My Resignation


My Resignation

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She said, "I hear you're thinking of resigning. I order you not to."

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I said, "Prime Minister. To me, it is a matter of honour."

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-ALL:

-Bring back Greg! Bring back Greg!

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I didn't sleep much and I suppose I decided then that I would go.

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If you have lost the support of the board, you can't really stay.

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If I had resigned, it would have been a cowardly resignation,

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because I'd done nothing wrong.

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Home Secretary, are you going to resign?

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I stepped out of the car

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and I think the only thing I said to him was,

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"I'm going to have to resign."

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Bastard!

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You murderer!

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You see a pile of dead children's bodies in your mind

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because these people wouldn't stop operating on them,

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One of us had to resign and they weren't going to.

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Resigning is about honour and dishonour.

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Matters of principle and taste and decency.

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Being caught out and taking responsibility.

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But are there universal truths about resigning?

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Can the experience of those who have taken that giant step and resigned

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teach us some important lessons?

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The catalyst that turns thought about resigning into action

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is usually a crisis.

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Major Norman and his section where out-numbered ten to one.

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They were ten yards away from us within about ten minutes.

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We all came to terms very quickly with the fact that we were

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probably going to die in the next half an hour.

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In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.

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Foreign Office Minister Richard Luce was facing HIS crisis.

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Things deteriorated very, very fast indeed.

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At that point, I made sure that

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I was equipped with my stick.

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I always like a stick when there's a crisis.

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So I was walking around with a stick and everyone said,

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"There must be some problem."

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In Port Stanley, the Governor was surrounded by Argentine soldiers.

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Will you talk to them, sir?

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I'll talk to them but I'm not walking out.

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I'm not surrendering to the bloody Argies, Patrick. Certainly not.

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Richard Luce was already considering resigning.

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The invasion took place on that Friday morning

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and my first instinct was to say,

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"Well, I'm the minister of state with day-to-day responsibility.

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"I should go."

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But not everyone would think the crisis merits resignation.

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Another crisis. another matter of life and death.

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Bristol Royal Infirmary in the 1990s.

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Too many children were dying after heart operations.

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The mortician pointed to a series of small bodies on slabs

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in the mortuary and said, "When is somebody going to do something about

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"these children dying after cardiac surgery?"

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On his own initiative, Consultant Anaesthetist Dr Stephen Bolsin

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collected evidence pointing to problems

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with the competence of two surgeons.

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The problem was dreadful.

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We discovered, at the end of Mr Dhasmana's series of operations,

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that 9 out of 13 tiny babies had died.

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The acceptable mortality was way under 10%

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and the mortality in Bristol was way over 60%.

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My feeling was that was because people were too arrogant to

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actually stop doing the operations and that the institution was

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completely indifferent to the outcomes.

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Bolsin would go on to take action.

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'It was this doctor's decision to blow the whistle, which turned

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'the public spotlight on Bristol.'

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But first, he had to resign.

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In the year 2000, Richard Desmond took over Express Newspapers.

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My politics? Well, I suppose I'm a socialist really.

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But in the years that followed, it was concern about the politics

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of his papers that led to a crisis for one of his journalists.

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You may have read some of my other earth-shattering exclusives.

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"Michael Jackson To Attend Jade Goody's Funeral."

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He didn't.

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"Robbie Williams Pops Pill At Heroes Concert."

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He didn't either.

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Daily Star journalist Richard Peppiatt

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says he was sick of making up stories.

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This is his resignation letter.

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"Matt Lucas On Suicide Watch." He wasn't.

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"Jordan Turns To Buddha."

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She might have, but I doubt it.

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ALL: E-D-L!

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But Peppiatt's final straw was his concern over the paper's reporting

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of the English Defence League.

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People of Britain, to come and fight for your country!

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The Daily Star seemed to be openly courting the English Defence League.

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They were writing quite positive articles about them.

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All the sort of terminology that had always existed around them.

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Right-wing thugs, extremists,

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was directly told to be removed.

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We were just to refer to them as the EDL,

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as if you were talking about the Lib Dems or the Tories.

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And to me, that was a real wake-up call.

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Richard Peppiatt's was a personal crisis.

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But in 2004, the BBC was plunged into a corporate crisis

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over its journalism.

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Until the BBC acknowledge that is a lie I will keep banging on

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and they better issue an apology pretty quick.

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It was condemned by the Hutton report into the death

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of Dr David Kelly.

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On the eve of a crucial governors' meeting,

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its Director General, Greg Dyke, believed he'd survive the furore.

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I never had any intention of resigning.

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I didn't think it would be necessary.

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There was a deal done the night before

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and Gavin Davis, the Chairman, said he was going to go.

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I talked to Pauline Neville-Jones,

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who's one of the other governors, and said,

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"Well, does it help if I offer to resign?" And she said, "Yeah.

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We couldn't let both of you go."

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"Gavin's going to go anyway.

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"Why don't you offer to resign and we'll keep you?"

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The governors denied there was any deal with Dyke.

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Director General was a job he never expected to get in the first place.

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I'm not sure the BBC and I are made for each other, really.

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You know, there's one or two interesting jobs at the BBC,

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but I'm not sure they'd offer them to me.

