She should have resigned at the same time as Robin Cook. Did she really expect Poodle Blair to do anything other than agree with everything George W. said?
Stupid cow!!

Wherever will Claire go now in her careerism? Political adviser to Karren Brady? A tacky talk show on BRMB? Or maybe she could have her own daytime TV romp show, a la Trisha, with the strapline "from the woman with less moral fibre than Robin Cook". Or from the people who brought you modernised satanism...

Her resignation made my day really, and I am very happy we won't hear about her for much longer, as a backbencher. She is no friend of our global justice movement- remember the comments she made about Seatle - Of course, she should have resigned long time ego. It just shows it is impossible to disagree openly with Blair and be in the cabinet in the same time.

John

She can run some kind of corporate consultation outfit helping the big boys to suffocate the Third World and any dissent.

This will not be unlike what the other ex-Greenpeace, ex-FoE opportunists did.

Clare has that forte of accusing needy countries of wanting "golden elephants".

Ok, so two gone, there are plenty more opportunists and careerists in New Labour.

Those hanging around Phoney Blair and can't see him for what is really is fit nicely into the opportunists and careerists camp. Those who do not and cannot see Phoney Blair through should not be running the country anyway.

That woman p!sses me off big time, first she blasts Blair as reckless a week or so before the war, then she fails to resign as expected days before the war and votes with the government and now she resigns, bit bloody late now.

Just think events could have turned out much different if she would have resigned at the same time as Robin Cook, the devestating effect that would have had on Blair personally, she could have infulenced a lot more Labour MP's to vote against the war, coz there were those MP's that were against the war in private but voted for it in public out of self interest or fear, they just needed a bit of leadership and we all know coz Blair admitted it if the vote went against them he would have resigned, which itself man not of stopped the war, but would have made this countries involvement extremely difficult.

So thanks Clare for cocking up again!

This is the minister who has done NOTHING for the world's poor. In the DFID "Vision 2020" exercise, she has tried to impose GM crops on the poor in Andhra Pradesh. More about this below...


'This is the path to disaster'

Clare Short is in the hot seat for funding GM crops in India

Special report: GM food debate

Luke Harding in New Delhi and John Vidal
Saturday July 7, 2001
The Guardian

Clare Short, the international development secretary, came under fire last night for her department's backing of a controversial scheme in India which campaigners fear will lead to the displacement of millions of poor rural labourers and the extensive introduction of GM crops.
Up to 20m agricultural workers - many of them lower-caste Dalits, or "untouchables" - could be forced off their land by Vision 2020, a scheme proposed by the state of Andhra Pradesh and backed by Ms Short's department, it is claimed.

The semi-arid state in southern India is to encourage farmers to plant GM crops, including Bt cotton and vitamin A rice. It is setting up a 600 sq km (384 square mile) Genome Valley, where biotechnology companies such as Monsanto will be invited to carry out trials.

"At a time when Britain has put a moratorium on the commercial use of GM crops, it seems hypocritical to endorse their use among some of the poorest people in India," Tom Wakeford, of Sussex University's development studies institute, said last night. "Nobody is listening to what the poor want."

Ms Short's Department for International Development (DfID) has agreed to give Andhra Pradesh more than half of Britain's £105m aid allocation this year to India: it has already received £37m.

Much of the money has been spent on overhauling the region's crumbling infrastructure to implement the project.

Campaigners fear, if the scheme goes ahead, millions of small farmers and labourers will be forced to migrate to the cities in search of work. The government - under its pioneering chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu - wants to reduce the number of people employed in agriculture from 70% to 40% in the next 20 years.

Large corporations will be invited to take over farming, with the creation of prairie-style fields similar to those in East Anglia or the American mid-west. Jobs such as weeding - done by poor migrant labourers - will disappear with the introduction of hi-tech machinery and chemicals.

Legislation protecting indebted small farmers has been abolished.

Incentives will be offered to persuade farmers to abandon traditional crops, such as millet, and replace them with crops grown for export.The Vision 2020 document, written by the American consultancy firm McKinsey, makes no mention of the traditional use of livestock.

An internal DfID document obtained by the Guardian expressed grave reservations about the scheme. It describes it as "confused", "unfocussed," and "inconsistent". Almost no provisions, it said, had been made to find alternative employment for farming's poor labourers.

"I strongly feel that the British government should stop funding this kind of programme," said PV Satheesh, of the Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defence of Diversity. "I'm also surprised that this has been done because DfID has a reputation in India as an enlightened donor."

"This is the path to disaster."

Last week, a "citizens' jury" of small farmers from across Andhra Pradesh, one of India's biggest states, rejected the British-backed scheme.

After a five-day meeting addressed by government, corporations, development groups and others, they unanimously rejected contract farming and GM crops, saying they wanted to control their own land and forests. They also called for the preservation of "healthy soils", "diverse crops", and "indigenous knowledge".

"This was an innovative process in which local voices gave their views on food and farming. Donors such as DfID and the World Bank need to base their policies on such direct democracy," Michel Pimbert of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London said last night.

In a visit to New Delhi in January, Ms Short announced that Britain would triple its aid commitment to India in the next three to four years.

Britain gives more aid to India than to any other country, but it is only sent to four Indian states - Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa.

The DfID also acknowledges that severe environmental problems in India are caused by land degradation, increasing energy use and declining water quality, all widely associated with the kind of industrial-scale agriculture proposed in the Andhra Pradesh plan.

Opposition to GM crops and industrial-scale farming in India is high. Many organisations, representing millions of small farmers, are deeply opposed to the introduction of GM technology which, they argue, will force them off the land or drive them deeper into debt. In the past few years thousands of farmers have committed suicide because of rising debts.

Monsanto, the largest foreign-owned agri-business company in India, has recently bought several of its largest seed companies and is eager to start GM production there as soon as possible.

Last month India's ministry of environment and forests was forced by a regulatory committee's demand for further tests to defer a decision on the commercial planting of GM cotton until next year.

 http://www.gatswatch.org/docs/Short200402.html

So she's finally found out that she's been working for a duplicitous, self-righteous, Bush-butt-buffing war criminal. Welcome to the real world, Short!

Someone posted this:

"It just shows it is impossible to disagree openly with Blair and be in the cabinet in the same time."

What goes on in cabinet meetings is not disclosed to the public for thirty years. To keep a united face, there is a thing called 'the doctrine of collective responsibity', where you may diagree and argue a point behind closed doors, but whatever decision is reached, in oublic you must seem to agree with. So, Claire Short should have kept her mouth shut in the first place, and when she did have her little outburst, she should have resigned then, as the broke the doctrine of collective responibilty.

However, the problem with this is that the Prime Minister's decision is final. This leads to an 'elective dictatorship', with the PM always getting his way. This is usually indicated by shorter cabinet meetings, a definate characteristic of the Blair government.

Just so you know why cabinet MPs don't speak out against Blair so often.

Carlos

Fucking british pigs!

Still playing politics over mass murdered (in hundred of thousands) Iraqi children.
Next it will be the minister for sanctions, whoever that pig is and possibly a new governent to undo all the negative image built up by one fool.

The rt. honourable bitch is spinning pig swill while pretending to have a go at the spin master.

If the sow was so worried about the attorney general's mumbo jumbo before raping Iraq again, why could not she leave then?
Becuase she is an inherent pig who wanted to spin something out of it when the time will be ripe for piggish motives.