Ann Clwyd

There's a long interview with Ann Clwyd in today's Observer:

Clwyd entered the public imagination in February. It was the day of the crucial House of Commons vote on whether Britain should commit troops to war on Iraq. Blair was contemplating resignation if he could not get at least half of his restless Labour MPs to back him.

In the end 139 Labour MPs voted against the Government, the biggest rebellion of Blair's premiership. It could have been 30 more and far more politically dangerous had Clwyd not given the remarkable speech about why she was backing the Government's push towards conflict.

This month the chairman of the judges for the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards said of Clwyd's speech: 'Few MPs have the power to bring the House of Commons to silence. Such was the achievement of Ann Clwyd...'
.....
Clwyd admits that the question of weapons of mass destruction was the wrong one on which to base the war. But rather than blame the protagonists, she says that the fact that there is only a shaky legal basis under the United Nations for military intervention on humanitarian grounds - apart from to avert genocide - shows that the UN needs to look again at its own charter.

Read the rest.