A Ruthless Resignation
Ruth Kelly’s resignation from the Cabinet to, as the old saying goes “spend more time with her family” - despite them having survived pretty well for the last eleven* years.
Whenever a politician quits to “spend more time with their family”, the automatic assumptions are usually one of the following:
(a) They have done something incredibly embarrasing or otherwise been caught out in some way that would force a humiliating resignation at a later date;
(b) They vehemently dislike or disagree with their party leader, but don’t have the balls to challenge them in public over it; or
(c) They need an excuse to jump before they are pushed.
With Ruth Kelly, I doubt that it is (a), and (c) seems unlikely, despite her continuing failure as a Cabinet minister - after all, Des Browne has managed to keep his job so far!
So (b) it is.
Of course, there’s always the idea that they could actually be resigning to spend more time with their family… but that’s just laughable.
So what are the effects of her resignation? The first thing it has done is damanged Brown, since a Cabinet minister resigning for any reason is pretty bad news for a Prime Minister - especially considering the way it was rushed out amidst rumours that there was a clutch of ministers ready to quit with her.
What it also did was push Brown’s conference speech right out of the news. Even though the speech still dominated the newspaper headlines, Ruth Kelly’s resignation has dominated the broadcast and online news, and any political discussion.
What little breathing space that speech won for him has now all but been wiped out. So the Glenrothes by-election - as reports set the date at 6th November - becomes an even greater game of survival than before. If Brown loses it, he may well still be able to hold on - so long as it is close. If Labour lose in a landslide, Brown’s days will almost certainly be numbered.
Needless to say, I hope he stays in position.
* Both the age of her oldest child and the length of time she has been an MP.
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