LONDON: The reaction to Robin Cook’s death shows that he was much more than a great parliamentarian and a reforming minister. In this age of public disaffection there are not many politicians who can expect their funeral cortege to be applauded in the street by hundreds of mourning citizens. As the tributes that have poured in testify, he struck a chord with people from across the political spectrum who feel that British politics has lost its way.

Cook was also the standard bearer for an important tradition of Labour thought, and this is perhaps the most significant political issue raised by his passing. What happens to this tradition now may determine whether Labour is able to renew itself in office or is set on an irreversible course back to opposition.

The section of the party that identified most strongly with Cook is very far from the old left of lazy caricature: the sort of people who prefer the purity of opposition to the difficult compromises of power. Indeed, its origins lie precisely in the rejection of that outlook in the early 1980s by what came to be known as the ‘soft left’. In a very real sense, it was Labour’s original modernisation project and laid the groundwork for the successes that followed.

Its starting point was a recognition that Labour’s traditional political base was too narrow to sustain progressive change, and that broadening its appeal should be the party’s top priority. Cook himself would gently mock those who complained about Tony Blair on the basis that he was attracting Conservative voters. That was a sign of success, not failure. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service