In my politically formative years - in my teens - I always struggled with references to politicians of previous generations.

“Edward Heath would have done that!” or “Harold Wilson would have done that better!” people might have said, but it didn’t resonate

Now of course I’ve subsequently read about Wilson and Heath and plenty of others besides. I have an impression of how those political times must have been

But then this week my immediate reaction - when hearing the Commons would have a matter of just a few hours to scrutinise the trade deal - was to wonder how Robin Cook would have behaved

Why?

Because I lived through the 1997 Labour Government. I could, in my mind’s eye, imagine a politician whose speeches I’d heard when they mattered would behave right now, were he still alive

Yes, I could have worked out how a Wilson or a Heath or perhaps better still a Roy Jenkins would have behaved. But it is not the same

But with this I’m becoming exactly what I found I couldn’t relate to from my parents’ generation - I couldn’t relate to Wilson, but someone a decade younger than me is going to struggle to relate to Cook

And perhaps more profoundly - as my memories of that first Labour term 1997-2001 become political history - so even the notion of a well governed UK recedes too

And had I been born in 1995 or 2000, rather than 1980, who would my Robin Cook be now?

Maybe this is just me getting old. Part of it is surely holding that first Blair term in higher regard now, because I know what happened since

But what happens when better politics - and most definitely a more central role for the elected Parliament in a country’s politics - is no longer lived reality, but history?

/ends