THE FOREIGN SECRETARY IS NOT COOKED YET
Sion Simon argues against the general assumption that Mr Cook's former wife has destroyed his career — quite the opposite
LAST WEEK I called on Robin Cook in the sumptuous gilded boudoir that is the Foreign Secretary's office. It is a dangerous room. Few who rise to such exalted rank do so without having elements of the grand seigneur in their personalities. Occupying this post-rococo homage to the imperial master race can do little to dampen their magisterial ardours.
In this regard Mr Cook is at least as falli- ble as the next man, but it is not clear quite how he has managed during so short a tenure of office to fix in the collective mind of the fourth estate his particular susceptibility to the sin of pride. It is a problem of which he is acutely aware. Before we got down to the serious off-the-record stuff, Cook pointed to the space above the fireplace. 'That's the mirror you'll have read about in all the profiles of me', he said, 'that I had specially put there instead of an old picture, so that I could look at myself every waking moment from my desk.' Needless to say, there is nothing above the Foreign Secretary's mantle but several yards of Mr Johann Zoffany's finest.
It is against that background that Mrs Margaret Cook, in writing an attack on her former husband, may be considered to have done him a favour. She has described their sex life by means of some of the most excruciatingly coy euphemisms to rear their shameful heads in public since the 1950s. First, there was 'a problem that made him less active in marital relations with me'; then 'his sexual difficulties now disap- peared'; but then 'I told him that this spelt the end of the physical side of our mar- riage'; indeed, 'I would never be a wife to him again in the physical sense, the very thought was repulsive'; and yet, 'our mutu- al recuperation would depend on a full married life'; which would presumably delay the time when they would 'settle down in a brother-sister relationship' while he 'found release with other women'; 'yet if he was not having marital relations, either with me or his mistress, he could be in seri- ous difficulties and might act foolishly in a state of deprivation'. But then, 'without another word we went upstairs. His delight in our rehabilitation was considerable and unfeigned.'
Whatever Mrs Cook's motives for entan- gling the nation in this terrible mix of prud- ery and prurience, she has failed to undermine her former husband's career.
Her allegation that he was a boozer is absurd; and the sex-life parts of her story are so embarrassing to read that one feels nothing but sympathy for the serial adulter- er. At a stroke, the strutting peacock who was Fleet Street's favourite target is sub- mitted to such indignity that the effect is nullified.
Having passed an uncomfortable 20 months as the Cabinet minister widely con- sidered to have fallen shortest of the promise of opposition, Cook is now sur- prisingly well placed for rehabilitation (in the political sense of the word). First, as I have said, the paradox of his ex-wife's book is that its medium-term impact will be to create a more sympathetic view of the intended target. Second, the Tories have made criticism of Cook's record in office stick because of the opprobrium attached to his character. But there is little sub- stance to them. Cook seems destined, although it is not true, to be credited with embarrassing the Queen and upsetting the entire region when visiting India in the autumn of 1997. But he was exonerated by the Sandline inquiry; he is much more widely liked and respected in Europe than you would ever know from reading the British press; relations with Madeleine All- bright are almost spookily warm; Desert Fox, though it certainly alienated unexpect- ed swathes of British press and public opinion, did not have serious adverse conse- quences within Europe and was obviously viewed posi- tively by the US foreign poli- cy establishment.
The other simple reason why Cook cannot convinc- ingly be blamed for Desert Fox is that nobody seriously believes it was his policy. Not that he had reservations as he did over the Gulf war which the rest of the free world supported —but that it is Blair who calls the tune on such matters. It is always the prime minter who makes the final decision to commit troops, but Blair has taken an unusually keen interest in foreign affairs for a novice leader still in the early stages of his admin- istration.
This points the way towards the third reason why a Cook renaissance might not be such a strange idea as this week's head- lines would seem to suggest. Blair's engage- ment in foreign affairs has stemmed in large part from the unusually wide-ranging role he has allowed Gordon Brown on the domestic front. There are other factors at work, such as the importance of Europe, closeness with the Clinton administration and the natural inclinations of Blair's chief of staff, the former diplomat Jonathan Powell. But when it comes to foreign affairs, there is also an element of truth in the Chancellor's otherwise deludedly grandiose analogy — that he is like a prime minister to Blair's president. Or, rather, was. Alastair Campbell has let his view be known that the PM must henceforth undertake fewer foreign trips. The Blair premiership is to refocus itself far more clearly on domestic matters, part- ly for public-relations reasons, but mainly in order to thwart the Chancellor.
The extra opportunities this will provide for Mr Cook to pirouette fetchingly on the world stage will doubtless help restore some of the gravitas which, bizarrely, he possessed in abundance until he became Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. But it is the other consequences of Labour's black Christmas from which he is best poised to benefit. It is to Cook's great credit that he has always avoided clandes- tine character assassination of his rivals, the most unsubtle examples of which the Brown operation has tended to reserve for him. Now that the bond of enmity between Blair and his Chancellor has been sealed beyond all hope of reconciliation, Cook has his reward. Blair's biggest enemy's biggest enemy may not necessarily be his best friend, but such clichés do not endure thousands of years for no reason. It is little appreciated that Cook sincere- ly, indeed passionately, believes in the practical essentials of the New Labour gov- ernment's project (that is, the New Deal, constitutional reform and particularly PR). It is no longer accurate to portray him as a And Jason here wants to know if we have them in golden.'
reluctant left-winger in the Prescott mould, whatever his ex-wife might say about his distaste at selling his soul. From his point of view, though, general unawareness of his enthusiasm for Blairism is just as well while it leaves him in position as a darling of the Tribunite Left. Such a man is exactly what Tony Blair needs. Particularly when his past includes a healthy dose of Euroscepti- cism, the ghost of which, though it did not accompany Cook into government, could be an invaluable campaigner during the euro referendum. Blair's need for allies associated with the Left has become espe- cially pertinent since Prescott laid bare his own limitations in that role with his bar- rage of unhelpfully opportunistic interven- tions over Christmas.
Since Mandelson's demise, Cook is now also Blair's most important Cabinet ally — the only one in the senior ranks — on the question of proportional representation. This week he is announcing deeper co- operation with the Liberals, extending even to foreign affairs. It is clear that if Blair continues to pursue this part of his pro- gramme, as he insists that he will, Cook will be central.
More important, the Mandelson resigna- tion deepens the vacuum around Blair. In his forthcoming biography, which I have read because I am reviewing it in this Sat- urday's Daily Telegraph, Paul Routledge argues that shortly before he resigned Mandelson had begun to extend his ambi- tions; he would attempt to replace Brown as Chancellor with a view eventually to suc- ceeding Blair as prime minister. I think it improbable that such a plan, in the unlikely event that there ever was one, would have come to fruition. But Mr Cook — given the animosity towards Brown that Blair shares with him, the downfall of Mandelson and the decline of Prescott, his appeal to the Left, his importance on PR and the euro, and his genuine commitment to New Labour — is better placed to make such a dream come true.
I do not intend to make extravagant claims about Mr Cook's future. Suffice it to say that there is a vacancy for the job of heir apparent, and Mr Cook is better quali- fied than many people realise.
Sion Simon writes a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.
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