As a Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood, The Rt Hon Clare Short has been a key figure in politics for the past two decades. In her book, “An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power” (Free Press, £15), she gives an insider's account of what happened in the run-up to the war in Iraq, and her reasons for leaving the government.
Published in Scotland on Sunday
19 June 2005
What books are on your bedside table?
I have some books that I have read and should put away as well as some to read. I have just read Romeo Dallaire’s ‘Shake Hands with the Devil’. He was the UN commander in Rwanda who tried to prevent the genocide in 1994. It tells the story of a fine man doing his best who was let down by the world. It is worth reading if you want to understand what happened in Rwanda and how UN missions can go wrong. I also have “The Rise of Political Lying” by Peter Oborne, which is a quick and important read. I recommend it strongly. I met Sir Martin Rees at the Hay Book Festival a week ago and he gave me a copy of his “Our Final Century – Will Civilisation Survive the Twenty-First Century?” which I mostly read on the train on the way back but finished in bed. It summarises where science has got to, but also underlines how our generation could be creating the conditions for human civilisation on earth to be destroyed. My ‘to read’ pile include Marina Lewycka “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” and Austin Clarke’s “The Polished Hoe”. These are underneath a “Guide to the Jewish Historical Institution in Warsaw”. I went to Warsaw with a dear friend for the Whitsun weekend and found it a poignant and beautiful city. She gave me the novels and I gave her mine – “Desertion” by Abdulrazak Gurnah which was given to me by my agent and is a beautiful, sad novel of loss and survival. On my kitchen table, I have Martin Meredith’s “The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence”. My editor gave it to me. I will read it this summer.
Books unable to finish
I tend to attach virtue to finishing books, but I have picked up and not finished “Ulysses” and “Midnight’s Children” a number of times! I read about a third of the Koran last summer, but did not finish it. I think I will try again this summer. I am reading the Bible slowly on Sundays when I take my mother to church. It is very illuminating to read it through as opposed to knowing the stories and the occasional reading. It is a book of endless war and ugly destruction as well as uplifting things. I will finish it, but slowly.
Favourite childhood books
My older sister and I shared an attic bedroom in the tall thin Victorian house that we grew up in. We made a library and used to borrow and return our own books. We had books like Louisa M Alcott’s “Little Women” and Susan M Coolidge’s “What Katy Did” which we read more than once. I borrowed Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty” over and over. My father used to read “Treasure Island” and “Robinson Crusoe” and I still have warm memories of us clustering around him as he read to us. He loved both books. I also read the Enid Blyton Famous Five and Secret Seven books and on holiday remember reading Biggles books that my brother liked. I don’t remember much about them, but enjoyed them at the time. We used to go to the library on the bus. I can’t remember all the books we read, but books were all around us and we all read a lot – but then there was no television – so we played in the street, went to Brownies, listened to the wireless and read in bed, even when my mum confiscated the light bulbs. I remember us reading with candles in bed. I don’t think she ever knew we did that.
Which book would you buy as a present?
I told everyone I know to read “Small Island” by Andrea Levy when I first read it. I sent a copy of Michela Wrong’s “I Didn’t Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation” on Eritrea’s long fight for independence. It is a very good read but also a strong reminder of how both sides in the Cold War lined up behind all the tensions in post-colonial Africa and the damage it caused. There is another book that I think fantastically useful to help people understand the muddle the US has got itself in “Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror” by Anonymous. He is a senior CIA analyst and has now been outed. It is well worth reading and explains a lot. When people ask why Tony Blair went so far with Bush on Iraq, I point them to Peter Riddell’s “Hug Them Close: Blair, Clinton, Bush and the Special Relationship” which is a very good read and explains how every post war Prime Minister – except Edward Heath – prioritised the ‘Special Relationship’ as a way of trying to cling on to an illusion of power. And of course, I also point them to my book “An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power”.
Rt Hon Clare Short, MP for Birmingham Ladywood
