Honour Bound To Resign?

Nothing has gotten me so riled up ever since starting this blog than the government's proposal to sell large swathes of English woodland to the highest bidder, even though it had already become clear that the funds the scheme would produce would not so much as approach the nearest reaches of the amount desired by the cutting-happy lords of the Treasury. So you can imagine my relief when news came last week that the entire plan was to be abandoned as the Prime Minister rose in the Commons to announce the salvation of those verdant cathedrals and those hidden, leafy mazes and those long-winding paths of gold and blue and green. No trees will now be cut to slighter size, but there is one who has now felt the axeman's sharp edge.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, has been thrown quite publicly, as the Americans put it, under the bus by her own political master. One Labour MP described Ms. Spelman's renunciation of the sell-off as a '"humiliating climb down," adding: "The Right Honourable Lady has been made to stand in the coroner [sic] with the dunce’s cap." Another Labour backbencher could but barely contain his obvious amusement at her fate: 'If there is any personal sympathy for the minister today, it's because she has been publicly humiliated by the Prime Minister.'

Indeed I do feel sympathy for Ms. Spelman. No one deserves to be treated in such a disrespectful - and frankly dishonourable - manner by the Prime Minister in whose Cabinet she serves. But it seems that she must - at the very least in part - share the blame for the debacle it so rightly turned into. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was the first to settle its budget with the Treasury back in the autumn, but it now appears the settement can be re-opened by the Treasury should the holders of the pursestrings feel it is necessary. So not only was Ms. Spelman called to defend a policy that was so unpopular that David Cameron let her hold high the banner for it, only to cut her down when push came to shove, her reward for doing it, the promise she could limit the cuts her department had to make, was wholly hollow and made too rashly months ago.

If Ms. Spelman had any sense of personal honour, she should resign as Environment Secretary. Having been sacrificed on the bloody altar of popular opinion, the trustworthiness of her words has withered to nothing. Whenever she now speaks out on anything, all we will hear is Mr. Cameron whispering to her the exact words she is to say. No politican, whose bond with her electors is based solely on trust, can be seen as a mere cypher for her master. Honour is in turn the basis for that trust and now she has lost her's, Ms. Spelman should give serious consideration to resigning her post. Such a dramatic act would show to the voter that she stands for something. If she then goes on to support the Government vigorously from the backbenches her voice will be that much greater when she inevitably returns to the Cabinet again in the future.