What's Cooking?

PIGS rarely fly. And Robin Cook, Labour's shadow foreign secretary, is rarely stuck for an answer. But on March 1st one question rendered him nearly inarticulate. Someone stood up at the had-to-be-there Nexus conference of the left in London, and asked why Tony Blair, Labour's leader, was “not persuaded” of the case for electoral reform. Mr Cook, who is a passionate electoral reformer, muttered about not answering that one in the presence of a reporter from the Guardian. The embarrassment was understandable. Labour remains divided on the issue.