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."