The son of a senior civil servant, he was Neil Kinnock's chief-of-staff from 1983 to 1992 - a turbulent period for the Labour Party. Before that, he had served as president of the National Union of Students, a well-trodden path to the "grown-up" world of Labour politics at Westminster.
He became an MP in 1997 and rose rapidly. Within a year he was a minister, first at education, then at the Home Office. After the 2001 general election he won a place in the cabinet as Labour party chairman.
Mr Clarke is not a straightforward Kinnockite-turned-Blairite, however, and has previously resisted identifying himself as New Labour. "I'm not a New Labour person, particularly," he has said. "I always call myself modernising old Labour."