BRITAIN: Beleaguered British Education Secretary Ms Estelle Morris dramatically quit her cabinet post last night. 10 Downing Street confirmed the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, had accepted her resignation "with regret."
While immediate attention was focused on the most recent Conservative calls for the Minister's head after it emerged the government's literacy and numeracy targets had not been met, it seemed clear that a series of controversies had taken their toll on the Minister and provoked a personal crisis of confidence.
It is understood Ms Morris saw Mr Blair on Tuesday and informed him that, while she had enjoyed her previous role as schools minister, she had not, in the words of one official source, realised "how big a step-up it was to becoming Secretary of State." The Prime Minister apparently invited Ms Morris to take 24 hours to reflect on her position but when she saw him again last night at Number 10 her mind was made up.
In his letter to Ms Morris accepting her resignation, Mr Blair wrote: "Politics can be a tough and lonely job, and the pressures can be intense. I am sorry that things have not worked out for you as both of us hoped and wished when I appointed you. I have no doubt at all that you will come back into government. In the meantime, I want you to know that I continue to hold you in the highest regard."
Westminster surprise at the news was the greater because it seemed Ms Morris had weathered the earlier storm of this year's A-level fiasco, which resulted in thousands of students missing their universities of choice while their papers were re-marked, amid allegations, later rejected by an official inquiry, that the government had put pressure on examination boards to ensure pass rates were on a par with last year.
Ms Morris had also come under pressure over problems with the completion of police checks on school staff ahead of the start of the new term, and following her intervention in the case of two teenagers expelled for making death threats against a teacher at Glyn School in Ewell, Surrey.
And only this week the latest row about Ms Morris's judgment had overshadowed the launch of the government's plans for the reform of school working practices.
The Conservatives demanded that she resign following the revelation that she had repeated a pledge made by her predecessor and had promised the Commons in 1999, when still schools minister, that she would step down if government targets for primary school national test results for maths and English were not met. Ms Morris admitted she had forgotten this pledge but suggested it had, in any event, been superseded by her promotion to the cabinet in June of last year.
The original pledge was offered in 1999 when Ms Morris was challenged to offer to resign if the test targets for 11-year-olds were not achieved, and she replied: "Of course I will - I have already done so." When asked on Tuesday why she was not honouring this pledge, Ms Morris said she felt bound by a different one given to the House of Commons Education Select Committee last October following her promotion to the cabinet.
Asked if she would keep her promise to honour the earlier pledge by previous education secretary Mr David Blunkett to stand down if 80 per cent of 11-year-olds failed to reach the required standard, Ms Morris replied: "No, I never said I would. I want to be judged across all our priorities within the department. I believe we will meet our targets next year." Downing Street had leapt to her defence but by last night, Ms Morris was no longer fighting back.