think, yeah, I did my best and I’m proud
of what I did.
You were ‘Inquisitor of the Year’?
I was, I was Inquisitor of the Year in the
Spectator, I was Opposition Politician of
the Year for Channel 4, I got Newcomer
of the Year from somebody or other,
so I’ve got lots of awards, they’re all
clogging up the mantelpiece in my office.
LibDem Minister of the Year was the
most recent one.
You’ve been referred to as a little thorn
in the Government’s side, but that’s
obviously something you’re going to
be proud of…
If you’re in opposition what can you do? I
mean, you can do the constituency end,
but if you’re holding the Government to
account then clearly you need to be a
thorn in their side, otherwise what’s the
point of being there?
You mentioned your book on David
Kelly, which was in 2006?
I stepped down in 2006 for a year from
the Shadow Cabinet and did the book
and then came back after I’d written it.
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Is it something that still frustrates you
or did you just have to let it go?
Well, I let it go in the sense that you can
only give up so much of your life to one
particular issue, and I spent a year doing
that. I did it on top of everything else.
I freed up the time from the Shadow
Cabinet and that’s the time I used for
the book so it didn’t interfere with my
constituency stuff. I’m appalled that that
issue has not been looked at properly
yet. Here is a guy who died under
mysterious circumstances, very much in
if you’re holding the
Government to account
then clearly you need to
be a thorn in their side,
otherwise what’s the
point of being there?
the public eye, and yet there’s been no
inquest. How can there be no inquest?
I mean, how can people not demand an
inquest for that? We must get an inquest,
and all the evidence that we’ve accrued,
I accrued and others have accrued,
has suggested there are a whole range
of oddities, like no fingerprints on the
knife he’s supposed to have used to kill
himself and he wasn’t wearing gloves,
for example – a whole range of stuff
like that which does suggest this needs
to be looked at properly. The doctors,
professional doctors saying he could not
have died the way he was supposed to
have died, I mean why is it that nothing’s
happened about this? How can this
country let that happen? So it may well
be at the end of it, there’s an explanation
which is different to the one in my
book, you know, I’m not saying that I
necessarily cracked it, but what I do say
is that it’s outrageous that this hasn’t
been properly looked at in line with
normal procedure.
What sort of answers did you get to
those questions that you raised?
I got answers that only made me more
convinced that the official explanation is