Dubai: The British press had been seized over the last few days on the argument that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had become a liability on the government and his ruling Labour Party.

It is argued that Labour losses in local and regional elections as well as the depressing low poll ratings require a change of leadership.

It has been floated that Jack Straw, the current Justice Minister since 2007, stands as the formidable replacement for Gordon Brown as Labour leader and Prime Minister.

Such an action is reminiscent of the similar challenge which Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative prime minister, had to face in 1990 over her policies. Although she had, in 1987, won an unprecedented third term for her Conservative Party in government and her post as a prime minister, she agreed to resign and hand over the leadership and prime ministership to John Major.

Rise from poverty

Jack Straw, a British Jew, who was born 1946 in Essex, rose from poverty, when his mother brought him up in a council flat after his father deserted them, to the upper echelon of power in the United Kingdom through the Labour Party. He has been a political activist since his early days in school and became president of the more radical National Union of Students in 1969.

His route to political and world prominence took him through legal practice as a barrister in 1971 and work as a journalist and researcher with a Grenada television series of current affairs, World In Action.

He joined broadcasting after serving as a political adviser to Barbara Castle at the Department of Social Security 1974-76 and then at the Department of Environment in 1977.

His first controversy and "political scandal" erupted when he was accused, during his time as a political adviser, of leaking the information on the social security file of Norman Scott, who had claimed that the liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe was behind an attempt to murder him. However, Straw's first election to a parliament's seat came in 1979 representing the constituency of Barbara Castle who decided not to run for the House of Commons.

He held that seat ever since. In 1997 Straw was appointed Home Secretary after the general elections which returned Labour to the seat of government.

Controversial issues had always been a prominent aspect of Straw's political life. This time he granted the police more enhanced powers in the drive against terrorism and reduced the rights to trial by jury.

However, Straw drew criticism when he decided in March 2000 to allow the beleaguered Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to return to Chile despite requests from several countries to extradite and try him for various crimes against humanity.

During the same year he made a highly controversial decision. He turned down a request by an Iraqi for asylum in the UK. The Iraqi claimed he was fleeing the Iraqi regime of late president Saddam Hussain. However, Straw, as a Labour Home Secretary, declined that request stating that "we have faith in the integrity of the Iraqi judicial process and that you should have no concerns if you haven't done anything wrong."

This sits at odds with the policy he had promoted and defended as a foreign minister in 2002, to invade Iraq and topple the Iraqi regime on the grounds of human rights abuses and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign policy

Within months of his appointment to Foreign Minister in 2001 after the general elections, the September 11 attacks in the United States had occurred to change the whole spectrum and focus of the British foreign policy which moved to be strategically allied with that of the US.

Straw has always declared his unequivocal support for Israel. However, he had also shown some pro-Muslim attitudes. As a shadow spokesman for education in 1987 he called on the local education authorities to allow the Muslim and Orthodox Jewish private schools to opt out of the state system and still receive public funds.

Anyway, Straw had stirred criticism by Muslims when he called on Muslim women to abandon their veil suggesting that women who wear veil over their face could make community relations harder.

That comment drew anger from the British Muslim Community. Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, claimed that Straw chose to "selectively discriminate on the basis of religion".