Known in Ireland as the campaigning journalist-turned-politician who worked to secure justice for the Birmingham Six and to highlight many other miscarriage of justice scandals, he became an MP in 1987.
He was appointed to the Home Affairs Select Committee in 1992 and became its chairman five years later. This has enabled him to pursue his causes with vigour, taking on the security services and clashing with Freemasons after they refused to disclose the names of members in the police.
The left-wing rebel (he used to edit Tribune, bible of the Labour left) has become a government loyalist with an independent streak. He drafted a letter of protest over the lone parent benefit cuts which was signed by 120 MPs.