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.
Categories: All WW, Labour, Political Blogging, Politics
Not every action has just a single explanation. A lot of people are torn between a job they love and a family they love, and if you start to get a bit jaded in the job, or lose morale, then it gets a bit easier to jack it in. If Ruth Kelly is a mum who loves her kids, then she’s probably aware on a daily basis that they’re getting short-changed because of the volume of work she has to do.
There’s been a suggestion that this was agreed some weeks ago, but someone has leaked the story to scupper Browns speech. It certainly wasn’t Kelly’s intention to make the announcement during the conference.
As for the broadcast reporting, Nick Robinson and the Beeb have got the bit between their teeth on plots against Brown, and this is all they’re reporting on. Reminds me of the job they tried to do on Rowan Williams earlier this year. Robinson only reports intrigue, not ideas, so it’s not surprising he’s ignored Browns speech completely.
Labours main problem is that most of the political talent is now on the back benches. Brown doesn’t seem to have a strong enough team, or the ability to get the best out of them.
david-keen’s last blog post.."Who I am, What I believe"
I agree with you David - this is more complex than a simple a,b,c explanation.
I suspect Kelly did want to spend more time with her family, but leaving the Brown government was not as difficult for as it might have been had she been leaving a Blair government. This isn’t some mass demonstration against Brown though, I don’t think. It is also not the first real cabinet resignation in protest of Gordon Brown’s leadership with respect to causing a challenge for his position.
The real issue here is why on earth did No.10 call a press conference at 3am?! It is bizarre, paranoid behaviour that stinks of panic. It has massively back fired. Why not just wait until the morning? They wanted to control this issue so much that they have ended up causing even more damage.
What’s so special about now - except for Brown failing? She’s had kids for eleven years whilst being an MP at the same time. Why now if it wasn’t as part of an opposition to Brown?
The reshuffle coming up is clearly an obvious point to go. But I do not subscribe that this was just a family issue. She clearly isn’t happy with serving under Brown - she even turned down a Treasury role working for him a few years back.
I think it was an easy decision to make in that respect - she certainly didn’t portray that of dedicated follower in her applause for Brown’s speech on Tuesday. But I don’t think this was a rebellion, just an easy decision.