Robin Cook has died

[Templar Knight]

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook died on Saturday after collapsing while walking on a mountain in northern Scotland, police said. He was 59.

Cook served as foreign secretary from 1997 to 2001 and maintained a high public profile as a fierce critic of Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq.

He resigned as Leader of the House of Commons in 2003 over the government's decision to back the U.S.-led war.

Cook was walking on Ben Stack mountain on Saturday when he collapsed, police said.

"Mr Cook apparently took ill while walking with his wife Gaynor on Ben Stack and was removed by Stornoway coast guard helicopter to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness," a police statement said.

He died in hospital on Saturday evening, it said.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, standing in for Blair, who is on holiday, said: "Robin was the greatest parliamentarian of his generation.

"He also made an enormous contribution to British politics in opposition and in Government. He will be sorely missed."

Cook was regarded as one of the outstanding political debaters of his era. He drew widespread praise for an eloquent resignation speech when he quit the government.

Cook, a Scot, took over the Foreign Office in 1997 after a landslide election win by the Labour party, pledging a new "ethical dimension" to foreign policy.

But his first year in office was marked by personal embarrassment and questions over his judgment.

He abruptly ended his 28-year marriage to first wife Margaret when a newspaper threatened to reveal he was having an affair with his secretary Gaynor Regan, whom he later married.

He survived the scandal to play a prominent role in NATO's 1999 campaign to force Serbian troops out of Kosovo. He later listed "defending Kosovo" as one of his greatest achievements.

Although his switch to become leader of the House of Commons was a demotion, Cook took on the task with vigour and sought to modernise centuries-old traditions in parliament.

He also seemed to relish life on the backbenches after quitting the cabinet. He published a highly acclaimed book on his years in government and wrote frequent newspaper columns.

He was also fanatical about horse racing.

When asked which book he would take with him if he were banished to a desert island, he chose the National Hunt Form Book, a guide to horse racing in Britain.

The son of a chemistry teacher, he was educated at Edinburgh University, where he studied English literature and began a career in Labour politics. He was first elected to parliament in 1974

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/06082005/32...cook-dies.html

sad news indeed

he could not have died in a better place

[JAG]

This is the first I have heard of this and I am in utter shock, no way.

He was such a great, great man. Full of integrity and intelligence, such a shame he has died. I really can't believe this, we need him so much now more than ever as well in what has happened in the last month. Our country, politics. parliament and Labour party all needed him, what a shame he has gone.

I am pretty speechless, no way..

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

RIP to one of the only members of the Labour party who actually had the balls to stand up for what he believed in.

[KukriKhan]

Kudo's to a man of principle. Rest in Peace.

[Marcellus]

I think that he was the greatest member of the modern Labour party. His resignation speech just before the Iraq war was one of the best, most effective speeches I have ever heard. He was a man of principles who will be missed by many, I am sure. RIP.

[Adrian II]

I think that he was the greatest member of the modern Labour party. His resignation speech just before the Iraq war was one of the best, most effective speeches I have ever heard. He was a man of principles who will be missed by many, I am sure. RIP.

A great loss for Britain. Cook had an unrivalled grasp of foreign policy issues and his speeches were feared by the opposition as if they were weapons of mass destruction. But like so many others who believed in some degree of autonomy for British foreign policy, he was side-tracked and ultimately sacrificed in the interest of the trans-Atlantic relationship. Who is going to pay off that mortgage once Blair steps down?

[King Henry V]

EDIT: inappropriate statement removed, I don't think slandering the dead is appropriate in this thread - Ser Clegane

[Tribesman]

Just another politician .
Though he did stand up and say that Blair was selling the people a load of bull over the invasion of Iraq , and he did rip into the previous government for giving weapons to Saddam , but then again he was involved in the weapons to Sierra Leone scandal himself ...just another politician .

[rasoforos]

The Labour party had only one pair of Balls....


...now they have no balls.

RIP

Unlike the whole other bunch of losers cowering behind tony blair just in case they lose the election, Robin Cook had the balls to put his humanism and his morals above his career. Its sad that its mostly the good ones who die first...



Makes me sad, shocked and angry.

