Her vivid, look-at-me jacket is topped with a bright silk scarf although beneath her long, black skirt are the kind of sensible flat shoes you would expect of a former member of Government.

Her hairstyle, however, has been subtly softened. In her younger days, Clare looked the very image of a strident, serious and ferocious politician, but now she appears content, confident - even slightly flirty.

This startling transformation has nothing to do with makeovers or political spin - she resigned from her job as Overseas Development Secretary three years ago and has been criticising the Government from the back benches ever since.

The object of her affection is 50-year-old merchant banker turned artist Jon Norton, widower of her close friend Mo Mowlam, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, who died last August aged 55 of a brain tumour.

'I've had the good luck to fall in love again and it's wonderful,' says Clare with a beam. 'My life is more fulfilled and content than it ever was when I was in the Cabinet.

There was a time when I left Government that was very unhappy. But if I had stayed, I might never have had the time or space for what I have now. I might have missed it altogether.

She grew up as one of seven children in a strong Labour-supporting family in Birmingham. She went to university, fell pregnant at 18 and was married at 19, before giving up her baby, a boy she called Toby, for adoption because she felt she could not combine motherhood with her studies.

Clare divorced Toby's father after seven years, became an MP and remained single until 1981 when she married fellow MP Alex Lyon, who had left his wife and three children for her.

Then in 1998, when Clare was a Cabinet Minister, Toby made a highly publicised return to her life after searching for his mother through the internet. Once reunited, Clare and Toby had an intense period of reconnection during which it was rumoured that Toby's wife, actress Annie Simmons, was so upset by the sudden entry into her marriage of a new, flamboyant mother-in-law, that she threatened to leave.

off% F SHE is troubled by the fact that she has stepped so easily into the shoes of her old friend, or that I Mowlam's widower is now her lover with his own keys to her Clapham home, she doesn't reveal it. In fact, she regards the quiet progress of her new relationship, which has evolved from grief-stricken platonic support into full-blown love affair, as unimaginable good luck.

Clare values friendship, particularly with other women, very highly. She is close to her sisters, their children and her mother, 83-year-old Joan.

As for Jon, it is easy to see how he was able to transfer his affections from one feisty, outspoken, highly principled politician to another. Clare and Mo were not only friends, but definitely two of a kind.

Clare is reluctant to give too many details about her new relationship, for the time being at least. And there are complications - not least of the practical kind.

For the time being, Jon will keep his house in Kent while Clare divides her time between her constituency home in Birmingham and a house in South London.

Instead of the routine, narrow business of party politics, she is now preoccupied with issues she believes are threatening our way of life, including our inability to check the explosion of drug abuse and the consequences of global warming.

Ever a woman to practise what she preaches, Clare has a new-found zeal for recycling and has an 'almost electric' car. One of the benefits of its green credentials is that, because of its low emissions, she dodges Central congestion charge.

As she talks about Ming's extraordinary recovery from cancer, his strength of willpower and character, there is a flicker of sadness. Memories reemerge of her husband Alex, Mo and the recent death of an old friend and colleague who died within a week of being diagnosed with cancer.

'All humans are fragile, we are all vulnerable, people go so quickly and you never know quite when it's going to happen. We all think we are here forever,' she says.

'I'm one of seven. We all look after my mother. You give back in care what you received as a child. I was washing her hair the other day and I thought, "That's what she did for me." There was something very poignant about that.

Clare does not seem to be scared of much. Her skin might be tougher than it was, her face more lined, her figure more rounded. But she has reached a place in her life where she is content.

'I am not happy with the Government and what it's doing, and I'm not happy with the state of the world,' she says. 'I feel the Government is so foully dishonoured on so many levels, it does not work as a collective any more. I could no more defend this Government than fly to the moon.

'I don't respect what goes on in the Commons. Every single bill is time-tabled. There is no room for honest debate. We all know what an odd institution the House of Lords is but at least it holds the executive of the Commons to account.

'Our political system is in a lot of trouble and malfunctioning badly. Blair should go. Once not just the misjudgment over Iraq but the degree of deceit became clear, he should have gone. It's supposed to be the biggest sin in the British constitutional arrangements to lie to the House of Commons.

'John Profumo, who's just died, told a lie about having an affair with a prostitute and look what happened to him - ostracised for the rest of his life. But rushing into war, risking human life, destabilising the most unstable region in the world, provoking more terrorism - that's really scary.

'Gordon Brown will probably be the next leader, but the more it goes on and nothing is corrected or stopped, the less likely it is there will be a renewal for Labour. Brown has more integrity, but I don't know how far he can retrieve things.

'It's the story of politics across the ages,' she says wryly. 'People don't like giving up power, they want more. That's why America has the two-term limit.

Yesterday she spoke at Hay Festival in a Greenpeace debate about Britain's role in nuclear armaments. Jon was at her side as she took another public dig at the Government she once helped to lead.

But romance has had another, unanticipated effect. While Jon has admitted that he likes to paint in the nude, Clare seems to have rediscovered the joy of clothes, although like the committed Labourite she has always been, she says she tries not to spend too much on her wardrobe.

I admired Clare very much when like Robin Cook she resigned for her beliefs not every one has the backbone to do this. After reading this article I admire her all the more and am glad she has found happiness again.

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