Jack Straw

Jack Straw held several cabinet positions including Foreign Secretary. Now the backbench MP for Blackburn, Mr Straw declares two outside interests: both in advisory roles, one of them earning him £60,000 a year working for a British global commodities trader.

Mr Straw is standing down as an MP but he's been tipped to enter the Lords later this year.

He first entered parliament in 1979 when he was elected to represent his current Blackburn constituency.

His first promotion to front bench politics came when he was appointed Labour's Education spokesman in 1987, calling on Local Education Authorities to give private Muslim and Orthodox Jewish schools the right to opt out of the state system and still receive public funds.

He also servedas Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment under John Smith from 1992 to 1994.

When Tony Blair became party leader, he appointed Mr Straw as Shadow Home Secretary - a role he would continue to hold once Labour was elected to government in 1997.

During his 14 years as Home Secretary, he ordered a public inquiry into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence which famously concluded that the Metropolitan Police Service was "institutionally racist".

Controversially, he was responsible for freeing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from house arrest in Britain on medical grounds, allowing him to return to Chile before he could be tried for crimes against humanity.

He became Foreign Secretary in 2001, a few months before the September 11 attacks, and subsequently oversaw a new UK-US Extradition Treaty which speeded up the extradition of terror suspects.

He has also been dogged by allegations over complicity in "extraordinary rendition", which he has always denied.

He was demoted to Leader of the Commons in 2006, a post he held for a year, before becoming Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice under Gordon Brown from 2007-2010.

In 2010, he retired from front-bench politics.