Clarke: Labour 'too right-wing'

Ken Clarke: 'Disbelief' at Jack Straw's policies

Labour's policies on the economy and law and order have come under fire from former Conservative cabinet minister Ken Clarke - for being too right-wing.

He said he had watched in "disbelief" as Home Secretary Jack Straw introduced policies he would have rejected during his time in the post nine years ago.

I find myself sitting there in complete disbelief when I hear Jack [Straw]

Ken Clarke

Mr Clarke also said if the Tories had won the 1997 election and he had stayed on as chancellor he would never have stuck to the public spending constraints imposed by Labour in its first two years in power.

Now regarded as the standard bearer of the party's pro-european wing, Mr Clarke made the comments in an interview with the Cambridge University student newspaper, Varsity.

He said Labour government policies in some areas were more right-wing than those of the Tory centre-left.

The blame lay with what appeared to be the lack of conviction among many members of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, Mr Clarke said.

And he commented that he often wondered why Mr Blair had joined Labour rather than another party.

Jury trial changes

"I find myself sitting there in complete disbelief when I hear Jack [Straw]," he told the newspaper.

"I wouldn't have dreamt of taking away the right to jury trial.

"I would have been horrified if any Conservative had suggested it."

Recalling Chancellor Gordon Brown's pledge to stick to Tory spending plans for the first two years of Labour's term, Mr Clarke said: "The result was that, for no good reason, he squeezed public spending so that it fell to its lowest level since the 1960s.

"So he began as a public-spending cutting chancellor when he didn't need to."