WITHIN hours of speaking in Marlborough on Wednesday last week, former Cabinet Minister Clare Short found herself locked in a battle of words with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The former Secretary of State for International Development was invited by the Marlborough Brandt Group to give the annual Lent Lecture at the town hall. The lectures are organised jointly with Christian Aid.

The hall was packed to overflowing to hear her speak about poverty and inequality in the world at large, two subjects that have always been close to the Birmingham MP's heart.

She was introduced by Brandt Group chairman Ray Jones, and a vote of thanks was given by former director Dr Nick Maurice.

The following morning in a radio interview Miss Short claimed that the British Secret Service had bugged the telephones of Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, during the Iraq crisis and ensuing war.

Miss Short, who resigned from the cabinet after Britain joined America in the war on Iraq, accused agents of spying on the UN leader.

She said she was making the disclosure because she had "embarked on a journey of conscience."

The Prime Minister claimed her remarks could compromise national security and refused to say whether her claims about Kofi Annan's phone being tapped were true or not.

However, Miss Short, while certainly inviting her Marlborough audience to join her on a journey of conscience over world poverty and injustice, made no allegations about spying or phone tapping.

She followed in the footsteps of previous Lent lecturers over the past 22 years including Princess Anne, president of Save the Children; George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and green campaigner Jonathon Porritt.

Miss Short told the Marlborough audience that poverty and inequality were undoubtedly the biggest issues the world was facing.

She said the tragedy of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers had diverted world focus away from both.

In her thought-provoking 45-minute lecture Miss Short said: "It is good for us to think about the material plenty we have and this unequal world."

She said nearly one in five of the world's population was struggling with levels of hunger and need, while the richer nations had agricultural surpluses.

She gave the example of Ethiopia where she said the average gross spend per head of population was 100 dollars a year compared with $25,000 in the western world.

"About 1.2billion people live on less per day than the two Euros given in subsidy for every cow in Europe," Miss Short said.

Starving nations had to be assisted to recovery not just by sending emergency rations but by helping people grow and produce their own food. "If we keep chucking in free food that is no incentive towards the recovery of their own agriculture," she said.

But she was optimistic about the future and lessons learned from the Iraq war and the ongoing struggle between Palestine and Israel.

Miss Short said: "I think it is inevitable that sooner or later there will be a drawing back from that approach and a return to justice.

"Americans sometimes say that Britain lost an empire but had never found a role in today's world." But, she said, Britain did have a role on the world's stage and that was to fight for an end to poverty, inequality and injustice throughout the world.