the ''
Evening Standard
The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...
'' in which he criticised the 'presumption' that
Gordon Brown would succeed
Tony Blair as prime minister, helping trigger further disputes about the Labour leadership. Clarke said of Brown's reaction to the leadership crisis, "A lot of people are very upset and cross about that. It was absolutely stupid – a stupid, stupid thing to do." He named
Alan Milburn as a politician who had the stature to be prime minister instead of Brown.
Clarke furthered his attack on Brown in an interview with ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' on the following day, accusing Brown of being "a
control freak", "deluded" and "uncollegiate".
Clarke with Alan Milburn set up The 2020 Vision website to discuss the direction of the Labour party after
Tony Blair ceased being prime minister. Some observers saw this as a way for
Gordon Brown's political opponents to create an axis against him. The website has since closed.
On 23 March 2008, Clarke published a list of 35 Labour held constituencies vulnerable to other parties if fewer than 7,500 voters switched parties away from Labour. This was interpreted by many as an attempt to force a leadership change on the Labour party.
On 4 September 2008, Clarke once again attacked
Gordon Brown's performance as leader of the Labour Party and prime minister, claiming that he only had "months" to improve or else should face a leadership contest. However, when asked whether he would stand as a "
Stalking horse" to draw out stronger candidates, he confirmed that he would not.
On 1 May 2009, Clarke joined
David Blunkett in criticising
Gordon Brown's leadership and declared that he was "ashamed" to be a Labour MP, citing the
Damian McBride scandal. In September 2009, Clarke gave a speech in which he said that Brown should stand down as prime minister to help the Labour Party avoid "a hammering" at the
2010 General Election.
Life after Parliament
Clarke lost his Parliamentary seat in the
2010 General Election by a margin of just 300 votes, and declared he was unlikely to stand again for Parliament.
On 20 September 2010, it was announced that Clarke had been appointed Visiting Professor to the School of Political, Social and International Studies at the
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...
. The appointment was part-time and for an initial period of three years. Since November 2010, Clarke has also been Visiting Professor of Politics and Faith in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at
Lancaster University. He is a Council Member of the
European Council on Foreign Relations
The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is a pan-European think tank with offices in seven European capitals. Launched in October 2007, it conducts research on European foreign and security policy and provides a meeting space for decis ...
.
Clarke is a Senior Network Member at the
European Leadership Network (ELN).
Too difficult box
Clarke introduced the idea of the "too difficult box"— an explanation why politicians often opt out of taking action to fix many serious political issues. It is focused on UK politics, but the book suggests that the principles apply to other countries. Clarke originally expounded his ideas in a series of lectures at the
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...
in 2011. In 2014, he launched the book ''The 'Too Difficult' Box: The Big Issues Politicians Can't Crack''. The introduction, conclusion and a chapter on immigration is written by Clarke. The rest of the book contains individual chapters (edited by Clarke) by past or current politicians or political commentators—each chapter covering a specific political issue considered to be in the too difficult box.
[Charles Clarke – The Too Difficult Box: The Big Issues Politicians Can't Crack]
, PolicyExchangeUK (2014).
Some reasons Clarke that gives explaining why politicians find some issues too difficult to deal with are: difficulty identifying the problem; difficulty identifying the solution; difficulty working out how to implement a solution; difficulty overcoming vested interests; existing legal constraints; the lengthy process required to bring in legislation; and a lack of political energy.
[
]
Personal life
Clarke married Carol Pearson, granddaughter of August Maramaa in Hackney, London, in 1984. They have two sons, both born in Hackney: Christopher Richard Clarke (born 1987) and Matthew Jack Clarke (born 1990). Previously resident in Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...
, they now live in Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
. Clarke speaks Cuban Spanish (a legacy of his student links with Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
), French, and German.
In 2004, he became a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society to acknowledge its contribution to education and in memory of his father, who had been a statistician. Clarke is an avid supporter of Norwich City Football Club.
In July 2018 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) from the University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...
.
References
External links
Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: Charles Clarke MP
TheyWorkForYou.com – Charles Clarke MP
BBC News – Charles Clarke
profile 17 October 2002
Interview on Meet The Writers
Monocle 24 with Georgina Godwin
Charles Clarke takes a leading role in promoting animal protection.
Charles Clarke interviewed
on Blair, Europe and what Gordon Brown must do next.
The Role of Courts in a Democracy: A Debate
Video of Charles Clarke in a Public Debate for the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, Oxford, 2011
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Charles
1950 births
Living people
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
British Secretaries of State for Education
Councillors in the London Borough of Hackney
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Presidents of the National Union of Students (United Kingdom)
People educated at Highgate School
People from Hammersmith
Politicians from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Secretaries of State for the Home Department
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
British economists
Academics of the University of East Anglia
Fellows of the Royal Statistical Society
New Labour