Over-Cooked

[Keaney Michael <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Penners

A minor, but interesting, story of the Blair ascendancy has been the eclipse
of and utter loss of credibility by Robin Cook. Prior to entering the
government as Foreign Secretary in 1997, Cook's reputation was fairly solid
among Labour leftwingers as someone who had consistently championed civil
liberties and had proven to be one of the most effective front bench
debaters in the House of Commons. Together with John Smith, he was the most
effective interrogator of Thatcher during the Westland affair, and his
stature was enhanced by his performance in the arms to Iraq inquiry of
1994-6, in which a complex web of deceit involving state-sanctioned sales of
arms to Iraq officially made illegal via sanctions was uncovered by the
inadvertent intervention of the Customs service, thereby wrecking an MI6
operation. This further hammered nails into the coffin of the perpetually
beleaguered Major government, and heaped further disgrace and embarrassment
on Thatcher, who was forced to testify during the inquiry, much against her
will.

Almost as soon as Cook got into government, his reputation went through the
shredder. His pompous announcement of a new, "ethical" foreign policy was
almost immediately contradicted by the sale of Hawk fighter jets to an
Indonesian regime proceeding to speed up its deliberate genocide of over 25
years in East Timor. Not long after there was the problem of mercenaries
being used in Sierra Leone, aka, the "Sandline affair". Meanwhile Robin's
marriage broke down after he went public with his relationship with a civil
servant, with whom he is now married. Ex-Mrs. Cook was given ample media
space to belittle him and became something of a minor celebrity, even
writing an agony column for a women's magazine, while publishing her own
"memoir" of her marriage and making regular TV and radio appearances. Her
spite was aggravated in part by the clumsy efforts of the much-vaunted
Labour Party spin doctor machine, which (perhaps deliberately) ended up
being provocative rather than ameliorative.

Cook's ego, while never in doubt, suddenly became a liability, as one mishap
led to another, including a disastrous royal trip to India early on in the
administration in which there was conspicuous lack of coordination between
the Foreign Office and the royal party. There was a wonderful sketch on the
Rory Bremner show at the time showing a Robin Cook, complete with Hawaiian
shirt and straw hat, waiting at Delhi airport arrivals with a piece of
cardboard on which was written in block letters, "Queen". Now Cook finds
himself demoted to Leader of the Commons, while Jack Straw takes over the
mantle at the Foreign Office, promising to bring a greater professionalism
to that post.

Cook's problem stems from a major falling out years ago with Gordon Brown.
Cook made no secret of his desire for the chancellorship. Blair's ascension
to party leader meant that the chancellor's post ended up with Brown, who
has used his position to promote key placemen within the Labour Party
(including the awful Douglas Alexander, newly promoted to ministerial
status). Now Cook is something of a spent force, although with a small
window of opportunity to shine in his new post. History suggests this will
not happen, however, as his predecessors have not made any great mark on
history, with the possible exception of Geoffrey Howe, who, as Foreign
Secretary, was demoted to Leader of the Commons by Thatcher because he was
too pro-European. Howe resigned soon afterwards, giving a resignation speech
that was the signal to Michael Heseltine to launch his challenge against
Thatcher that successfully toppled her but gave the prize to John Major
instead. Cook has nowhere near the pull of a Geoffrey Howe, having been so
thoroughly humbled in the last 4 years. And given Blair's effective
abolition of Cabinet government, there is no platform on which to build an
effective position within the government, while collective responsibility
binds Cook to silence. And, in the ultimate ignominy, Straw appears to have
stolen Cook's mantle as "ethics man" (a truly preposterous turn of events),
as the following reveals.


'Ethical foreign policy' backed by wide-ranging weapons
 export law

 The Queen's Speech: Arms Sales

 By Kim Sengupta

 21 June 2001

 The most radical and wide-ranging
 reform of laws on arms sales
 since the Second World War is
 being proposed.

 The Government, which has faced
 heavy criticism for failure to deliver
 on its much-vaunted "ethical
 foreign policy", promised far
 stricter checks and greater
 transparency over the export of
 weapons.

 The Export Control and
 Non-Proliferation Bill will replace
 legislation that has not changed
 substantially since 1939. It comes
 five years after Sir Richard Scott's
 damning report on arms-to-Iraq
 and will include many of its key
 recommendations.

 Under the proposed laws there will
 be a ban on export licences where they could lead to human
 rights abuses; a ban on sales of "torture equipments"; a ban on
 the sale of landmines; an increase in the maximum penalty for
 offenders from seven to 10 years; and an annual report on
 strategic export controls.

 There will also be tighter scrutiny of end users' certificates,
 which shows where a shipment is heading, and new powers to
 force exporters to supply information.

 After the Scott Report, the Government set out new guidelines
 on arms trading, introduced closer monitoring of the market by
 a select committee and adopted a code of conduct. But human
 rights activists had complained that Tony Blair's Government
 had been dragging its feet on bringing in effective controls.

 Britain is responsible for a quarter of global weapons sales and
 British companies are world leaders in the field. Even while
 Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, was making
 speeches on ethical foreign policy, Britain was selling Hawk
 fighter jets to the Indonesian regime then in occupation of East
 Timor.

 Yesterday, the human rights group Amnesty International said
 it was "very pleasantly surprised". A spokesman said: "It is
 very good news that this Government is taking this issue
 seriously and there now appears to be a political will to take
 effective action.

 "However, what we must ensure is that it is not watered down
 at all before it does become law.''

 The Government also promised to reintroduce a Bill on
 international development, dropped because it ran out of
 parliamentary time before the last election. The Bill will end the
 practice of "tied" aid, under which recipient countries are
 obliged to spend a proportion of the aid on British goods and
 services.

 The speech also reiterated the Government's commitment to
 the proposed European rapid reaction force for peace-keeping
 and crisis management "where Nato chooses not to do so".

Full article at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=79344

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx