Talk:Kenneth Clarke

message: RE: Legal aid 'to be limited to those with under £1,000 in assets' to cut costs
 Mail On Sunday   14th November 2010
"Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke has warned 'those who need it most' will be eligible for legal aidState help with civil legal costs will be restricted to people with assets including homes worth less than £1,000 under cost-cutting measures <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329355/Legal-aid-limited-1-000-assets-cut-costs.html#ixzz15FdlE9zM>. Was this actually in his original Manifesto?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.139.98.61 (talk) 10:29, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minister for Justice?

message: Someone removed the bit about membership of the Bilderberg Group. I'll present a little evidence:
: He definitely flew to Milan, Italy on June 3, 2004. 
: According to our own article, The Bilderberg Group met in nearby Stressa from June 3 to June 6.
I doubt this is a coincidence. In conjunction with the fact that Clarke is named by the BBC as a member , I rest my case. Evercat 12:50, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the bit about the Bilderberg Group because it's barely relevant to Kenneth Clarke's career and not particularly interesting. So what if he goes to talk to other European politicians to talk in private about the future of politics? Hardly a big surprise. However putting it there is a bit POV as it only encourages the loopy conspiracy theorists who think Bilderberg is an attempt to take over the world etc. I see no reason to indulge this paranoia. Dbiv 18:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Bilderberg Group

message: I have had a go at revising the prose of this page. Perhaps most visible is making bullet lists for the corporate and media work and separating those two which were bizarrely mixed together (deputy chairmanships and the BBC jazz gig).
Don't think I changed anything factually except for tense (he'll have to have dropped the jobs now he's Lord Chancellor) & hope all are happy with it. Iph (talk) 14:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Copy edit marker

message: Google YouTube Kenneth Clarke Bilderberg and you will find many videos confirming the attendance of Kenneth Clarke to Bilderberg meetings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0LR4N-rsCXc
The above shows how previous Wikipedia edits to discredit editors which made the above claims were wrong.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.169.244.181 (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Kenneth Clarke acknowledges Bilderberg Attendance

message: Ben Fellows who accused Clarke of sexual assault was cleared of Contempt for Court Clarke accuser cleared(Coachtripfan (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ben Fellows 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Why is there no mention of the allegations that he raped a teenage boy? (5.81.222.127 (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the media have not taken them seriously and they are completely implausible? -- Alarics (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you know they're implausible? The article on Edward Heath mentions he was accused of raping a boy. As it has been widely reported it should be in Clarke's article. (5.81.222.127 (talk) 20:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

text: This seems to be the matter under discussion.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

text: PS: For the avoidance of doubt, the court did not say that there was any foundation to the claim.  The fact that the defendant was cleared of perverting the course of justice could have been for many reasons - it did not in any way support the allegations made.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:47, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevertheless this has been widely reported by the BBC and broadsheet newspapers so it should be mentioned. (5.81.222.127 (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The allegation was NOT that he "raped a teenage boy". Even the complainant, described in court as a "fantasist", said "it was no more than a minor groping". The police would have investigated Clarke if they thought there was anything to it. Roger Cook, for whom the complainant claimed to be working, said he had never even heard of him. Even David Hencke of Exaro, who are usually happy to publish all sorts of allegations, has explained that this one is nonsense and described it as a "smear": See  this Exaro page. I don't think Wikipedia should be giving any further credence to this scurrilous tabloid fantasy. -- Alarics (talk) 12:47, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allegations 

