After Dinner Speakers: Rt. Hon David Owen Lord, Jools Holland, David Mellor

A medical doctor, whose saturnine countenance led him to be dubbed Doctor Death' by the British satirical magazine Private Eye, David Owen entered politics as a Labour MP in 1966. He rose rapidly through the ranks to become Britain's foreign secretary in 1976, and kept the post for a year and a half. In 1981 he was one of the leaders of a split in the Labour Party, which at its peak attracted 29 defectors to the new Social Democratic Party. In 1992 he stood down from the House of Commons and was promptly made a member of the House of Lords. Commissioned as a special adviser to the Balkans problem, The Vance Owen Plan was the template for eventual settlement of that regions conflicts and is regarded as the crowning achievement of his diplomatic career.