Cook, Robin

He was preparing to become a priest, but became disillusioned with religion and became involved in politics. In 1965 he became a Labor Party and in 1970 he ran for the first time in the House of Commons. He studied at the University of Edinburgh before becoming a member of parliament in 1974.

He adjoined the tribune-left parliamentary group "Tribune" and often criticized the policies of the governments of his own party. He also supported reforms to expand personal freedoms, unilateral nuclear disarmament, and European integration. In 1987, he fell into the shadow cabinet of the opposition. In parliament, he was distinguished by his abilities to lead a discussion, which he owed to his political career, which ended with the inclusion in the cabinet.

When Cook headed the Foreign Ministry, Britain participated in interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, but also normalized relations with Iran after threats to Salman Rushdie . Although he was a supporter of the republic, he easily found a common language with the queen on the basis of mutual interest in horses.

President of the Party of European Socialists from May 2001 to April 2004. After the 2001 election, he was transferred to the post of leader of the House of Commons . Desperate to prevent a war in Iraq , resigned on March 17, 2003 in protest of the invasion. Shortly before his death, in his column in the Guardian he called Al-Qaeda "the brainchild of Western intelligence services."

In early August 2005, Cook and his wife Gaynor Regan spent a two-week vacation in the mountains of Scotland. At about 2:20 a.m. on August 6, 2005, while walking down Mount Ben Stack in Sutherland (Ben Stack, Sutherland, Scotland), Cook unexpectedly suffered a severe heart attack, fell and lost consciousness. A helicopter with doctors arrived in 40 minutes. after the call. Robin was taken to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness (Raigmore Hospital, Inverness), while Gaynor had to go down the mountain itself. Despite all the efforts of the medical team to return Cook to a stable state in a helicopter, he never recovered. At 4:05, Cook was pronounced dead. Two days after his death, it turned out that he died of hypertension.

Robert rejected the existence of God, but the funeral service on August 12, 2005, took place in a church attended by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. In a funeral speech, Cook's friend, race expert John McCririck, criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair for not attending Cook's funeral while on vacation.

In January 2007, a tombstone was built at the Edinburgh cemetery, where Cook was buried, with an epitaph: “Perhaps I could not stop the war, but I really cemented the parliament’s right to make decisions related to the war.” This was a direct reference to Cook's strong opposition in 2003 regarding the invasion of Iraq. According to reports, the widow and two sons from a previous marriage, Chris and Peter, picked up the words for the epitaph.