BRITISH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT TOM WATSON BLOGS:

Yesterday I ended up three down from Robin Cook when he made his resignation speech. What I would have done to have moved to the end of the row, but once you’re in, you’re in. His speech was typed (so he must have been writing it for some time) and his hands were quivering (it must have been very difficult).

To hear his moral case for no conflict contrasted to the moral case for a conflict put to me earlier in the day by the PM of the Kurds in Northern Iraq. “We have had 35 years of tyranny, and this is our last chance” he told me.

I also met a woman who had witnessed her sister drenched in petrol and set alight by Saddam’s Republican Guard. 100 people were made to witness the event and threatened with being shot if they tried to extinguish the flames. She talked about the acid pools and the torture chambers. She told me how 21 members of her family died in the chemical attack at Halabja.

Why am I writing this? Well, it’s because I’m now convinced there is not a moral case for inaction.

We need more blogging MPs.