Cook triples income after leaving Cabinet

ROBIN COOK has more than tripled his outside earnings since he quit the Cabinet over the Iraq war.

The Livingston MP was then earning £72,862 on top of his £57,485 wage to be Tony Blair’s Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House of Commons.

But the Register of MPs’ Interests revealed that since then he’s earned £205,000 as a journalist, racing consultant and speaker.

It leaves him far ahead of his fellow Iraq rebel Claire Short who picked up just £130,347 for her independent standpoint.

But Mr Cook is nowhere near the top earners such as ex-former Tory leader and Cabinet minister William Hague, who earned up to £820,000 in declared income without the cash from his biography of former premier William Pitt the Younger, and Michael Portillo - another ex-Tory Cabinet minister - who raked in up to £560,000.

Mr Cook’s entry revealed that he worked as a consultant to the Tote providing advice on public policy in relation to horse racing worth between £15,001 and £20,000.

He also has a contract for a weekly article for the Guardian from October 2004 worth between £25,001 and £30,000.

He declared a payment from publisher Simon and Schuster for the paperback edition of his diary The Point of Departure worth between £45,001 and £50,000.

He declares occasional articles for the Sunday Mirror and the London Evening Standard worth up to £5000 a year, a monthly article for the Racing Post worth between £5001 and £10,000 a year and occasional broadcasting fees for the BBC worth up to £5000.

Mr Cook also declared a gift on May 2004 of a gold necklace given to his wife Gaynor on behalf of the Arab Women’s Association, and listed rental income from a residential property in London.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Gordon Brown admitted that his wife and baby were upgraded by Virgin Atlantic Airways in April and December last year when he went to Washington for conferences.

Linlithgow MP Tam Dalyell registered income as a weekly columnist of the New Scientist since 1967 and earning between £5001 and £10,000 a year as an occasional obituarist for the Independent.

Prime Minister Tony Blair confirmed King Abdullah of Jordan had paid for him to fly from a holiday in Egypt to Amman for official discussions last December, and for his family to be taken on a sightseeing tour while they talked. The Italian Government paid for him to break into his holiday in Tuscany last August to fly to Sardinia for talks with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.