Martin Bell has been many things – an icon of BBC war reporting, Britain’s first independent MP for 50 years, a UNICEF ambassador, a staunch supporter of rights for the armed forces and the man in the white suit – a tireless campaigner for honesty and accountability in politics.

His new book, however, reveals he is also a talented poet of light verse. Here Bell’s poems continue his war by other means on duplicitous politicians, our all-consuming media, the venality of celebrity culture and much more.  He presents poems on Tony Blair and Iraq – a theme he returns to frequently as he laments the plight of the troops as they fought what he regards as an illegal war; on Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian War criminal whom he met on trial in the Hague; and on his hero, Reuters reporter Kurt Schork, killed on assignment in Sierra Leone.

Bell’s collection of poems is a funny, honest and often moving account of his life and experiences.