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Robin Cook
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==In opposition== Cook became known as a brilliant parliamentary debater, and rose through the party ranks, becoming a [[frontbench]] spokesman in 1980, and reaching the [[Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom)|Shadow Cabinet]] in June 1983,{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} as spokesperson on European affairs. He was campaign manager for [[Neil Kinnock]]'s successful 1983 bid to become leader of the Labour Party.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} A year later he was made party campaign co-ordinator but in October 1986 Cook was surprisingly voted out of the shadow cabinet. He was re-elected in July 1987 and in October 1988 elected to Labour's National Executive Committee. He was one of the key figures in the modernisation of the Labour Party under Kinnock.<ref name=mw/> He was [[Shadow Health Secretary]] (1987β92) and Shadow Trade Secretary (1992β94), before taking on foreign affairs in 1994, the post he would become most identified with (Shadow Foreign Secretary 1994β97, Foreign Secretary 1997β2001).{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} In 1994, following the death of [[John Smith (Labour Party leader)|John Smith]], he ruled himself out of contention for the Labour leadership, apparently on the grounds that he was "insufficiently attractive" to be an election winner,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/10/pretty-party/|title=Pretty Party β The Spectator|date=1 October 2014|access-date=31 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180709075033/https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/10/pretty-party/|archive-date=9 July 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> although two close family bereavements in the week in which the decision had to be made may have contributed.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} On 26 February 1996, following the publication of the [[Scott Report]] into the '[[Arms-to-Iraq]]' affair, he made a speech in response to the then [[President of the Board of Trade]] [[Ian Lang]] in which he said: "this is not just a Government which does not know how to accept blame; it is a Government which knows no shame". His parliamentary performance on the occasion of the publication of the five-volume, 2,000-page Scott Report{{snd}}which he claimed he was given just two hours to read before the relevant debate, thus giving him three seconds to read every page{{snd}}was widely praised on both sides of the House as one of the best performances the Commons had seen in years and one of Cook's finest hours. The government won the vote by a majority of one.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wilson |first=Brian |date=2005-08-08 |title=Robin Cook |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/aug/08/guardianobituaries.labour |access-date=2024-11-17 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |quote=Probably his greatest Commons triumph was in the 1996 debate on the Scott Report into arms for Iraq. Famously, Cook had only two hours access to the report before delivering the tour de force in which he described the Tory frontbench as "limpets".}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=6 August 2005 |title=Obituary: Robin Cook |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4127676.stm |via=news.bbc.co.uk}}</ref> As Joint Chairman (alongside [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrat]] MP [[Robert Maclennan]]) of the Labour-Liberal Democrat Joint Consultative Committee on Constitutional Reform, Cook brokered the 'Cook-Maclennan Agreement' that laid the basis for the fundamental reshaping of the British constitution outlined in Labour's 1997 general election manifesto. This led to legislation for major reforms including Scottish and Welsh [[devolution]], the [[Human Rights Act 1998|Human Rights Act]] and removing the majority of hereditary peers from the [[House of Lords]].
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