LONDON: Ms Clare Short capped her cabinet resignation yesterday with a devastating indictment of Mr Tony Blair's "presidential" leadership - warning that he endangered his legacy because of obsession with his place in history, writes Frank Millar,London Editor
Downing Street had continued paying tribute to Ms Short in the aftermath of her decision to quit the cabinet when she claimed the Prime Minister had "breached" personal assurances to her about the role of the United Nations in the post-conflict reconstruction of Iraq.
But in an explosive personal statement later in the House of Commons, Ms Short revealed the bitterness of their political fallout with an extended and highly personalised critique of Mr Blair's style of government, which she suggested was characterised by "diktat" and control-freakery, which strained the loyalty of Labour Party members and undermined public confidence in the political system.
Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw and the Leader of the Commons, Dr John Reid, sat stony-faced as Ms Short ridiculed the methods of the government of which she had been a member since its election in 1997.
"There is no real collective responsibility, because there is no collective," she said. "Just diktats in favour of increasingly badly thought-through policy initiatives that come from on high.
Increasingly those wielding power at the heart of the Labour government were unelected and therefore not accountable or subject to scrutiny, she said.
"Thus we have the powers of a presidential-type system with the automatic majority of a parliamentary system.
These arrangements are leading to increasingly poor policy initiatives being rammed through parliament - straining and abusing party loyalty, and undermining the peoples' respect for our political system."
As MPs on the Labour benches flinched, Ms Short continued: "To the prime minister I would say that he has achieved great things since 1997 but, paradoxically, he is in danger of destroying his legacy as he becomes increasingly obsessed by his place in history."
In her resignation letter Ms Short had told Mr Blair: "As you know I thought the run-up to the conflict in Iraq was mishandled, but I agreed to stay in the government to help support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq. I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached."
She continued: "The Security Council resolution you and [(JACK STRAW]have so secretly negotiated contradicts the assurances I have given in the House of Commons and elsewhere about the legal authority of the occupying powers, and the need for a UN-led process to establish a legitimate Iraqi government. This makes my position impossible ... I am proud of what we have achieved and much else that the government has done. I am sad and sorry that it has ended like this."
In his reply Mr Blair said: "I am afraid I do not understand your point about the UN. We are in the process of negotiating the UN resolution at the moment. And the agreement on this resolution with our American and Spanish partners has scarcely been a secret."
Ms Short telephoned Mr Blair shortly after 10 a.m. to inform him of her decision to resign, and within the hour Baroness Valerie Amos had been confirmed as as the new International Development Secretary, becoming the first black woman to serve in a British cabinet.