**Former minister Robin Cook dies **
Former Cabinet minister Robin Cook has died after he collapsed while out hill walking, police have said.
It is believed that he was taken ill near the summit of Ben Stack, near an area known as Laxford Bridge in north-west Scotland.
Mr Cook, 59, was flown by helicopter to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, and is understood to have received 40 minutes of resuscitation en route.
Mr Cook quit as Commons leader in March 2003, in protest over the war in Iraq.
**‘Keen walker’ **
Mr Cook was said to be with a companion at the time he was taken ill.
On his personal website, he described himself as a keen follower of horse racing. He was also a keen walker and cyclist.
The 721m-high Ben Stack is popular with hill-walkers.
**Landslide win **
Mr Cook, who first became an MP for Edinburgh Central in 1974, was appointed the shadow health secretary in 1989 and became the shadow trade and industry secretary in 1992.
In 1994, he became the shadow foreign secretary, a position he held until the 1997 election. After Labour’s landslide win, he entered the Cabinet as foreign secretary.
A Cabinet reshuffle after the 2001 Labour victory saw him replaced at the Foreign Office by Jack Straw, with Mr Cook instead given the job of Leader of the Commons.
He resigned that position in the lead-up to the conflict in Iraq in protest over Tony Blair’s decision to go to war.
He had been an outspoken critic of the government’s foreign policy from the backbench.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4127654.stm
R.I.P 
