Monday, August 15, 2005

Robin Cook 1946-2005

Robin Cook was the politician whose views probably most closely echoed my own (although he wouldn't have agreed with me about English devolution!) His death is a huge tragedy and in my view leaves a real hole at the heart of the Labour movement.

The best piece I have so far seen on this came from David Clark (a former policy adviser) in the Guardian, which can be read at the peerless Guardian Unlimited site.

My own view is that Robin would have returned to government under Gordon Brown once the great charlatan had taken his leave of No 10, probably as some kind of constitutional affairs overlord. Unlike Mr Blair, Mr Brown regards this agenda as vitally important and is understood to be considering a number of options for radical reform.

You can read my full take on Robin's career here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I really like you blog and I'm going to bookmark your site!

I have a site onmental health. It pretty much covers mental health related stuff and top sellers.

Come and check it out if you get time :-)

Gareth said...

Good to see that you are blogging again. It might surprise you to know that Robin Cook was not opposed to an English Parliament.

"it would be wrong for those of us from Scotland to interfere in English domestic affairs after devolution has been reached. — Robin Cook [Official Report, 1 February 1977; Vol. 925, c. 457.]

"The English can have an English Parliament whenever they want to as far as I’m concerned. Believe me, if it comes before parliament, I’ll happily put up my hand for it." - Robin Cook [Power Inquiry, 23 Feb 2005)