As part of this site’s commitment to follow life inside the Labour Party a bit more closely let’s start as we mean to go on.

Oona King, who has declared her interest in becoming Labour’s next London mayoral candidate, was given the front page of the Guardian’s supplement today as well as a four page spread inside. Kira Cochrane’s piece is not likely to win any prizes for hard hitting investigative journalism but does point to a promising career ghost writing celebrity autobiographies.

Let’s see what we learn about Oona King’s politics from her own words.

It’s a relief to know that she’s is willing to take a public stand against genocide. It can be such a divisive issue but as an “international socialist” (sic) how does she explain her support for the Iraq war.

“I think you have to understand what motivated me, because people often don’t . . . They don’t know that I set up the all-party group on genocide prevention. And they don’t know that I spent a year on an inquiry into the plight of Iraqi civilians.” She says she heard evidence of Iraqis being crucified in torture chambers under Saddam’s regime. “I put on record then that I thought that the British government should do anything and everything it could to get rid of Saddam Hussein, someone guilty of genocide. I still think that, in general, being an international socialist, if you can get rid of someone, if you can take action against someone guilty of genocide, that is a principle I would still adhere to.”

How did she feel about New Labour?

“I was very loyal to the founding principle of New Labour,”

Are principles important for a politician and what are hers?

“Those principles are about taking whatever measures you can in the here and now to improve things here, today, not in the never-never land of a utopian socialist society.”

Why is she a bit vague on policy details at the moment?

That’s because she wants a “listening campaign, because too often politicians will deliver a fully fledged policy manifesto with no opportunity for people to really engage”. Quite how this will be done is left rather open ended.

What was her opinion of Gordon Brown?

“She once described listening to Gordon Brown at his best as being better than sex.”

What do voters look for when electing senior public official?

“I think Londoners want a mayor who has some personality, who is not always going to stick to a script, and who says what she thinks.”

And there we have it. Pretty inspirational stuff.