(Jack does his best John Prescott impression for the camera)
Jack Straw, veteran parliamentarian and one of just three to survive Labour’s thirteen years in office, has announced his retirement to the backbenches. The former Justice, Home and Foreign Secretary said, “There is something relentless about the front bench, whether it’s in government, or in opposition, and I’d like to do other things”.
In a parting shot at Lord Mandelson, the 64 year old Straw said that his memoirs would be neither “tedious or self-serving”, but would be devoid of the ‘confidence-breaking’ revelations that typified The Third Man, adding, “it may sound very old-fashioned, but I don’t approve, for example, of the way Peter Mandelson has behaved and neither do quite a number of my colleagues.”
Hats off to him…
