Rt Hon Robin Cook MP
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2002
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Robin Cook was born in Larnarkshire, east of Glasgow; an only child whose father was a science teacher. In his teens the family moved to Edinburgh so that his father could take up a headmaster job and Robin attended the same school. At school his favourite pursuits were the debating society and drama and he had an early interest in politics. Whilst his school friends were poring over the New Musical Express, Robin was reading the New Statesman. Friends recall he always wore two badges on his blazer - an anti-apartheid one, and a CND one.
In 1964 he went to Edinburgh University to read English as he loved reading and literature and his ambition was to be a minister - he planned to go on to study Divinity. But doubts about his beliefs set in, and he turned his passion and determination into the Labour Party and socialism. His first job was as a teacher but he soon went to work at the Workers Educational Association and became involved in the political scene, becoming an MP for Edinburgh Central in February 1974. He was elected MP for Livingston in 1983. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Security from 1987-92; Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1994-97; Chair of the Labour party 1996-98 and a Privy Councillor since 1996. He was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when Labour were returned to government in 1997 and first came up with the idea of Labour's ethical foreign policy. He moved from the Foreign Office to become Leader of the House Commons last year and is responsible for parliamentary reform.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner Book: The National Hunt Form Book Luxury: A chess computer
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 2002, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a politician. There can be little doubt that he's a very clever man |
| 0:35.2 | having abandoned his thesis on the Victorian novel at the age of 28 he fought and won a seat in |
| 0:40.9 | parliament. Here he sparkled his oratory, intellect and acute |
| 0:45.2 | forensic skills opening up wounds in the Conservative government. When new Labour came |
| 0:49.8 | to power he was swept to high office and became foreign secretary. |
| 0:53.0 | He had arrived, but four years later he departed to the less exalted position |
| 0:58.0 | of leader of the House of Commons. |
| 1:00.0 | The world knows it was a surprise, he admits, |
| 1:02.0 | but doesn't let that prevent him from bringing |
| 1:05.4 | reforming zeal to his new job. I've always been the school swap, he says. If I'm frank, that's one of the reasons |
| 1:11.4 | a number of people have found it difficult to |
| 1:13.2 | take me as a personality he is Robin Cook not a surprising trait though Robin in |
| 1:19.4 | the the only son of a schoolmaster being bookish I'd gather you'd read the whole of |
| 1:23.9 | Dickens by the age of 11. |
| 1:25.3 | Yes I wouldn't want to sound as if I had an unhappy childhood of any kind of and |
| 1:29.3 | actually when you're an only child you don't spend your time saying well I'm |
| 1:33.0 | rather lonely being an only child you would take that as the natural |
| 1:35.6 | condition of existence. But you always very hard working you know you did what you were |
| 1:40.2 | told you did your homework you tucked yourself away with a book. |
| 1:43.4 | Well I didn't have much alternative in the homework because my father was a |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.