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Like DG?

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Well, I think Saddam Hussein has more chance of being offered

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it than I have, really.

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Dyke would have to decide whether to fight for his dream job.

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Today, British gays and lesbians who choose to serve in the ranks are

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constantly defending a second front - to keep their sexuality secret.

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I was forced to lie, to myself and to other people, on a daily basis.

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The crisis for military policewoman Caroline Meagher was intensely private.

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In the 1980s, she had to investigate gay and lesbian soldiers,

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who were banned from serving in the armed forces.

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She was told to be suspicious of sporty women with short hair,

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and men who walked funny and spent too long in front of the mirror.

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I could see, sometimes,

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the women looking at me with a question in their eyes

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and I would see that question and feel ashamed.

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Ashamed, I have to say.

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It's because Caroline is a lesbian herself.

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I just felt such a raging

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and overwhelming sense of helplessness, impotence, rage at

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the unfairness of it, the injustice, rage at being involved myself.

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-Having to be a hypocrite It must felt monumental.

-I want you to go in at 1700, OK?

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I just think it's ridiculous, what they're claiming for.

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It just seems a very unfair way of spending taxpayers' money, really.

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In 2009, Parliament was engulfed in a scandal over MPs' expenses.

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It seems to be just taking the mick, really.

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One incident was about to bring Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's

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crisis to a head.

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My advisor rang me up and said there's going to be a story in

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the Sunday Express about you having claimed porn films on your expenses.

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Smith was on her way to a constituency meeting.

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She asked her husband, Richard, if he knew what had happened.

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We worked out that a receipt for broadband had included on it

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Pay Per View films.

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And two of them had been porn films.

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Richard accepted they were ones he'd watched when I hadn't been there.

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I stepped out of the car and said to him, "I'm going to have to resign."

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I'm really sorry for any embarrassment I have caused Jacqui.

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Quite obviously,

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a claim should never have been made for these films.

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An apology won't be enough.

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When I saw it, I was appalled.

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I was really shocked at what we were being asked to do.

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Early 2003 at GCHQ, the Government communications headquarters.

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Katharine Gun had a crisis of conscience.

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She'd received an e-mail from the US government asking staff

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to bug UN Security Council delegates.

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It was to gather information, which they could use to persuade

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them or blackmail them or bribe them into voting for a resolution

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that would authorise an invasion of Iraq.

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I felt that e-mail required action.

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So the crisis can take many forms,

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but it always points towards making that decision.

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Mr Heath's future. Should he go?

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The decision to resign is usually made in the worst of circumstances.

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When pressure is at its most intense.

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He's hopeless. He ain't with the times.

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He's pompous - I know best, leave everything to me.

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Prime Minister Ted Heath was under huge pressure

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after fighting an inconclusive election in February 1974.

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-We only see politicians on the goggle box.

-He hasn't got the flair.

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Ted Heath resigned within days.

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Jacqui Smith was under pressure after the expenses revelations.

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The Home Secretary is to face a parliamentary investigation...

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Jacqui Smith returning to the shared London house...

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I'd wake up after only a few hours and just fret about everything.

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What I was doing to everybody else,

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and what it meant to my family and those that cared about me

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and how I'd get on and if I could do it at all.

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All of those things swilling around in your mind.

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You feel such stress and I'm not an easily-stressed person,

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I'm not an easily depressed person but it begins

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to wear you down when you have to be forever putting a brave face on it.

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The pressure helped make up Jacqui Smith's mind.

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I said to the governors, who also discussed

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whether they should go, I do need your confidence.

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An hour or so later I discovered they'd decided to suggest I leave.

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Greg Dyke's gamble backfired.

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The BBC's Governors accepted his offer of resignation.

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I got home on my own. I didn't get in until two o'clock in the morning.

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Now he had to decide whether to stand by the offer to resign

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he never wanted to be taken seriously in the first place.

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I remember I didn't sleep much. And I suppose I decided then I'd go.

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That if you've lost the support of the board, you can't really stay.

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It's not worth it, too much aggro.

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At six o'clock, now it's the BBC's Director-General who goes.

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Greg Dyke resigns after the Hutton Report,

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he wants the BBC's future protected.

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With the departure of Gavin and myself

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and the apology I issued on behalf of the BBC yesterday,

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I hope a line can now be drawn under this whole episode.

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I was sacked by a bunch of gutless governors.

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I think they lost their nerve.

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I couldn't quite work out what they'd apologised for.

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They believed, because of my relationship with the Government,

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that if I stayed on as Director-General, I wouldn't

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be able to negotiate a decent Charter renewal.

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My argument to that is that wasn't their job that day.

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Their job was to defend the journalistic integrity of the BBC.

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Be fair, but don't let anyone pressurise you.

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What do we want? Return the Dyke! When do we want it? Now!

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Greg Dyke's own staff tried to get his decision reversed.

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I don't want to go but if you screw up, you have to go.

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Dyke would go on to regret his decision.

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At Bristol Royal Infirmary, the pressure on Stephen Bolsin

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was mounting.

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He was given a warning by the hospital.

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If I continued to raise concerns then my career in Bristol

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would be threatened.

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And that was a very serious threat.

