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“... them, and then went to such self-destructive lengths to stop the UN from looking for them. But as Robin Cook put it in his resignation statement, it does seem that he had ‘no weapons of mass destruction in the generally agreed sense’. Cook was seeing the same Intelligence data that Blair was, so those data must ...”

“... for opposing the war in Iraq, who now works for the UN. He’s more Dominique de Villepin than Robin Cook, with his handsome mane of grey hair and aquiline nose. Rycart is causing considerable trouble for Lang, as Cook sadly cannot for Blair, by doing his best to get him tried for war crimes at the International ...”

“... also preferable to those who don’t give a damn, and functionaries of the British system such as Robin Cook were instrumental in creating the International Criminal Court, an institution which lessens, even if it hardly removes, the legal wriggle room available to this country. A Very British Killing establishes a crucial historical point, all the ...”

“... out against the Nato action as ‘an unpardonable folly’, not only found himself denounced by Robin Cook as ‘the toast of Belgrade’, but also saw both his Party’s and his own personal poll ratings fall. However, the reassertion of Britishness is not a mere by-product of Balkan contingencies. Scottish Labour’s manifesto has trumpeted the ...”

“... new Parliament has not attracted major politicians. Labour heavyweights, such as Gordon Brown and Robin Cook, stayed in London; even Alex Salmond, the leader of the SNP, decided after a term in the Scottish Parliament that he preferred to abandon Edinburgh for the clubbability of Westminster. More significantly, after only a year as first minister of the ...”

“... trail. Would Labour’s disaster of 5 May have happened if any of its best and brightest – Robin Cook, Douglas Alexander, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, even John Smith – had stayed in Scotland to lead the party and the devolved government at Holyrood? Only Donald Dewar took the train back north and became first minister of Scotland in 1999. It ...”

“... which took seven days to digest the report and prepare self-serving press briefings, while Robin Cook, the shadow foreign secretary, was given three hours – made it possible for the government to weather the storm. No one resigned, despite Scott’s explicit finding – explicit, but buried in four volumes and 1800 pages, with no executive ...”

“... genre hack’s best hope of getting into newsprint. There was, for example, fulsome coverage for Robin Cook (Derek Raymond) once he had gone; local colour pieces (memory tapes from the Coach and Horses) outweighing the tepid inches of a life-time’s review space. Cook, that most civilised of men, most troubled of ...”

“... mistress’. I am not sure whether this was better or worse than Campbell’s ultimatum to Robin Cook that he must choose between his wife and his mistress. In any event, Clark resigned soon afterwards, complaining that ‘news management’ had become ‘news invention’. Even the young Queen Elizabeth was moved to remark to her press ...”

“... front, chins thrust forward, as if on their way to a Royal Marine assault course. Next appears Robin Cook, who is led aside by Alastair Campbell and rehearsed in conspiratorial whispers about what he is to say to the reptiles waiting across the road. Cook, whom I’ve never met, gives me a quick, suspicious ...”

“... Historians of any society have to learn to be wary of the accepted myths of their subject. Sometimes these bogus visions of the past are deliberately created or fostered by the governing group. Sometimes they come from an educated but perhaps unsophisticated middle class, anxious to gain historical sanction for its security and power. Sometimes these beliefs are the possession and creation of the working class ...”

“... the bill [hanging all sorts of unrelated measures onto a central spine], as Robin Cook used to call it.’ He could hardly be more candid than that. The last time the securocrats got so far with their assault on liberty was the introduction of internment in Northern Ireland in 1971. This was a disaster, for two reasons: a. it ...”

“... to traditional institutions and their ideology than is the political elite. The appointment of Robin Cook as Leader of the House could make a difference, and he should seize the chance. Being Foreign Secretary sounds grand but in practice counts for little. Few can distinguish one Foreign Secretary from another and an apparatchik like Straw will do ...”

“... was sitting in Desmond’s Club in Charlbury and his friend Monty had just joined them.’ ‘Robin, at that moment in the cottage near Skipton, was eating dinner with Stephen.’ Surely the art of narration ought to be a little less blatant than this? Since the novelist can hardly simulate the essentially voyeuristic pleasure of the Dallas cut – when ...”

“... Mod wideboys? Doubtless it was never quite so cut and dried. Skim the sub rosa lit of the time (Robin Cook, Alexander Baron, Colin MacInnes) and you’re plunged into a lost river with discrete but commingled tributaries: gay, criminal, East End Jewish, upper-class drop-out, lower-class dandy; the ‘morries’ of ...”