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Kenneth Harry Clarke (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British Conservative politician who has represented Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire as a Member of Parliament since 1970. Clarke, one of the UK's best-known politicians, has been described by the press as a "Big Beast". He served in various British Cabinets as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Education Secretary, Health Secretary and Minister without Portfolio. He has been the President of the Tory Reform Group since 1997. Clarke contested the Conservative Party leadership three times – in 1997, 2001 and 2005 – being defeated each time. Opinion polls indicated he was more popular with the general public than with his Party, whose generally Euro-sceptic stance did not chime with his pro-European views. Notably, he is President of the Conservative Europe Group, Co-President of the pro-EU body British Influence and Vice-President of the European Movement UK. Clarke's time as a Cabinet Minister is the fifth-longest in the modern era, having spent over 20 years serving under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron. ==Early life== Clarke was born in 1940 in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire and was christened with same name as his father, Kenneth Clarke, a Nottinghamshire mining electrician and later a watchmaker and jeweller.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP - GOV.UK )〕 He studied at Nottingham High School,〔(www.nottinghampost.com )〕 before going up to Cambridge University to read Law at Gonville and Caius College, where he graduated with an Upper Second honours degree. Clarke had initially held Labour sympathies, his grandfather having been a Communist, but while at Cambridge he joined the Conservative Party. As Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA), he invited former British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley to speak for two years in succession, prompting some Jewish students (including his future successor at the Home Office Michael Howard) to resign from CUCA in protest. Howard then defeated Clarke in one election for the presidency of the Cambridge Union Society, but Clarke subsequently became President of the Cambridge Union a year later, being elected on 6 March 1963 by a majority of 56 votes. He opposed the admission of women to the Union, and is quoted as saying upon his election: "the fact that Oxford has admitted them does not impress me at all. Cambridge should wait a year to see what happens before any decision is taken on admitting them". In an early-1990s documentary, journalist Michael Cockerell played to Clarke some tape recordings of him speaking at the Cambridge Union as a young man, and he displayed amusement at hearing his then stereotypical upper class accent. Clarke is deemed one of the Cambridge Mafia, a group of prominent Conservative politicians who were educated at Cambridge in the 1960s. After leaving Cambridge, Clarke was called to the Bar in 1963 at Gray's Inn and "took silk" (was promoted to Queen's Counsel) in 1980.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Kenneth Clarke )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kenneth Clarke」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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