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The stress lead me to become depressed in my job because I

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couldn't impact the continuing and incessant deaths of these children.

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I think it lead to tensions between Maggie, my wife and myself because

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she was saying you've grown into someone who isn't the man I married.

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-Have you declared war on the BBC?

-Go away!

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Despite being cleared by the Hutton Inquiry, Alastair Campbell was

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also feeling the pressure to resign, but closer to home.

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I was doing a job that Fiona, my partner, had not wanted me to do

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in the first place, doing it in a situation where

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the major issue was Iraq and the policy that she totally opposed.

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You spend all day defending the policy.

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You go home and you thought,

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"Oh, God, I've got to have the bloody argument again!"

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Campbell wanted to resign, but Tony Blair asked him to stay on.

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-The pressure began to build.

-Towards the end it, got very, very difficult.

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You know, but I was definitely reaching a point where I thought,

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"If I'm not careful, I push this too far,

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"push it much further, you know, I end up without a family."

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The only time I nearly lost it was when we had demonstrations

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outside the house and I remember once my daughter, who was about nine,

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coming back from school with friends and people giving her

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pictures of kids who had been gassed by Saddam at Halabja and saying,

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"Can you ask your dad why he is doing this?"

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Now, that was the only time when I sort of thought I might just go out and lamp somebody, but I didn't.

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That would have been a resignation issue?

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It might have been, it might not have been. John Prescott got away with it!

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HE LAUGHS

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At GCHQ, Katharine Gun agonised over the secret e-mail

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and eventually passed it to a journalist.

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On a visit to her newsagent's, she was shocked.

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There it was, splashed across the front pages, "Dirty tricks."

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Well, I was just trembling as soon as I picked it up, I was trembling.

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It was only as an investigation was launched that Katharine realised she couldn't stay in her job.

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By the Wednesday, I just couldn't keep it in any longer and I felt

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I couldn't lead a duplicitous existence and I told my line manager.

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I was very innocent, I suppose, perhaps I should have made it

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a really loud, personal, in-your-face kind of announcement.

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I don't know. I really don't.

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Would it have been that expensive in hardware and money to have

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sent a couple of frigates and a submarine?

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Well, you don't really want to take that action

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unless you feel that it is a real possibility that something serious will happen.

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Now, as it turned out, we were wrong in that sense. It did happen.

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Richard Luce was under fire from all sides.

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But on the day the Argentines invaded, his mother rang with a brilliant solution.

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She called about ten times, so I took the call and she said,

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"Darling, I have got the answer for you."

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I said, "Well, what's that?"

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She said, "Arrange a football match between Argentina

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"and Britain and that will end the war."

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"It's a bit late, there's been an invasion!"

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Voters can exert their own pressure on politicians who they want to go.

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Health Minister Edwina Currie was forced to resign in 1988,

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over the salmonella in eggs crisis. Some of her constituents were her greatest critics.

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-I think she's done the right thing.

-By resigning?

-Yes.

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-Great.

-Why?

-Why? Because we don't like her round here.

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She just opens her mouth too much, doesn't she?

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Sometimes the pressure to go can come from an outsider, with an axe to grind.

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Jeffrey Archer was forced to resign as Mayor of London candidate

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by a man who didn't want Archer in a position of power.

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-How much are you earning?

-Never mind.

-That's my business.

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-That's your business.

-The publicist, Max Clifford.

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He made sure a client's revelations about Archer committing perjury

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in a libel trial forced Archer's resignation.

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The main concern I had was you don't want Jeffrey Archer in a position of power.

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Today, in the centre of the media circus,

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the man who lied for Lord Archer.

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Clifford took to the airwaves with his client, Ted Francis, to get the desired result.

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I disapproved of the idea of Jeffrey Archer becoming Mayor of London. I'm sure you feel the same.

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Ted Francis was a guy that gave Jeffrey Archer his alibi.

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So he came to me and the rest was history,

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but I got the result I wanted inasmuch as Jeffrey Archer

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wasn't going to be Mayor of London because of the scandal.

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So pressure can come from many directions and it is difficult to resist.

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Any minister must have the full confidence of his colleagues.

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I therefore asked to see the Prime Minister to tender my resignation.

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Honourable resignations are sometimes seen as an old-fashioned way of carrying the can.

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Leon Brittan is believed to have resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary

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to save Mrs Thatcher's skin over the leaking of a letter.

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I suppose he has to resign, but one can't help wondering

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if he isn't the scapegoat of the Prime Minister?

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Mrs Thatcher served for another four years.

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Few honourable resignations are as simple as they seem on the surface.

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To the South Atlantic.

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Quick...march!

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One of the most celebrated was over the Falklands crisis in 1982.

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Immediately after the Argentine invasion,

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Richard Luce sought out his boss, Lord Carrington.

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Before I spoke, he saw my face and said, "You're not going to resign."

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So I told him the reasons and he said, "No, now hang on.

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"I'm the Foreign Secretary, I carry the can.

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"You're my Minister of State. It is our duty to stay at our post."

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It took a pounding from Parliament and, perhaps crucially, the Press

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to finally make up Carrington's mind.

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I think time led him to pause and reflect and he had been told

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there would be a very nasty editorial in The Times on Monday,

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not that an editorial of a newspaper should dictate what we do.

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It did on the Monday morning talk about ministers of the Foreign Office

0:21:260:21:31

being traitors, virtually being traitors to their country.

0:21:310:21:34

I think that, apart from being deeply wounding, was something of a catalyst

0:21:340:21:40

for him to say, "Well perhaps the Prime Minister needs a new Foreign Minister."

0:21:400:21:45

But Margaret Thatcher intervened.

0:21:450:21:48

She said, "I hear you're thinking of resigning, I order you not to."

0:21:480:21:52

And I said to her, "Prime Minister, to me it is a matter of honour."

0:21:520:21:57

And there was a surprising silence coming from Lady Thatcher

0:21:570:22:01

and she said, "I can't quarrel with honour."

0:22:010:22:03

It was a blow, but in a way, it's never a blow for politics

0:22:030:22:10

if you have someone doing what he deems to be the honourable thing.

0:22:100:22:13

We have seen a very great national humiliation.

0:22:130:22:17

I felt myself, like Lord Carrington, that it would be right

0:22:170:22:21

for the Prime Minister to have the chance to have new ministers at her disposal.

0:22:210:22:27

So the Press and Parliament and a Prime Minister's belief

0:22:270:22:30

in honour helped an honourable resignation get back on track.

0:22:300:22:34

But doing the honourable thing isn't always so easy.

0:22:360:22:40

The MPs' rule book is quite clear -

0:22:400:22:43

your main home is where you spend more nights than any other.

0:22:430:22:46

Jacqui Smith insists she spends most of her time

0:22:460:22:49

at this southeast London house behind me, belonging to her sister.

0:22:490:22:52

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was pilloried for clinging to office after the expenses revelations.

0:22:540:23:01

In fact, she wanted to go, but the decision wasn't hers alone.

0:23:010:23:06

It was the Friday before the G20 and my adviser said to me,

0:23:060:23:12

I think he's right, "The last thing the Prime Minister wants

0:23:120:23:15

"to happen this weekend is for the Home Secretary to resign."

0:23:150:23:18

Smith waited a few days and met the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

0:23:180:23:23

He said to me, "If you resign about this, you know, you'll always

0:23:230:23:27

"be remembered as resigning because of expenses."

0:23:270:23:30

And I said, "Well, I know that to a certain extent,

0:23:300:23:33

"but I can't do the job that you asked me to do."

0:23:330:23:36

Eventually, he realised that I had made up my mind

0:23:360:23:41

and I was going to go

0:23:410:23:42

and then he persuaded me not to go until the reshuffle.

0:23:420:23:47

I didn't feel like crying. I felt a big relief.

0:23:470:23:50

I felt a big weight lifted from me.

0:23:500:23:55

The interests of a Prime Minister derailed an honourable resignation, not a desperation to stay on.

0:23:550:24:03

Honour and political interest are often uneasy bedfellows.

0:24:030:24:07

Resignations are a product of their times.

0:24:120:24:15

The issue, the crisis, can be seen as a barometer

0:24:150:24:19

of what society deems to be acceptable behaviour.

0:24:190:24:22

Marriage prospects are good. The proportion would be much higher

0:24:220:24:26

except for the regulation requiring all pregnant service women to resign.

0:24:260:24:30

It was only in the last decade of the 20th century that the MoD

0:24:330:24:36

stopped discriminating against women.

0:24:360:24:39

But homosexuality, that was another matter.

0:24:390:24:44

I think most red-blooded males, and I count myself among them,

0:24:440:24:48

are repelled by the physical genital activities of these people.

0:24:480:24:52

Faced with a new posting to Northern Ireland,

0:24:520:24:56

and the task of carrying out more investigations of gays in the Army,

0:24:560:25:00

Caroline Meagher handed in her resignation.

0:25:000:25:02

I felt a relief, I suppose it had been at the back of my mind for ages

0:25:020:25:07

and I actually felt quite liberated. I felt very hopeful.

0:25:070:25:10

But before she could work out her notice,

0:25:100:25:12

the Military Police arrived to investigate her own private life.

0:25:120:25:19

They were very sarcastic and delighted in saying, "It's you that we've come for."

0:25:190:25:23

And they went more or less straightaway to a photo

0:25:230:25:27

and removing the back of the photo, removed letters.

0:25:270:25:33

There was a stuffed toy there and they unzipped the toy

0:25:330:25:36

and reached in, and lo and behold, there was another cache of letters appeared and I knew then,

0:25:360:25:43

just my heart fell and I thought they have certainly planted evidence here.

0:25:430:25:49

Some of the letters I had not received.

0:25:490:25:53

So they had been intercepted.

0:25:530:25:56

It is just not in the military where gays and lesbians felt hounded.

0:25:560:26:03

A 37-year-old computer programmer died after collapsing on the floor

0:26:030:26:08

of a gay disco called Heaven. He contracted AIDS.

0:26:080:26:12

The AIDS virus provoked widespread fear.

0:26:120:26:16

Merely to be gay can cost your job.

0:26:160:26:18

Even a bishop said he found it difficult to shake hands with an AIDS sufferer.

0:26:180:26:23

I think three parts of them want burning and I do mean that. They want burning.

0:26:230:26:28

Like thousands of others, Jonathan Grimshaw knew there was little effective treatment,

0:26:280:26:33

a terrible prognosis, and a lot of prejudice.

0:26:330:26:36

It's a terrifying prospect. If I was to be living at home,

0:26:360:26:42

I know that my flatmate could not cope.

0:26:420:26:44

I'm not sure that services

0:26:440:26:46

would be available from the local authority to look after me.

0:26:460:26:49

So, I mean, I don't know what's going to happen.

0:26:490:26:52

To be told something like that is just utterly devastating,

0:26:520:26:57

because it meant that it was a death sentence, really.

0:26:570:27:02

Friends of mine were being hounded out of their jobs.

0:27:020:27:07

Beset on all sides by this moral panic and believing he had little time left,

0:27:070:27:11

Jonathan decided to resign from his job in TV.

0:27:110:27:15

If you're told that you have a terminal illness,

0:27:150:27:19

you find that people have a sort of surge of energy and they think,

0:27:190:27:23

"I don't want to kind of die insignificantly".

0:27:230:27:25

But I was so angry,

0:27:250:27:28

and so fired up,

0:27:280:27:31

and so determined to achieve

0:27:310:27:34

everything I wanted to achieve in, I don't know how many years I had,

0:27:340:27:38

two years, three years, four years, that I absolutely threw myself into,

0:27:380:27:45

you know, really sort of committed campaigning work.

0:27:450:27:49

Resignation led Jonathan to co-found Body Positive - a support group for HIV sufferers.

0:27:490:27:56

Sex has been at the heart of many political resignations.

0:27:590:28:04

War Secretary Jack Profumo's resignation in 1963,

0:28:040:28:08

followed his dalliance with a call girl who also slept with a Soviet naval attache.

0:28:080:28:15

Ten years later, Defence Minister Lord Lambton was also caught with a prostitute.

0:28:150:28:20

Why should a man of your social position and charm and personality have to go to whores for sex?

0:28:200:28:25

I think that people sometimes like variety.

0:28:250:28:28

I think it's as simple as that and I think this impulse is probably understood by almost everybody.

0:28:280:28:33

Don't you?

0:28:370:28:39

I think a great many people may understand it, Lord Lambton, I think that is so.

0:28:390:28:45

If the call girl had said to me,

0:28:450:28:47

"Please, suddenly, darling, tell me about the laser ray,"

0:28:470:28:51

or something or, "What do you think of the new Rolls-Royce engine for the MRCA?"

0:28:510:28:59

I would have known that something was up.

0:28:590:29:04

Despite his protestations, Lambton resigned.

0:29:040:29:08

Mr Parkinson left his London home this morning, firmly declining to add to his statement.

0:29:080:29:14

I will not, at any stage, say any more.

0:29:140:29:19

Misdemeanours didn't have to involve paying for sex to provoke the end of ministerial life.

0:29:190:29:24

Affairs could be fatal too.

0:29:240:29:26

Will it affect your political future?

0:29:260:29:28

I have no further comment. I have no idea.

0:29:280:29:32

Cecil Parkinson resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary

0:29:320:29:35

in 1983 after revelations about an affair and a pregnancy.

0:29:350:29:41

A decade later, affairs and perhaps more crucially,

0:29:410:29:45

the hypocrisy they uncovered, was still an issue.

0:29:450:29:49

The only thing I want to say is how grateful I am for the support

0:29:490:29:53

and encouragement and how sad I am to leave the Government today.

0:29:530:29:57

Environment Minister, Tim Yeo, fell foul of the Tories' Back to Basics policy.

0:29:570:30:03

His extra-martial affair and resulting child led once again to resignation.

0:30:030:30:09

But by 1997, things were changing.

0:30:090:30:13

I can confirm that I'm leaving my wife. I want to make it clear

0:30:130:30:17

that the responsibility for this is entirely mine.

0:30:170:30:20

A newspaper discovered that Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook,

0:30:200:30:23

was having an affair with a member of his staff.

0:30:230:30:27

This idea that I phoned him up and said you know,

0:30:270:30:31

"Wife or mistress, you decide." It wasn't like that at all.

0:30:310:30:34

I had almost this coded conversation where I was able to be clear to Robin,

0:30:340:30:39

but he was not being terribly clear back.

0:30:390:30:42

That's because Cook's wife, Margaret, was within earshot.

0:30:420:30:47

We got cut off.

0:30:470:30:48

He then obviously explained to Margaret what was going on

0:30:480:30:52

and when he phoned back I remember him saying,

0:30:520:30:54

"Look, you know, we're swimming in a sea of some emotional turbulence here."

0:30:540:30:59

And I then said, "Look, I've talked to Tony,

0:30:590:31:01

"and he does not see this as a resigning issue per se,

0:31:010:31:06

"but, you know, you do need some sort of sense of clarity about this."

0:31:060:31:10

And it was he who came back in the morning and said he'd decided to end his marriage.

0:31:100:31:15

Clarity meant Cook's marriage, not his career, was over.

0:31:150:31:20

Politicians, it seems, have learned to avoid the trap of preaching about family values.

0:31:200:31:25

And by the time we reach 21st century Britain,

0:31:290:31:33

married men can pay for sex and hang on to their jobs.

0:31:330:31:37

Max Mosley led the FIA, the governing body for world motor sport, for 16 years.

0:31:370:31:44

A newspaper sting revealed he'd been having sadomasochistic sex with prostitutes.

0:31:440:31:49

There were the usual calls for resignation.

0:31:490:31:51

-You represent over 50 million members.

-Correct.

0:31:510:31:54

You would consider pulling all those out of the FA because of Mr Mosley's actions?

0:31:540:31:59

-We would consider that.

-But Mosley refused to go.

0:31:590:32:03

There are situations where you are in charge,

0:32:030:32:05

it is not your fault but you have to resign.

0:32:050:32:08

I think if there'd been a big accident in Formula One,

0:32:080:32:12

with, say, part of the car going in the crowd,

0:32:120:32:14

something really serious like that, I would have felt probably

0:32:140:32:18

I ought to resign or at least offer my resignation.

0:32:180:32:22

If I had resigned, I don't think it would have been an honourable

0:32:220:32:26

resignation, I think it would have been a cowardly one,

0:32:260:32:29

because I had done nothing wrong.

0:32:290:32:32

I hadn't done something I shouldn't do, which is when you should resign.

0:32:320:32:36

This was something to do with my private life.

0:32:360:32:39

So in the space of a generation, having one's sex life exposed

0:32:390:32:44

was no longer an automatic route to resignation.

0:32:440:32:47

-Time to go, Prime Minister? Is it time to go?

-Are you resigning?

0:32:510:32:55

Timing is crucial to resigning.

0:32:570:33:00

It can mean the difference between a good and a bad resignation.

0:33:000:33:04

Why have you decided to resign from the Labour Party?

0:33:040:33:08

Because I joined the movement to defend people.

0:33:080:33:13

Lord George Brown's resignation from the Labour Party in 1976

0:33:130:33:18

was marred by an unfortunate coincidence.

0:33:180:33:21

He appeared to be drunk.

0:33:210:33:22

I resigned after 40 years or more because I think they are more

0:33:220:33:29

interested in establishments then they are in people.

0:33:290:33:32

Photographs of him falling into the gutter after the interview didn't help.

0:33:320:33:37

Events can be the enemy of good timing.

0:33:370:33:42

"Wait, I know you're probably reaching for your phone to have me

0:33:420:33:46

"marched out of the building, but please, save on your bill.

0:33:460:33:50

"I quit."

0:33:500:33:53

Journalist, Richard Peppiatt, timed sending his resignation letter

0:33:530:33:57

to perfection.

0:33:570:33:58

The 1st March was going to be the day that I did it

0:33:580:34:02

and that was partly because that was the day I got paid!

0:34:020:34:05

I wanted to make sure that I got my expenses

0:34:050:34:08

for the last two months and my wages.

0:34:080:34:10

I just remember my finger hovering and just thinking and then going,

0:34:100:34:17

"No, you can do this. You're strong enough to do this."

0:34:170:34:20

And I hit the button and this wave of euphoria followed by...

0:34:200:34:26

I just burst into tears.

0:34:260:34:28

And for about 30 seconds I was uncontrollably sobbing.

0:34:280:34:33

You really had not just had burnt your bridges, you'd gone back and strafed them for good measure!

0:34:330:34:39

Desmond was getting more than a simple "I quit" from Peppiatt.

0:34:390:34:46

"I suspect you see a perfect circle. I see a downward spiral.

0:34:460:34:51

"I see a cascade of shit pirouetting from your penthouse office,

0:34:510:34:55

"caking each layer of management, splattering all in between."

0:34:550:35:01

The Business Secretary promised to go to war on the Murdochs

0:35:010:35:04

and on their takeover of BSkyB.

0:35:040:35:06

But a bigger media story bumped Peppiatt's letter from being published in the Guardian.

0:35:060:35:12

It was a real, real low point.

0:35:120:35:14

There'd been so much planning and so much thought gone into

0:35:140:35:19

the timing of this and the letter itself, that when it didn't...

0:35:190:35:25

when the plan started going off the rails, I thought I'd lost control.

0:35:250:35:29

I don't want to go.

0:35:370:35:38

For goodness sake, who wants to resign from being Foreign Secretary?

0:35:380:35:42

I don't think you can allow something like this to happen

0:35:420:35:45

and to just ignore it. You have to take responsibility for it.

0:35:450:35:51

and it is quite clear, if you read the Press

0:35:510:35:54

and the debates in the House of Commons,

0:35:540:35:56

that my judgement and my actions have been questioned.

0:35:560:36:01

After a weekend of press and Parliamentary criticism,

0:36:010:36:04

Lord Carrington resigned, speeding Richard Luce's own resignation timetable.

0:36:040:36:09

Lord Carrington rang me and said, "I'm going."

0:36:090:36:13

I said, "You know perfectly well I'm going too."

0:36:130:36:15

He said, "Well, you better be quick, because I'm going at 12.30,

0:36:150:36:19

"the time is 10.30 and you've got to see the Prime Minister

0:36:190:36:22

"if you're going. I don't think you should go," he kept saying.

