Free Republic

FORGET setting aspirational targets for cutting greenhouse gases. And stop pointing the finger at China and America as the main stumbling blocks for a climate change treaty. Because, according to a prominent British MP, it's actually cold-hearted Israel that's to blame for global warming. Former Blair Government minister Clare Short made the absurd claim last month that no progress was possible on climate change treaties because Israel "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming".

Short Slams Bush Choice for World Bank Chief By Nick Allen, PA Chief Reporter Former International Development Secretary Clare Short tonight savaged the nomination of the leading US neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. Ms Short said President George Bush’s decision to put forward his Deputy Defence Secretary for the post was like showing “two fingers to the world”. The President today described Mr Wolfowitz as a “compassionate, decent man” as he announced him as US candidate to replace James Wolfensohn, who steps down as president of the 184-nation development bank on June 1. But Ms Short...

Tsunami? Blame America - By MARK STEYN Humanitarian honchos and Euro-libs denounce Washington's response to the Asia disaster A week ago, people kept asking me for my opinion of the tsunami, and to be honest I didn't have one. It didn't seem the kind of thing to have an "opinion" on, even for an opinion columnist - not like who should win the election or whether we should have toppled Saddam. It was obviously a catastrophe, and it was certain the death toll would rise and keep rising, and other than that there didn't seem a lot to opine about....

If any of you, good friends, think that this posting's headline is too harsh, too undiplomatic and just too Diplomadic, please read this from The Scotsman which I reproduce in its full glorious entirety, Bush 'Undermining UN with Aid Coalition' By Jamie Lyons, PA Political Correspondent United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster. The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response. But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said...

Former Cabinet minister Clare Short has criticised the US-led tsunami aid coalition, saying the UN should be leading efforts. President Bush has announced that an alliance of the US, India, Australia and Japan will co-ordinate a humanitarian drive. But Ms Short said the effect of the parallel coalition would be to undermine the UN. She said only the UN had the "moral authority" to lead the relief work. Ms Short resigned as international development secretary over the Iraq war. "I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to co-ordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine...

United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster. The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response. But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN. “I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,”...

Bush 'Undermining UN with Aid Coalition' By Jamie Lyons, PA Political Correspondent United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster. The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response. But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN. “I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the...

United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster. The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response. But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN. “I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,”...

Another appalling outburst of acrimony towards the United States, in what will probably be the next counter-assault from the United Nations, courtesy of former UK cabinet minister Clare Short: Bush ‘Undermining UN with Aid Coalition’.

You said it, Clare Oct 8 2004 Evening Mail Firebrand MP Clare Short DID claim the IRA had never targeted civilians despite her furious denial, it emerged today. The Ladywood Labour MP had insisted she had not made the comment during an interview with a newspaper reporter from the Dubai-based Gulf News. But the Evening Mail has had exclusive access to a tape of the interview in which Ms Short said: "I think it's always wrong to target civilians. "I think that's, because even when you understood the IRA, they never targeted civilians." Ms Short could not be contacted for...

Brighton – Clare Short, until recently a key member of Tony Blair's government, has likened the struggle faced by Arab insurgents in Iraq with the French resistance to German occupation during the Second World War. In an exclusive interview with the Gulf News on Tuesday, the former Secretary of State for International Development said she could "understand" why some Arabs are embracing the Islamic militancy preached by groups such as Al Qaida. She said: "I think the killing of civilians is always wrong, (the Prophet) Mohammad's (PBUH) teachings said it was wrong, but I think the cause is just. A...

CLARE SHORT, the former cabinet minister, has provoked outrage by describing the cause behind Osama Bin Laden’s terrorism as “just”. In an interview with a Dubai newspaper, the MP, who resigned from the cabinet after the Iraq invasion last year, makes a fierce attack on the prime minister. However, her most contentious remarks were those in support of Bin Laden’s cause. In the interview with the English-language Gulf News, Short said she had been reading a book by a US intelligence analyst that painted a sympathetic picture of the Al-Qaeda chief. “The author says Osama Bin Laden considers it a...

