Posted 1:55 PM by Paul
Robin Cook

Robin Cook MP died two days ago. A heart attack seems to have caused a fall whilst he was out hill walking and the resulting injuries may have broken his kneck. He was 59.

He will probably be remembered best for his brilliant resignation speech rather than his distiguished political career. In the speech he subtly demolished the case for invading Iraq, not with high blown rhetoric but with quiet reason. It was listened to in hushed silence and greeted with something almost unheard of in parliamentary history. Respectful applause.

Everything he warned of turned out to be true. But you always got the impression from his later speeches and comments that he would have preferred to have been proved wrong. He spoke in sorrow rather than anger.

It would be foolish to claim that he was some kind of anti-war secular saint. He wasn't.

On the night he made the speech I ( and I suspect many thousands of people aocrss the UK and byond) briefly believed that Parliament had some value. For a short time it seemed to be more than a super annuated school debating society.