The Strange Death of David Kelly
The high-profile death of David Kelly 21 years ago plunged the New Labour government into crisis and led to the resignation of the BBC’s Director-General. A judicial inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the government to investigate the circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death, cleared it of wrongdoing but was widely dismissed as a whitewash.
When it was published in 2007, The Strange Death of David Kelly was an instant bestseller, starting as it did from the premise that neither the medical evidence nor David Kelly's state of mind and personality supported the verdict of suicide, and that the scientist and biological weapons expert was likely murdered.
The book also analysed and criticised the official process instigated after Kelly’s death, putting the entire episode into its British political context, and looking at the actions of government, particularly in relation to the Iraq war.
This remarkable book has been updated by the author to include the latest evidence and theories surrounding this most mysterious and political of deaths.
Norman Baker was the Lib Dem MP for Lewes from 1997 to 2015 and established a reputation as one of the most dogged and persistent parliamentary interrogators the modern House of Commons has known. Following the 2010 general election, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, then Minister of State for Crime Prevention at the Home Office. He is the author of the bestselling And What Do You Do?: What The Royal Family Don’t Want You To Know and the political memoir Against the Grain.
