LONDON: Ms Clare Short finally followed her instinct yesterday and quit Tony Blair's government on an issue of principle. She probably went some way to redeeming her political reputation in the process.
The departed International Development Secretary had been diminished and devalued in the eyes of many members of the Labour Party, the press and the British public following her failure to make good her threatened resignation over the absence of a second UN resolution authorising the war against Iraq and the post-conflict reconstruction of that country.
Plainly "semi-detached" inside Mr Blair's cabinet, the consensus in the Westminster village was that her dismissal was simply a question of the timing of the Prime Minister's expected summer reshuffle.
Many commentators and politicians had found it hard to believe Ms Short could actually remain at the cabinet table back in March, having branded the Prime Minister "reckless" in his conduct of UN diplomacy in the build-up to war. That decision of course confirmed Mr Blair as the superior politician.
With Robin Cook already gone, Mr Blair shrewdly calculated the benefit of retaining Ms Short as he battled to diminish the threatening anti-war rebellion on Labour's backbenches.
Moreover, the greater embarrassment was obviously hers, as she justified her continuation in office through a war she opposed, pleading the insistence of aid agencies and foreign governments that she was uniquely placed to lead the reconstruction that must follow. But while content to keep her on board, it was clear Ms Short had lost her charm for Mr Blair as the cabinet minister "licensed" to dissent.
She might have seen her future when the House of Commons cameras caught Mr Blair smiling at William Hague's suggestion that the Prime Minister had taken his revenge by keeping her in the cabinet.
And she must have known that that future was past-tense following weekend reports of Mr Blair's reaction to her absence from cabinet last Thursday, the morning after she missed a crucial Commons vote on the government's controversial proposals for Foundation Hospitals.
Looking to Ms Short's empty chair, Mr Blair reputedly gestured to his chief of staff, Mr Jonathan Powell, and circled a finger by his head suggesting he thought her bonkers, or, at any rate, that she'd lost the plot.
Naturally, then, the first reaction of many was that Ms Short had decided to jump before she was pushed. That perception was reinforced by the speed with which Mr Blair acted to fill this sudden vacancy.
Within 30 minutes of Ms Short's call to Mr Blair, Baroness Amos had been round to see the Prime Minister, who announced her appointment as Ms Short's successor before the hour was up. The ready availability of an alternative International Development Secretary - happily young, black and a woman, whose membership of the Lords meant there was no necessity for a wider reshuffle - certainly reinforced the suspicion of advanced planning inside Number 10.
However, Downing Street cannot have calculated Ms Short could still go on an issue of principle arising from the war - or that she would do so raising serious questions about the legality of the UK/US resolution on reconstructing Iraq.