David Owen

Dr. David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen of the City of Plymouth (born July 2, 1938) is a British politician. In 1981 he was one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party, and was its leader from 1983 to 1987, and of the reformed SDP between 1988 and 1990. He was also the youngest person to hold the post of Foreign Secretary (1977-1979) for over forty years.

Owen trained as a doctor before becoming MP for Plymouth in 1966. He became Foreign Secretary in the Labour government of James Callaghan in 1977, becoming a byword for youthful dynamism. He went on to become joint author of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan to settle the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. He is now leader of the No Campaign which campaigns against British membership of the Euro, and a life peer (Lord Owen), who sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.

On August 17, 2003, just after Idi Amin's death, Owen told an interviewer for BBC Radio 4 that while he was Foreign Secretary he had suggested the assassination of Amin to his cabinet colleagues in order to end his terror regime. His proposal was seen as an outrageous suggestion and rejected. Owen said "Amin's regime was the worst of all. It's a shame that we allowed him to keep in power for so long."