0:36:220:36:25

The Marines who tried to defend the Falklands returned to Brize Norton.

0:36:250:36:29

Luce's job that day was to greet Falklands governor, Rex Hunt, and take him to London.

0:36:290:36:35

The General held his hand out to me and I refused to take it

0:36:350:36:40

and he looked very angry. His cheeks were twitching like mad

0:36:400:36:44

and he said, "I think it is very ungentlemanly not to shake hands."

0:36:440:36:49

And I said, "I think it's very uncivilised for you to invade our country."

0:36:490:36:53

We got into the car and drove at 70mph through the red lights to Number Ten and he said,

0:36:530:36:58

"If I may ask, do you do you always go round like this?"

0:36:580:37:01

I said, "Don't worry, only when I resign."

0:37:010:37:03

Lord Carrington goes,

0:37:030:37:06

the first political casualty of the Falklands crisis.

0:37:060:37:09

And so did the Minister of State, Richard Luce,

0:37:090:37:11

the man who'd previously negotiated with the Argentines.

0:37:110:37:14

I saw the Prime Minister and I did it just in time to fit in with Lord Carrington at 12.30.

0:37:140:37:20

A mere four days ago, scenes such as this were utterly unthinkable.

0:37:200:37:25

Even now it has to be said there is something almost unreal about them.

0:37:250:37:29

A British fleet put to sea, not on some training exercise,

0:37:290:37:32

but sailing with every intention of doing battle with an enemy.

0:37:320:37:36

Seeing that lot go out,

0:37:360:37:38

I think the Argentineans will quake in their shoes

0:37:380:37:42

at the very sight of it.

0:37:420:37:43

And I hope they blow the Argentinean Navy to pieces

0:37:430:37:47

when they get out there, for starters.

0:37:470:37:49

-What do you think about the Government sending this big fleet?

-A lot of bloody bullshit!

0:37:490:37:55

Home Secretary, are you going to resign?

0:37:550:37:57

After a two month wait,

0:37:570:37:59

Jacqui Smith's resignation thunder was stolen.

0:37:590:38:04

The announcement was leaked.

0:38:040:38:08

It became public the day or a couple of days before the reshuffle,

0:38:080:38:12

which wasn't what I wanted to happen.

0:38:120:38:15

It came out and hit the papers to coincide with my son's birthday.

0:38:150:38:20

But in some ways it sort of summed up why I needed to resign,

0:38:200:38:23

because I couldn't be with him even on his birthday and even though

0:38:230:38:27

once again the newspapers were full of what a terrible sleaze bag I was

0:38:270:38:33

and how awful his dad was.

0:38:330:38:35

So it sort of made it absolutely clear to me

0:38:350:38:38

that I was making the right decision.

0:38:380:38:40

Jacqui Smith's son may never have been a fan of Labour anyway.

0:38:400:38:44

-What do we think about Tony Blair?

-Boring. Boring. Boring.

0:38:440:38:50

At Bristol, Stephen Bolsin failed to stop a scheduled operation on a baby boy.

0:38:550:39:01

Timing, for him, was a matter of life and death.

0:39:010:39:05

It was the worst night of my professional career.

0:39:050:39:09

A small child's life was going to be ended the next day because

0:39:090:39:17

the surgeons were too proud to admit that they couldn't do the operation.

0:39:170:39:23

I realised then that I didn't actually want to work for

0:39:230:39:26

an organisation that was not prepared to intervene to save a child's life.

0:39:260:39:33

In secret, Stephen got a job in Australia and resigned from Bristol.

0:39:330:39:40

Three months after arriving in Australia,

0:39:400:39:43

he submitted a professional misconduct complaint to the GMC.

0:39:430:39:47

Max Mosley eventually announced that he would go,

0:39:510:39:55

but at a time of his choosing.

0:39:550:39:57

I'm going in October with some relief because it is very hard work.

0:39:590:40:03

But Mosley wasn't resigning, he was retiring.

0:40:040:40:08

In Profumo's case, for example, he was having an affair with a girl

0:40:080:40:12

who was also having an affair with the Russian military attache,

0:40:120:40:15

so he'd done something wrong and in his position, I would have probably done what he did.

0:40:150:40:20

But I felt I'd done nothing wrong. Nothing whatever.

0:40:200:40:23

It was just this newspaper had done something absolutely outrageous,

0:40:230:40:27

completely illegal, and I wasn't going to put up with it.

0:40:270:40:33

They had no right to go into private premises and take pictures and films

0:40:330:40:37

of adults engaged in activities which are no-one's business,

0:40:370:40:42

but those of people concerned.

0:40:420:40:44

-Who are you from?

-The BBC.

0:40:440:40:46

LAUGHTER

0:40:460:40:50

Greg Dyke was haunted by second thoughts. The timing was wrong.

0:40:500:40:55

Everyone involved in the Hutton Inquiry at the BBC,

0:40:550:40:59

when they read the report, read it with disbelief.

0:40:590:41:03

I should have said no. I should have said, "Go on then, fire me.

0:41:030:41:08

"You want me to resign, I'm not going to, you fire me."

