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| Britain |
| Former U.K Foreign Secretary Robin Cook dead at 59 |
| 2005-08-06 |
| FORMER British foreign secretary Robin Cook, who quit Prime Minister Tony Blair's government in protest over the Iraq war, died Saturday after collapsing on a Scottish mountain. His death was announced by the Northern Constabulary police force after Cook, 59, was airlifted by helicopter from Ben Stack mountain in the Scottish Highlands after collapsing near the summit whilst out walking. Mr Cook was taken to hospital in "serious condition" overnight after he collapsed whilst hiking in his native Scotland, Sky News and BBC News 24 television reported. Cook, 59, was with a group near the summit of Ben Stack mountain in the Highlands when he collapsed, they said. He was taken to a hospital near Inverness by helicopter after a call to the coastguard. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, standing in for Prime Minister Tony Blair who departed Saturday for a holiday abroad, was to make a statement later Saturday evening, BBC News 24 said. Cook, foreign secretary under Blair from 1997 to 2001, resigned from Blair's government -- in which he was House of Commons leader, in charge of the legislative agenda -- in March 2003 protest over the Iraq war. Last weekend Blair's former Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam, 55, who resigned from parliament at the 2001 election, was admitted to a London hospital where she was reported to be in "critical but stable" condition. It was unclear as to whether her illness was a recurrence of a brain tumour. Ben Stack is a cone-shaped mountain, 721 metres (2,365 feet) high, next to Loch More in the north of the rugged Highlands, and would have been a natural destination for Cook, a keen country walker. During his four years at the Foreign Office, Cook forged an "ethical" foreign policy for Britain, and supported NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 to wrest the mainly ethnic Albanian province from Serbian repression. But he chose to resign Blair's government two days before the US and British invasion that led to Saddam Hussein's downfall, telling parliament: "I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support." He won re-election in his central Scotland constituency of Livingstone in the May general election that put Blair and Labour back in power for a third straight term. No longer a cabinet minister, he was a prolific commentator in the press, and many political analysts expected him to make a comeback once Blair steps down to make way for Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Cook's former parliamentary private secretary Ken Purchase told Sky News that he had heard conflicting reports that his erstwhile boss had collapsed while out walking, or had been involved in an accident. "Whatever it is, if Robin is ill in hospital, we all want to see him up and fit and back again when parliament assembles," likely in September when it returns to debate special anti-terrorist measures, Purchase said. "When I last saw him, he looked very fit and well. His wife Gaynor has been keeping him fit and keeping the pounds off. I have no idea why he might be ill." He described Cook as "without question one of the best parliamentary performers in the Commons at the present time and one of the leading thinkers in the whole Parliamentary Labour Party". |
| Posted by:God Save The World |
| #1 Speaking of wasted space. Here is a sample diary that he kept which gives insight into the way his brain operates. This diary starts from Dec. 2001. Pay close attention to Feb. 28, 2002 Sept 3, 2002, March 5, 2003 and the "Why Blair, the Clinton buddy, gets on so well with Bush" section towards the bottom. Here is the link... |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2005-08-06 22:03 |