The message from the formidable Blackburn MP Barbara Castle was typically straight to the point: “Be in my office at 2pm, there’s someone I would like you to meet.” When I arrived, she simply said: “Andrew, I would like you to meet Jack Straw, the next MP for Blackburn.” It was her way of announcing her resignation from politics, telling her constituents in her local newspaper before the national press. After shaking the hand of the bespectacled Straw, I quietly questioned her choice. “Trust me, Andrew,” she said. “This young man shows a lot of promise.” That was 30 years ago and, as usual, Barbara Castle was right. By Andrew Calvert.

Jack Straw has held most of the high ministerial posts since joining the cabinet following Tony Blair’s landslide election win in 1997 – Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and, currently, Lord High Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.

Despite the responsibilities and trappings of high office, Straw has remained very much a constituency MP. Much to the chagrin of his security minders, he is probably the only minister who can be found, most Saturday afternoons, stood atop a soap box in the town centre, debating politics with his constituents.

He also works hard, often behind the scenes, to support business and industry in the town.

I reminded him of his intervention to save one of the town’s major employers whose bank was about the pull the plug on the firm. The then managing director, a diehard Tory, approached Straw for help. Within two days Straw had persuaded the chairman of the bank to give the company 12 months to sort out its finances.

“I had never met him before and, to be honest, I did not think much of him or his politics,” said the former MD. “I didn’t think he would do anything for the company, but it all goes to prove how wrong you can be.

“He rang me at home and I explained how 200 jobs were about to go in his constituency. Two days later he telephoned again with a message I will never forget: ‘The dogs are off.’”

Because of obvious commercial confidences, this aspect of Straw’s support generally goes unnoticed. “That type of intervention will usually happen around three or four times a year,” he said. “Yes, it does help being a Cabinet minister – it gives you access to the very top.

“British public service is very fair and impartial. I can’t ask for special favours – but I can ask people to look at things in a different way. No one has any interest in propping up a business that is bust and I am conscious that my reputation is on the line. I like to think the message is out that I am here to help.”

Straw has now been MP for Blackburn for 28 years in which time he has seen a dramatic change in the town’s economy.

“When I first came to Blackburn, 30 years ago, it was still quite heavily dependent on textiles,” he said. “There was still large spinning and weaving mills that were kept going by temporary employment subsidies. Most of that production capacity just blew away in the early 1980s.

“We then had a very difficult period with very high levels of long-term unemployment. It was a point at which Asian and white residents started to divide. Although factory closures were colour blind, the closures disproportionately hit Asian residents. Four years after that, half of Asian men were unemployed – some never went back to work again.”

Straw believes that the completion of the M65 motorway has been the key to Blackburn’s renaissance, though he remains bitter that the then Conservative Government delayed the project for ten years.

“The Government’s approach was not helpful,” he said in the restrained tones of a career politician. “One of the biggest blocks on the development of the area was the decision, in April 1980, to cancel the extension of the motorway between Whitebirk and the M61.

“It took ten years of campaigning to get that put back into the road building programme in 1990. Seven years later, I was proud to be asked to open that section of the motorway and its completion has been crucial, particularly to the south side of the town. We are now in a position where the council has run out of land for development.”

Straw said Blackburn has been facing challenges to its economic base since the 1930s. It had to cope with job losses at major employers such as Royal Ordnance and Philips, but had emerged with a far more diversified industrial base.

“What we now have are some traditional industries with good people and a much higher proportion of manufacturing than the regional or national average. Even though BAE Systems at Samlesbury is just outside the constituency, I take a close interest in the business because we are so reliant on it.”

Straw first made his name in student politics and was elected as president of the National Union of Students in 1969 after he led an occupation of the University of Leeds the previous year.

The one-time student firebrand qualified as a barrister and practiced law. His introduction to mainstream politics came in 1971 when he was elected to the Inner London Education Authority where he was deputy leader in 1973 and 1974.

He worked for Barbara Castle as a special adviser at the Department of Social Security from 1974 to 1976 and then for Peter Shore at the Department for the Environment until 1977. While waiting as the prospective parliamentary MP for Blackburn, he worked for Granada TV’s flagship current affairs series World in Action.

Elected to Parliament in 1979, he worked his way through the Labour party ranks to become opposition spokesman on economic affairs and the environment before promotion to the Shadow Cabinet in 1987 as education spokesman. When Tony Blair succeeded John Smith, he succeeded him as Shadow Home Secretary and took a hard-line approach, famously condemning “aggressive beggars, winos and squeegee merchants”.

After the 1997 General Election, he was appointed Home Secretary, starting ten years of unbroken Cabinet service. The 2001 General Election saw him appointed Foreign Secretary, a post he held for five years before becoming Leader of the House and Lord Privy Seal. He is now Lord High Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.

Straw’s political life has not been without its moments. In the early 1980s he took on both the Militant Tendency and the National Front. Only last year, he caused uproar with his column in the Lancashire Telegraph, questioning the need for Asian women to wear the full veil.

As to the economic future of Blackburn, Straw is committed to seeing a university campus in the town. “We have to be a knowledge-based economy,” he said. “We are the largest sub-regional conurbation without one and it is fundamental to the future that we have one. We must improve the skills base of the area to take the economy to where it can meet the needs of both communities.”