Labour MP fed up with Blair will stand down

Birmingham Ladywood MP and former Cabinet minister Clare Short says she will be stepping down as an MP at the next General Election. Ms Short blamed Tony Blair's foreign policy and said: "I have reached a stage where I am profoundly ashamed of the government."

She quit as international development secretary in 2003 over the Iraq war and has since called on Mr Blair to resign. Ms Short made her announcement in the Independent newspaper, in which she wrote: "Blair's craven support for the extremism of US neoconservative foreign policy has exacerbated the danger of terrorism and the instability and suffering of the Middle East. He has dishonoured the UK, undermined the UN and international law and helped to make the world a more dangerous place.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme this morning she said she Tony Blair had run roughshod over cabinet government and she thought Gordon Brown would probably be no different if he became prime minister. Ms Short said she would not stand again as a Labour candidate but did not rule out standing as an independent candidate. She intends to spend her time campaigning for a hung parliament and electoral reform.