Downgraded by Blair, Cook quit over Iraq

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.

After the death of then Labour leader John Smith in 1994, Mr Cook was widely regarded as the best political brain in the British Labour Party. But in an age in which appearance seemed to count for more than ability, he was never seriously in the running as Mr Smith’s successor.

Despite his undoubted political acumen, Mr Cook was regarded as no more than an indifferent foreign secretary and Tony Blair removed him from that post after Labour’s 2001 general election victory and “downgraded” him to leader of the House of Commons.

When Labour had swept to victory in 1997, Mr Blair appointed him foreign and commonwealth secretary, where he adopted what he called an “ethical foreign policy”, which led to much derision.

During his period at the Foreign Office he provoked anger in India and Pakistan when he offered to help resolve the crisis in Kashmir.

He was also involved in a peculiar affair in which Sandline International was accused of trying to topple the military dictatorship in Sierra Leone.

But his worst moment was after the News of the World tracked down his mistress, Gaynor Regan, who was hiding in his London flat. He was given an ultimatum by Downing Street either to end that relationship or end his 28-year marriage to his wife Margaret.

Mr and Mrs Cook were on their way to start a holiday when the ultimatum was delivered. At the airport, he told his wife he was leaving her. He later married Gaynor.

Mr Blair demoted him to leader of the house, a move which Mr Cook plainly resented but gradually grew to like.

It was the impending war with Iraq which finally caused him to resign. He summed up his opposition to the war in his resignation speech: “Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?”

Writing shortly after he resigned from government, Mr Cook dropped a bombshell by suggesting that Mr Blair knew all along that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction available for use.