Don't forget that Clare Short backed Iraq War.

How sick are you of hand wringing Labour cabinet ministers appearing before the Chilcott Enquiry and saying, um, well, we really weren't happy at the time, but, well, um? Clare Short is the worst and most annoying example so far, but Jack Straw doesn't come out of it covered in glory either. Geoff Hoon feared that the Army wouldn't be able to cope.

I'm probably more annoyed with Clare Short than anyone else. I thought better of her than to say this on 10 March but to capitulate to Blair's wishes a week later on the eve of the Parliamentary debate. I'll tell you what, there's no way I'd have sat around in the Cabinet if I felt that the leadership were going to do something wrong and reckless, especially if they'd made the decision in the derisory and dismissive way Clare Short described. You wouldn't think from the way she spoke today that her decision to back the war helped reinforce the Government's position.

There had already been one resignation from the Cabinet - Robin Cook was prepared to put his principles into action. One of two more would have seriously undermined the case for war.

Of course, as Alistair Carmichael pointed out, Blair was aided and abetted by Iain Duncan Smith's Tories who voted virtually unquestioningly for the war, even though now they're pretending that they were critical all along. This is the same IDS who's so out of step with Tory thinking that he's being touted for a job in a David Cameron cabinet.

All in all, I'm just fed up of people who should have known better at the time trying to extricate themselves from any blame for the consequences of their actions. Clare Short needs to wake up to her collusion in a war that killed 179 of our soldiers and heaven knows how many Iraqi civilians, that made us less safe, and reduced our standing in the world.

Mark's MPs Meme

The UK's third most influential Lib Dem blogger, Mark Reckons has challenged us to name all the MPs who had ever represented us.

That'll be a breeze, I thought, being the political geek that I am, they will all just trip out of my brain, just like that.

Not so - most were easy, but a couple took some checking on the internet.

I've been lucky enough to have been represented by a cabinet minister, and a good one who resigned on a matter of principle, a couple of ministers, a Scottish Party leader, a UK Party leader and a complete maverick - not so bad. I've lived in mostly safe seats, but with a couple of marginals in there too.

So, in chronological order, here they are:

1967-79: Russell Johnston, passionate about both home rule and Europe. I'm sorry that I was just that bit too young to get to know him properly, although I met him on several occasions.

1979-87: Robert Maclennan. Bob was the last leader of the SDP and one of the most decent people I've ever known in politics. Although I moved away from Caithness in 1985, I continued to go back to help in elections there until 1992. If you read this blog regularly, you'll be fed up of hearing how I got detention for skipping school to go canvassing for him in 1983 when I was 15!

Those of you who have known me for a long time will know that I was in Aberdeen for a couple of years as a student but I never came off the electoral roll in Caithness so I could vote for Bob in the 1987 election. Just to show I'm a geek, my local MP in Aberdeen North at that time was Robert Hughes

1987-88: Ron Brown, who added colour to the House of Commons and who eventually pissed Labour off so much that they deselected him.

1988-89: The one and only Lord Foulkes.

1989-92: After we moved to England, I was quite disconcerted to be represented by a Tory for the first 3 years, and one with a very Scottish sounding name, Andy Stewart, at that. He lost his seat in the 1992 election that saw John Major cling to power. Paddy Tipping, the Labour MP who succeeded him, is still there.

When we moved back here in 2000, we not only had a Westminster MP but an MSP too. Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary at the time and Bristow Muldoon had seemingly unassailable majorities at the time.

Sadly, Robin, who resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq war, passed away in 2005 to be replaced by Jim Devine, who, it has to be said, is significantly down the food chain and who has recently been deselected by the Labour Party over his expenses.

Bristow lost his seat in 2007 to the SNP's Angela Constance. I've known Angela ever since I moved here when I was on the local Community Centre's management committee. As a local councillor, she attended practically every meeting. I have a lot of time for her. She works very hard and has always been very friendly and polite.

It's quite disappointing that I had to wait until I was almost 40 years old to be represented by a woman. The preceding list is depressingly male, and white for that matter. The issue of getting more women elected is something I want to explore more more fully over the next few weeks.

I am not going to tag anyone with this, so just go ahead and do it if you want to.

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