Anna Smith Column: Cook it, Clare

I'M not really sure what to make of the whistleblowing tactics of Clare Short.

I'm glad she's lit the blue touch paper and is exposing yet another Tony Blair sham in the run-up to the Iraq war. But I always feel there is something unhinged about her.

In Kosovo as refugees spilled across the border into a muddy field in Macedonia, I was there when she came bumbling into town, a vision in a red blazer and the wrong shoes.

She might have looked a bit daft, but she ranted and got things done.

But her stance on the Iraq war has been mercurial, to say the least. She was against it, then voted with the government, then changed her mind. Now she's pictured running up the concourse at Heathrow, spitting back at Blair and daring him to take her on.

I applaud what she is doing. But perhaps the delivery should be more like that of Robin Cook, who can coldly expose the lies yet still manage to look like a statesman.

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