[KukriKhan]

Out of respect, let's wait at least until he's in the ground before we turn his death (and life) into a political issue, shall we?

[JAG]

I am a subscriber to a democratic socialist pressure group / think tank called Compass, of which Robin Cook played a huge role, I got an email today which I thought highlighted the importance he had for the politics of the left and the country. Such a shame he has gone.

Compass reaction to the death of Robin Cook

The sudden news that emerged early on Saturday evening that Robin Cook was dead was a terrible shock. Robin had always been in such good health. Many of us counted him as a personal friend and our own lives will be more empty without him. But the real shock came from the hammer blow to what politics had lost. We had instantly been cheated of a figurehead who, more than anyone else, epitomised the politics of the democratic left. We had lost our leader.



Robin possessed both vision and realism. He dealt equally brilliantly with the day to day detail of political life but could also speak to the hearts and hopes of Labour people. Speaking to Meg Russell yesterday – someone who worked for Robin and is now a member of the Compass Management Committee – she reminded me how instrumental Robin was in ensuring thousands still voted Labour at the last election, and therefore that many Labour MPs kept their seats. And as New Labour moved ever further from the party’s traditional values and especially after Iraq, Robin helped probably more than anyone else to give people a reason to go on and a reason still to believe. It is a dangerous moment for Labour that the glue that he provided and which held the party’s broad coalition together is no longer going to be there. This is a vacuum that needs filling and is up to those at or near the helm of Labour to think hard about how they’re going to make up for this loss.



Robin was the godfather of the soft left, that crucial bit of Labour that emerged in the 1980s and fuelled the shift from mad oppositionalism to the years of power we now enjoy. This was ‘soft’ not in the sense of weak or watered down, but in the sense that it drew it legitimacy and strength from a belief in the intrinsic value of democracy. Robin knew that socialism could not be forced from the top down but only built by the active consent and involvement of people from the bottom up.



He was a political pragmatist in an era that had given pragmatism a bad name. While others simply became opportunists Robin remained pragmatic in the true sense of the word. He knew where he was going but was clever and flexible about how he got there. The tragedy of his death is that there was still so much more to come.



Robin was a great champion of Compass – there was not one single refusal to speak or act on our behalf. He was there for an early summer school of 20, took part in our post-election discussions, and had only recently been discussing plans to build relationships between Compass and supportive members of the PLP. His last big speech was to the Compass conference in June this year. He willingly accepted the tough spot at the end of the day I wanted him on then because I knew people would only wait for him and they did - all 600 of them. It was a typical Robin tour de force. Not least his withering condemnation of New Labour’s naïve and dangerous infatuation with the market in public services. People floated out of the hall lifted by his words and the confidence he instilled. He had already agreed to speak at the Compass rally at party conference and I can’t imagine how we go about replacing him. Now our job has to be finding a way of honouring Robin and his political legacy.



I know some are thinking ‘what‘s the point in going on without Robin’. For now at least the world feels a darker and more hostile place without him. But it would be unimaginably worse if he had not graced us with his great political mind and energy. His death presents us with a challenge not just to fill the void but to build on his ideals of democracy, international justice, public service, equality and sustainability. If we don’t meet this challenge then his life and commitment will mean less, just at the moment they need to mean much more. Instead of a reason to give up, his tragic death is a spur to make his beliefs a living reality.



For two decades Robin Cook was our Compass. We will miss him enormously. But we will remember him the best way we can by building a legacy of ideas and organisation for what he believed in – a more equal and democratic society.



By Neal Lawson

Chair, Compass

[Adrian II]

Just another politician.

True, President Tribesman, true. But then, politicians are people like the rest of us. They are not a special breed. Cook was just another human being, He made errors of judgment on Iraq (1998), Indonesia (Hawks) and Sierra Leone, though they were not of a moral nature and he did not commit them for his own financial gain or political prestige. And when he saw real mistakes being made that led to a major war, he stood up for the truth. Apart from his views as expressed in speeches and pamphlets, that makes him more than just another human being in my eyes.

[BDC]

I liked him. Funny, intelligent, more morals than most politicians.