March 17, 2003
TOO MANY COOK:
Robin Cook: Big hitter who allowed the personal to overshadow the political (Paul Waugh, 18 March 2003, Independent uk)Robin Cook is a brilliant parliamentary debater, but comes across dreadfully on television. He believes in an "ethical dimension" for foreign policy, but cheated repeatedly on his wife. His soft-left views are in tune with many Labour MPs, but he has few real friends on the back benches.For the former leader of the Commons, the personal always seems to get in the way of the political. Last night, amid a fevered atmosphere at Westminster, many MPs were wondering what was going on in Mr Cook's brain. Was he plotting to lead a rebellion solely against the war on Iraq, or was it a wider campaign against New Labour itself?
His supporters claim that, in the short term at least, his clear intelligence and passion could make him one of the most formidable opponents of a Blair government. Some more excitable colleagues even suggest that if the war on Iraq went disastrously wrong, he would be ideally placed to defeat Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership.
His critics wondered if his resignation was a desperate attempt to restore the reputation of a man who had thrown his dignity away while in office.
For Britain's sake, hopefully he'll lead a full scale revolt and force the contradictions. Tony Blair does not belong in the Labour Party. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 17, 2003 8:47 PM
I doubt the restoration of his dignity was Cook's concern.
His affair happened very early on when New Labour came to power and was a dead issue. He'd carved out a pretty prominent position as leader of the House of Commons after his demotion from the Foreign Office so it wasn't like he was floundering away in an unknown job.
He may have done this for purely political reasons in case the war goes very badly for us (which is quite a gamble to take) but I suspect he did it out of principle.
the labour party has done better than the previous tory government, so i, for one, hope he survives. for the first time in 10 years, steps are being taken to improve our public services and education system, rather than letting the "market" fail
Posted by: xavier at March 18, 2003 9:06 AMxavier:
Their steps aren't going to make a whit of difference.
Although the establishment of foundation hospitals is a crawl in the right direction.