Robin Cook, we all loved to take the piss out of him but he was a top man and an honest politician. Requiescat in pace.
That he was; someone prepared to resign from the cabinet on principle, a rare thing. Another old cricketer ups stumps and retires to the pavilion
Doubt it. He'd probably done everything he could think of and then washed his hands of it and disassociated himself with the idiots behind the war.
he wasn't the foreign minister. he'd been demoted the year before after trying to implement 'more ethical foreign policy'
Meng implied he was foreign minister at the time of the Iraq crisis (i.e. no other country believing the US-UK bullshit). He was not. He was leader of the commons. A position he had been demoted to from foreign minister long before. He resigned as leader of the commons.
Gotcha. Wasn't clear from your original post. All of which reminds me... the consensus at the time was that he was being edged out of government and so his resignation wasn't the huge sacrifice it was made out to be.