East Lancs MP and Justice Secretary Jack Straw's weekly column from the Lancashire Telegraph

Blog: Justice can cross borders thanks to the EU

2:31pm Thursday 16th May 2013

Rachid Ramda bombed the Paris Metro in 1995. Eight people were killed in this terrorist outrage. He then escaped to Britain.

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Blog: Huge cost of phantom injuries

1:40pm Thursday 9th May 2013

Across the country, Accident and Emergency (A & E) Departments are under huge pressure. But there’s one “injury” which patients very rarely present. That’s whiplash.

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Blog: Scottish independence is a mirage

2:11pm Thursday 2nd May 2013

WHEN I first came to Blackburn, the place was awash with Scots who’d fled south, they told me, for the weather, the women, the work, or a combination of all three.

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Blog: Margaret Thatcher DOES deserve her tributes

12:45pm Thursday 11th April 2013

Napoleon claimed that what he wanted of his generals, above all, was that they should be ‘lucky’.

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Blog: Policing is a matter of respect

11:46am Thursday 4th April 2013

It’s not often that my jaw drops on reading a news item, but it did when I first saw the report that a Police Constable Kelly Jones, of Norfolk Constabulary, was suing Mr Steve Jones (no relation), a garage owner, for injuries she claims to have received while on a midnight call-out to investigate a suspected crime.

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Blog: Rail on track for a bright future

1:57pm Thursday 28th March 2013

Steam engines are wonderful machines; with their pulsating rhythms, almost human. I love them, to look at, to hear; even their smell is evocative.

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Column: Was my decision on Iraq right?

2:46pm Thursday 21st March 2013

THIS week, 10 years ago, I was facing the consequences of the most serious decision I have ever made: To go to war against Iraq.

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Blog: Lower tax and higher cost will help

12:53pm Thursday 14th March 2013

AM I facing both ways at once? Two weeks ago in this column I called for the Chancellor to freeze the beer duty ‘escalator’ – the two per cent above-inflation rise in beer tax.

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Blog: Call time on the beer duty escalator

2:04pm Thursday 28th February 2013

The beer duty “escalator” was introduced in 2008 by the last Labour government. I voted for it.

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Blog: Statisticians' insights are good news for Blackburn Rovers

11:33am Thursday 21st February 2013

I might be eccentric, but I really like numbers. They are the stuff of life. We couldn’t do without them.

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Comment: 'Health and safety' saves thousands of lives

4:15pm Thursday 14th February 2013

It’s less than three weeks since over 200 people were killed at the Kiss night club in Santa Maria, Brazil, but already the memory has faded.

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Blog: The I was almost torn in half by two important issues

1:02pm Thursday 7th February 2013

I was almost torn in two on Tuesday. Blackburn, or Westminster, that was the question. Jobs, or gay marriage, that was the choice.

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Blog: North West gets second best

11:35am Thursday 31st January 2013

NONE of us can chose our parents, nor where we’re born.

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Blog: Rape could have been in the UK

1:29pm Thursday 17th January 2013

A YOUNG woman going home with her boyfriend is gang-raped on a bus. Complicit in the crime, the bus driver tries to run over the victim. She dies some days later.

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Blog: Britain leads the world on CCTV

12:41pm Thursday 20th December 2012

Last Monday a bag with explosive devices was found at the central railway station of Bonn, the city that used to be the capital of West Germany before the Berlin Wall came down.

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Column: Tax avoiders have edge on firms that pay

12:26pm Thursday 13th December 2012

Amazon took £3.35 billion off the British public last year. That’s £50 from every person in the UK.

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We still have a long way to go to achieve an equal society

1:33pm Thursday 6th December 2012

How could Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, and Victoria all succeed to the Throne, when the rules gave preference to male heirs?

Column: Showcasing our amazing small firms

3:08pm Thursday 29th November 2012

WHEN the citizens of the County Palatine of Lancaster were told on November 27, 1295 to send their first elected representative to Parliament, I doubt that they ever imagined eight centuries later Parliament would be marking this “Lancashire Day” with an exhibition of some of the county’s best food and drink products (and county-made shoes).

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Column: I’m puzzled by Hague’s stance

9:05am Thursday 22nd November 2012

I like British Foreign Secretary William Hague. Whether I agree, or disagree with him, he usually makes his case persuasively.

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Should the well-off get freebies?

1:43pm Thursday 15th November 2012

I’m 66, and well-off. So here’s the question. Should people like me benefit from the winter fuel allowance, free bus and rail passes, and, when we get to age 75, free television licences as well?

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