message: There was no speculation. I used direct quotes and those were widely reported by many highly-respected news media. I have added that section again. It is valid and fully cited. I have since updated it, adding a citation including the video clip of Clarke's comments at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/05/ken-clarke-caught-on-camera-ridiculing-conservative-leadership-c/ Peter K Burian (talk) 16:23, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: And he was apparently unaware that the cameras were on ... www.independent.co.uk › - apparently unaware he was being recorded.
www.theguardian.com › Politics › Kenneth Clarke apparently unaware that the camera was rolling.
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Tory-big-beast-Ken-Clarke-brands-Michael-Gove-...
apparently believing he was not being recorded.
huntnews.in/p/detail/2637202843560285?uc_param_str...
apparently unaware he was being recorded.
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Tory-big-beast-Ken-Clarke-brands-Michael-Gove-...
 apparently believing he. And many other confirmations that he was apparently unaware that the cameras were on. Peter K Burian (talk) 17:08, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarke DID ridicule three leadership candidates  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It would be interesting to know how "genuine" his QC-ship actually is. I've been flicking through his memoirs recently and he doesn't mention the promotion at all. It used to be not uncommon for barrister-MPs to be made an honorary QC ("false silk" as it was sometimes derisively known), although the practice is now discontinued. Michael Howard is actually a "genuine" QC and practised as such before getting into Parliament relatively late in his forties; Thatcher was only ever a practising barrister for a few years in the late 1950s (she was called after her kids were born) so she never qualified even for the honorific, although one suspects that like Tony Blair she would have been a very successful barrister if she had stuck at it.
Clarke had been a barrister for 16-17 years by 1980, a usual period for taking silk, but five of those had been spent in government. He seems to have done hack work in criminal and personal injury law, and he writes about his exhausting 3-way commute between Parliament (in the evenings, in those days), his seat in the East Midlands at the weekend and his "day job" in Birmingham, usually mugging up tomorrow's cases on the late train up each night. He only mentions his rank when he mentions that his chambers approached him in 1997 to rejoin them, but he felt that he would have needed a very good junior to update him on the changes in the law since he had last practised.
In those days silk was much more a question of the "tap on the shoulder, old boy" from one's seniors rather than today's formal application process. I get the impression that Clarke was probably a competent rather than an outstanding barrister, but I may be wrong. Maybe, although his promotion wasn't purely honorary, his successful ministerial career was another reason why he got picked. I'm not trying to score points either for or against Clarke here - I'm genuinely interested.
It's so long ago now that we are unlikely to know unless Clarke himself has spoken on the matter, and my view FWIW is that his silence is probably a give-away. There were a couple of instant biogs written of him circa 1993, when he seemed a likely successor to Major, but my copies are buried deep in the attic. Maybe one of them might shed some light.Paulturtle (talk) 16:07, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: In his biograpghy he does mention that as a promoter of British industry when he was Minister Without Portfolio, instead of using that rather unassuming title he made use of the fact he was a legal counsel to Her Majesty, i.e. a QC.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by H.E. Nightingale (talk • contribs) 17:11, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Silk 

message: It was said on the Radio Four programme More or Less in May 2018 that Kenneth Clarke holds the record for most appearances on Question Time, having appeared 58 times. This could go in this article. Vorbee (talk) 19:23, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Appearances on Question Time

message: In 1981, in the Dept of Transport, Clarke moved from the former to the latter.
According to the two wiki links, both positions are the 3rd tier of govt, below Min of State and above PPS.
So can we please clarify what this means.  How did his role change, was it a promotion?
Not just here, but in the two links.
All the best.  Ganpati23 (talk) 22:15, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the relevant pages, the head of the department (Norman Fowler) in 1979-81 was "Minister of Transport" but not a full member of the Cabinet. In 1981 he was upgraded to "Secretary of State for Transport" and made a full member of Cabinet. Maybe that's why Clarke's title was amended.Paulturtle (talk) 16:14, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems to be right. As Rodney Brazier explains in 'Ministers of the Crown' (p 13), "[w]henever a Secretary of State was allocated a Parliamentary Secretary, the junior colleague was styled the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State". FollowTheTortoise (talk) 16:30, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  parliamentary secretary vs parliamentary under-secretary 

message: Stop changing him to independent. There has been no official confirmation that he has been thrown out of the party. 184.102.100.31 (talk) 23:01, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: What sources seem to indicate is that he has been thrown out of the Parliamentary party and told he cannot stand as a Con candidate, but not (yet) that he has had his party membership rescinded.  I agree that it is not (yet) correct to call him "Independent".  So far as I know he still sits on the Con benches, but I'm sure the position will develop further in coming days.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Independent