Short left isolated as Brown joins her critics Nicholas Watt, political correspondent Saturday February 28, 2004 The Guardian Clare Short was cast adrift yesterday when her one-time patron Gordon Brown joined forces with virtually all sides of the Labour movement to denounce the former cabinet minister for jeopardising Labour's re-election chances. As Tony Blair accused Ms Short of forging an "auld alliance" with the Tories to force him out of office, prominent supporters of the chancellor formally declared her persona non grata. "Clare Short is totally finished as far as we are concerned," one Brownite said. It marked the last...

Comment -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pique practice Clare Short's whistle-blowing was more anger than candour Mark Lawson Saturday February 28, 2004 The Guardian Details of MPs' external earnings released this week suggest that Robin Cook received £450,000 from publication and serialisation of memoirs which proved to contain no major revelation. So one oddity of the spy scandal now bugging Tony Blair is that Clare Short blurted out for free on radio a revelation which might genuinely have been worth seven figures if strategically saved for a hardback and Sunday front-page splash. The former minister's failure to follow that fashionable strategy for a fallen...

How Clare Short lit the Iraqi fuse for BBC CLARE SHORT emerges today as an inspiration behind a BBC report that Downing Street "sexed up" a dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before last year's invasion. Hours before Andrew Gilligans fateful May 29 broadcast on the Radio 4 Today programme, the former minister met the programme's editor and complained about Alastair Campbell editing intelligence. Her words helped to persuade the programme to believe Mr Gilligan's apparent scoop: that Downing Street inserted a claim, against the wishes of experts, that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes....

<p>Clare Short didn't just disagree with Tony Blair's policy on Iraq, she called her boss's position "extraordinarily reckless." She didn't just dissent in the creation of foundation hospitals -- the cornerstone of her government's health-care reform -- she failed to show up for the key Commons vote on their creation. And she didn't just resign from the cabinet Monday. She unleashed a personal attack on Mr. Blair, accusing him of being a self-obsessed control-freak and urging him to start preparing an "elegant succession."</p>

May 14, 2003 Clare Short Few friends for 'the girl who went over the top' By Melissa Kite, Political CorrespondentMINUTES after Clare Short’s resignation speech a Blairite MP accosted a Brownite MP and shouted: “Your girl’s gone over the top this time.” Ms Short, a close ally of Gordon Brown, had blown it. This was the view of Tony Blair’s supporters on the back benches, who came out in droves to rubbish her yesterday. MPs in the Brown camp went to ground, as though ashamed. As one Labour backbencher put it: “The Brownites wanted a little nudge, a delicate stiletto...

Blair blasted in minister's blistering parting shots By Peter Fray, Herald Correspondent in London May 14 2003 Clare Short ... steps up personal attack on Mr Blair. The former British cabinet minister Clare Short has stepped up her personal and damaging attack on Tony Blair's leadership, calling on him to resign in favour of his arch rival, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, before the next election.Just hours after her spectacular resignation speech to Parliament, during which she said Mr Blair had become presidential and "obsessed with his place in history", she called for an "elegant succession" to Mr Brown...

This isLONDON12/05/03 - News and city section Short: Blair is obsessed Clare Short launched a stinging attack on the Prime Minister today, accusing him of becoming "increasingly obsessed" by securing his place in history. In her 11-minute resignation speech, Ms Short said she had no alternative but to quit as International Development Secretary due to Government "mistakes" on Iraq.But in her most devastating remarks, she condemned the lack of collective Cabinet decision making and poor policy initiatives being "rammed" through Parliament.She warned Labour colleagues that they were "entering rockier times" and must work together to prevent the Government "departing...

LONDON, May 12 — Clare Short, Britain's secretary for International Development, today became the second person to resign from the cabinet over Iraq policy, ending her six years in government with a surprisingly personal attack on Prime Minister Tony Blair in the House of Commons. The immediate cause of her resignation, she said, was Mr. Blair's "betrayal" of his promise to work for United Nations involvement in postwar Iraq and his cooperation in an American campaign to "bully" the United Nations. But she went beyond those disputes over issues to accuse Mr. Blair of abandoning Labor Party values and the...