About Clare Short
Clare Short (born 15 February 1946) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003. Short began her career as a civil servant. A member of the Labour Party until 2006, she was Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 to 2010. Following the 1997 United Kingdom general election, Short was made the first cabinet-level Secretary of State for International Development. She resigned from the cabinet over the Iraq War. She also resigned the party whip in 2006 and served the remainder of her term as an independent politician, leaving parliament at the 2010 general election. == Early and personal life == Short was born in Birmingham in 1946 to Irish Catholic parents from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. She attended St Paul's School for Girls in Birmingham. She was later supportive of peaceful Sinn Féin initiatives, but never a supporter of IRA violence, some of the worst of which was inflicted in a 1974 bombing of her home city of Birmingham. Completing her degree in political science at the University of Leeds, she became a civil servant working for the Home Office.
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