Robin Cook - 2 comments

A number of us have already posted about Robin Cook's tragic death earlier today. Here are their articles:

Antonia Bance, Jo Salmon, Talk Politics, PoliticalHackUK, Paul Anderson

Update 2: new articles from: Scribbles, Eric, Tom Watson, Virtual Stoa, Mike, Rob Newman, and Oliver Kamm.

And here's Cook's Wikipedia entry.

No doubt the opponents of his stance on Iraq will leave a few respectful days before challenging his views and his legacy, but we'll leave that business aside for now. Cook was a politician who, in the run-up to the 1997 General Election, always felt like one of Labour's strongest, most honest, and most intelligent figures. He seemed a guaranteed vote-winner, and a complete contrast to the type of politician then (as now) favoured by the Conservatives. He was a politician you felt you could count on to provide a shrewd, yet well-thought out and principled answer.

So, it's a hell of a shame. 59 is no age to die.

Update 1: nice article from Paul Anderson...

Whether or not he was right about Iraq - and I'm less convinced now than I was at the time of his resignation - quitting government on a matter of principle was brave and honourable. And the way he conducted himself after his resignation, writing trenchant articles criticising Blair yet also pitching in big-time during the election campaign this year to make it clear that the war was no excuse not to vote Labour, was exemplary. He was not a machine politician, but he knew that democratic politics requires machines - parties - to function.

He was 59: he should have been the voice of the reasonable libertarian Labour left for at least another decade and probably more. But it is not to be. RIP.