Streatham's MP has visited Iraq to help monitor its general election.

Keith Hill MP is part of a Foreign Office team drafted in to help oversee the election to be held in the volatile middle eastern country on Sunday.

The election is the second since dictator Suddam Hussein was toppled by the Iraqi invasion in 2003.

Mr Hill was due to fly out today and has been charged with overseeing polling stations in Erbil, capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

The MP, who is retiring at the next general election, said: “I was asked by our Foreign Office to serve and felt it my duty to go. It's vital the elections are free and fair.”