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The Point of Departure

On 17 March 2003, Robin Cook, Leader of the House of Commons and former Foreign Secretary, resigned from the Cabinet in protest at the coming war in Iraq.

For the two years before that dramatic event Robin Cook had kept a diary, a personal record of Labour's extraordinary second term which came to be dominated by one event - the determination of Tony Blair to wage war against Iraq. In this unvarnished, behind-the-scenes account of the run up to war, interspersed with trenchant observation, we follow Cook's gathering disillusionment as the political compass of the party he loves changes almost beyond recognition - from its failure over Lords reform and unwillingness to tackle fundamental social issues, to its disastrous alliance with President Bush and the most right-wing administration in US history.

Now fully updated, with incisive deliberations on the Hutton Report, the Butler Inquiry, and the continuing furore about the necessity and legality of the war, The Point of Departure is a shocking critique of a government that came to power on a tide of goodwill, and which now is one of the least trusted in modern British history.

From a holder of one of the great offices of State and one of Labour's most brilliant politicians, The Point of Departure is the most important political publication of the decade.