Kenneth Clarke

The Right Honourable Kenneth Harry Clarke, QC, MP, (born 2 July 1940) is a leading Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is MP for Rushcliffe, near Nottingham. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 until 1997, and a minister throughout all 18 years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997. He has twice contested the leadership of the party (in 1997 and 2001), and is a candidate in the 2005 Conservative Party leadership election.

Early life

Born in Nottingham in 1940, Clarke was educated at Nottingham High School (then a "direct grant" school) and went on to study law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He had joined the Conservatives while at university, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. As a student, he controversially invited the former British fascist leader Oswald Mosley to speak for a second year in succession,http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1446073,00.html leading some Jewish students (including his future successor at the Home Office Michael Howard) to resign from CUCA in protest. Clarke was defeated for the presidency of the Cambridge Union Society by Howard, although he was subsequently elected President of the Union a year later. On leaving Cambridge, Clarke was called to the bar in 1963. He married Gillian Edwards, also a Cambridge graduate, in November 1964. They have two children.

Related Topics:
Nottingham - 1940 - Nottingham High School - "direct grant" school - Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge - Oswald Mosley - Michael Howard - Cambridge Union Society - Called to the bar - 1963 - 1964

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