Jack Straw

Jack Straw also refused to give an inch on the issue of cannabis prohibition in his time as Home Secretary, in spite of the massive shift of opinion against it, both among the public at large and in the press - even the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph declared that it was time for the law to change - and in spite of his son, William Straw being caught selling a draw to a Mirror Reporter, and his brother Ed Straw being named in at least one article as an enthusiastic pot-head who sold the occasional draw in his youth, thirty-odd years ago.

After the UK General Election 2001 Jack Straw was replaced as Home Secretary by David Blunkett, formerly Education Secretary, who many expect to be just as bad. Jack Straw is now Foreign Secretary.

Also: A Jacks draw, pronounced 'Jack Straw,' is the amount of draw you can get for a jacks.

Nothing seems to be known about Straw as a person, though his name is famous; a John Rackstraw is also mentioned in accounts of the revolt, and it is possible they are the same. It has even been suggested that he was a mere by-name for Wat Tyler: the word jackstraw could have meant straw man, i.e. something like an effigy or scarecrow, a suitable word for a pseudonym. It had this meaning several centuries later in Milton. Also, some ballads and tales say Straw was killed by Walworth at Smithfield, which is what actually happened to Tyler.

There is a pub in Hampstead, north London, called Jack Straw's Castle, which no doubt would like you to believe it was named for some ancient event involving the peasant leader; but it wasn't. The poet Thom Gunn wrote a volume called Jack Straw's Castle in 1976.

The Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott (1929- ) wrote an overture Jack Straw in 1964.

There is a novel The Confession of Jack Straw by Simone Zelitch, her first novel.