Mo Mowlam has urged Tony Blair to turn back from taking Britain into war with Iraq.

The former cabinet minister writes in the Mirror that it is not too late to avoid conflict.

Warning of the many political risks of going to war, she concedes that America is now very likely to lead a strike on Saddam as this is now the "least risky option" open to George Bush.

But Mowlam argues that the prime minister does not have to follow the US into the middle east or "take the dismissive approach to Iraq's actions taken by the United States".