    francis cook (3 november 1935 â 10 january 2012) was a british independent politician, who was the labour party member of parliament (mp) for stockton north from 1983 until 2010. ==background== cook was born in west hartlepool and was educated at the corby school (sunderland), the de la salle college (manchester) and the institute of education (leeds). before his election to the commons, cook worked variously as a gravedigger, a butlins redcoat, a transport manager at a steelworks, a teacher, and a construction planning engineer. ==parliament== he was selected to contest stockton north at the 1983 general election, securing the nomination following the defection of the sitting labour mp bill rodgers who was one of the original gang of four who set up the social democratic party in 1981. cook won the seat with a majority of 1,870 with rodgers finishing in third place behind the conservative candidate. he served as opposition whip under neil kinnock from 1987 to 1992. he was a member of the speaker's panel of chairmen in the 2005â10 parliament. he was a lead campaigner for gun control following the dunblane massacre in 1996,  and it was reported that he once asked the tory mp andrew mackay to "step outside for a fight".  in the 2005 political year, the public whip found cook to be the 38th most rebellious mp (out of 635) and he had recently become known for his dissent concerning the controversial [[identity car
1935_births 2012_deaths Butlins_Redcoats Cancer_deaths_in_England Deaths_from_lung_cancer Democratic_socialists Labour_Party_(UK)_MPs Members_of_the_Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom_for_English_constituencies People_from_Hartlepool UK_MPs_1983a87 UK_MPs_1987a92 UK_MPs_1992a97 UK_MPs_1997a2001 UK_MPs_2001a05 UK_MPs_2005a10