Hundreds of mourners gathered today to pay tribute to former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who died suddenly last weekend.

FEW politicians resign from Cabinet on grounds of principle. Most are only proved right about their issue of principle after their deaths.

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook died of hypertensive heart disease, the Crown Office said today.

ROBIN COOK was an unspectacular foreign secretary and a popular leader of the House of Commons, who dramatically resigned from the British government in March 2003 as a protest about the impending war against Iraq.

POLITICAL leaders came together yesterday to pay tribute to former British foreign secretary Robin Cook, who died on Saturday from a heart attack.

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook died in hospital today after collapsing while hillwalking in Scotland.

Friends and colleagues of former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook were tonight urgently checking reports that he is seriously ill in hospital after collapsing on a mountain holiday in Scotland.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned by his intelligence chiefs that the case for war against Iraq was being fixed by the United States to suit their policy, it was claimed yesterday.

THE death of Diana, Princess of Wales in a car crash happened after the vehicle she was meant to be travelling in failed to start, according to official documents released yesterday.

Iran’s supreme leader yesterday harshly condemned US President George Bush’s State of the Union address, saying his administration would fail in its attempt to uproot the ruling Islamic establishment.

MARRIED magazine publisher Kimberly Quinn had a three-year-long affair with former British Home Secretary David Blunkett.

Channel 4 News tonight quoted an unnamed “senior government source who has seen the Butler Report” into the gathering and handling of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to last year’s Iraq War. as saying it had cleared Tony Blair of mishandling intelligence in order to make the case for war with Iraq.

West Lothian Council have blasted the Halifax Bank of Scotland after the Lionheart Consortium withdrew their bid to take over Livingston.

British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott launched the European election campaign today with a rousing call on voters to back “justice, freedom and equality”.

British defence secretary Geoff Hoon today tried to play down new controversy surrounding the 45-minute claim in the British government’s Iraq dossier.

A BRITISH defence minister at the time of the Iraq war said yesterday it was "increasingly likely" the intelligence on which the British government relied ahead of the conflict was 'deficient'.

Tony Blair today faced a fresh wave of attacks accusing him of deceiving Britain over Saddam Hussein’s weapons arsenal.

Tony Blair is the least trustworthy politician in Britain, a new survey found today.

DOWNING STREET last night dismissed claims that Tony Blair knew Iraq did not pose a real threat to Britain before the war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair privately conceded before war with Iraq started that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction that could be used within 45 minutes, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook claimed today.

HE is the man who has been labelled the India-rubber-ball of British public life because of his unerring ability to bounce back from personal disasters which would have crippled and possibly destroyed most people.

British government ministers and BBC bosses are facing a public grilling on their treatment of Dr David Kelly, after the law lord appointed to investigate the civil servant’s death announced today he would not hold his inquiry behind closed doors.

Tony Blair is coming under mounting pressure to authorise an independent inquiry into the Iraqi dossiers affair after a trans-Atlantic split opened up over crucial intelligence.

FORMER British cabinet ministers Robin Cook and Clare Short said yesterday they were both told by MI6 in the run-up to the war with Iraq that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction did not pose any immediate threat.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair is poised to shuffle his ministerial pack, government sources say, with speculation centring on a place at the top table for a Europe supremo.

SINCE time immemorial, the doubters have always demanded signs and portents, like stars falling from heaven, to bolster their faith and as a litmus test of the good authority of the one expected to perform miracles. And so it has proved with Iraq.

A FORMER member of British prime minister Tony Blair’s Cabinet reportedly accused him yesterday of spinning intelligence to justify the war on Iraq and said he had “duped” his colleagues about alleged weapons of mass destruction.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday underlined his belief that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction amid growing scepticism about the coalition’s ability to prove their existence.

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook today called on Britain and America to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq.

The replacement of John Reid as Britain's Labour Party chairman could strengthen a campaign to get the party to lift its membership ban on people in Northern Ireland, it was claimed today.

SO, it seems we’re a little bit divided about the Iraq war, but we have our minds made up about our own Government.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken the biggest political gamble of his premiership in backing President George Bush on war with Iraq.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair last night won Commons backing for war against Iraq but at the personal cost of another huge backbench rebellion.

The British Prime Minister today appealed for MPs to back him in standing firm against Iraq as military action loomed.

Britain's Tony Blair was today rocked by two more ministerial resignations as he prepared for today’s crunch Commons debate on Iraq.

US President George W Bush last night set the US and Britain on course for war within days to depose Saddam Hussein.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair suffered his first political casualty yesterday with the resignation of Robin Cook.

House of Commons Leader Robin Cook today became the first cabinet casualty of the planned war on Iraq – quitting his post minutes before an emergency meeting of ministers.

War on Iraq without a second UN resolution looks ever more likely today as time slipped away to secure the peaceful disarmament of Saddam Hussein.

High-stakes diplomacy was continuing today at the United Nations in New York, as Britain struggled to secure support for a draft resolution to authorise war on Iraq.

Tony Blair should set out a clear strategy for Britain’s entry into the European single currency, according to a report by a think tank published today.

Reports that two Omagh bombing suspects are being granted legal aid to fight a civil action against them were today condemned in the British House of Commons as “absolutely outrageous”.

ENGLAND’S senior cricket administrator said last night the British Government had left the team in a no-win position over its calls for a boycott of its World Cup match in Zimbabwe.