About Jack Straw:
John Whitaker Straw is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015. Straw served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice throughout Brown's Premiership. Straw is one of only three individuals to have served in Cabinet continuously under the Labour government from 1997 to 2010. He voluntarily withdrew from the Parliamentary Labour Party (but remained a member of the party itself) in February 2015 due to "cash for access" allegations. Straw denied any wrongdoing or any breach of the parliamentary rules and voluntarily referred himself to the Commissioner on Parliamentary Standards and withdrew from the Parliamentary Labour Party pending the Commissioner's inquiry.