Ten years ago, on the eve of the Iraq War, Mark Seddon, editor of Tribune, visited Saddam Hussein’s former Deputy PM Tariq Aziz in Baghdad and incurred the wrath of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell by reporting that Iraq had no WMDs. He was proved right but he was soon dropped as a candidate for Buckingham and a key member of Labour’s NEC.
Now that Blair and Brown are history, Seddon is considering a return to politics, he told a meeting of the Sohemians at the Wheatsheaf in Rathbone Place. Seddon was being interviewed about his memoir Standing for Something — Life in the Awkward Squad, by his old friend from the Gay Hussar, cartoonist Martin Rowson. The gravity of the occasion was disrupted by Gay Hussar manager John Wrobel putting an uncooked duck on the table. He also recalled trying to help Frank Longford wipe lunch off his clothes when the peer’s trousers fell down very publicly in Dean Street.