0:41:080:41:11

And it would have taken them days to sort that out

0:41:110:41:14

and in those days, the mood changed.

0:41:140:41:19

It was pretty clear that Hutton had been rejected.

0:41:190:41:23

Good timing is an art.

0:41:230:41:26

It can desert even the most experienced when it comes to resigning.

0:41:260:41:31

REPORTER: Are you an embarrassment to the Prime Minister, Mr Blunkett?

0:41:310:41:35

Would you mind letting me go?

0:41:350:41:38

I have resigned from the Cabinet and I will make a full statement later today.

0:41:380:41:42

So, the decision has been taken, the resignation submitted.

0:41:420:41:48

I'm very sorry that Nigel Lawson has gone.

0:41:480:41:51

We worked together for years and he has so many enormous achievements.

0:41:510:41:55

There is now a reckoning.

0:41:550:41:58

Sky Hawks, four or five came low across the bay

0:42:060:42:09

to bomb the two landing ships unloading men and supplies.

0:42:090:42:12

Despite the risk, the helicopters disappeared into the black cloud,

0:42:120:42:17

trying to pull men from the waters.

0:42:170:42:20

Throughout the period of conflict, I felt,

0:42:220:42:25

and so did Lord Carrington, very, very low.

0:42:250:42:27

I remember ringing him one day and saying,

0:42:270:42:30

"I feel rather like a prisoner. I can't break out of this."

0:42:300:42:34

The priority was to save the living, not count the dead.

0:42:340:42:37

"People are being killed and even though we couldn't have done anything, I feel we're responsible."

0:42:370:42:42

He said, "I feel exactly the same, it's a nightmare."

0:42:420:42:45

Bit by bit, the Falkland Islands were re-taken.

0:42:480:42:52

At GCHQ, Katharine Gun was arrested

0:42:570:43:02

after admitting she had sent the e-mail to the Press.

0:43:020:43:05

Everybody, including the security division personnel,

0:43:050:43:10

were remarkably nice...

0:43:100:43:12

..as were the investigating officers at the Special Branch.

0:43:140:43:18

Locked in a police cell, Katharine was visited by her husband.

0:43:180:43:23

I haven't thought about that for ages.

0:43:230:43:27

Yeah, he was in tears.

0:43:270:43:30

And he, you know, said...

0:43:300:43:31

..I don't suppose he ever expected to see me on that side of the partition.

0:43:340:43:41

Erm...In a way, you know, it is in the situation

0:43:410:43:45

when someone else is crying, you end up being the strong one,

0:43:450:43:48

so I was not crying and I was saying, "It's going to be all right.

0:43:480:43:51

"Everything's going to be all right."

0:43:510:43:53

The princess has made the battle against AIDS

0:43:550:43:58

and the provision of help for those already suffering, one of her most dedicated causes.

0:43:580:44:03

Developments in medication meant an HIV diagnosis was no longer a death sentence.

0:44:030:44:08

Jonathan Grimshaw, who resigned expecting he had very few years

0:44:080:44:12

left to live, discovered a whole new future.

0:44:120:44:15

But like many who abandon good careers, he paid a price.

0:44:150:44:20

Most of us at that time were pretty young.

0:44:200:44:23

We hadn't had time in our jobs to build up a big pension pot

0:44:230:44:28

and when I look at my peers, people the same age,

0:44:280:44:32

the same sort of education as I had,

0:44:320:44:35

and a lot of them are doing great.

0:44:350:44:38

Very good salaries and...

0:44:380:44:41

You know, I do feel... I do feel sort of cheated out of a life

0:44:410:44:47

because of HIV, but you know,

0:44:470:44:50

I mean strictly speaking, you know, I shouldn't be here.

0:44:500:44:55

The cost of not being able to resign on her own terms was serious for Caroline Meagher.

0:45:060:45:11

Instead of accepting my resignation,

0:45:110:45:15

I was subjected to humiliating interviews

0:45:150:45:21

where I was followed to the bathroom and watched

0:45:210:45:24

whilst I went to the toilet, invasive bullying questions.

0:45:240:45:30

I lost all of my so-called friends.

0:45:300:45:34

In the last five years, 260 homosexual men and women have been discharged.

0:45:340:45:40

Caroline was herself discharged from the Army for unnatural conduct,

0:45:410:45:45

contrary to military discipline.

0:45:450:45:47

She was convicted of fraud for claiming travel expenses to visit her girlfriend.

0:45:470:45:53

I felt cheated out of my resignation that I wasn't being allowed to

0:45:530:45:58

just mark time quietly and leave with some shred of dignity

0:45:580:46:05

and some pride in my career.

0:46:050:46:07

Had I resigned I would have, in all probability, joined the police.

0:46:070:46:11

I would probably have two big fat pensions

0:46:110:46:14

and probably a very different standard of living.

0:46:140:46:17

I was left with virtually nothing. I was unemployed for a long while.

0:46:170:46:21

I was struggling on every level

0:46:210:46:24

and I feel, in a way, that that taught me an awful lot about myself.

0:46:240:46:29

In 2000, the ban on homosexuals in the military was finally lifted.

0:46:300:46:35

It came a decade too late for Caroline.

0:46:350:46:39

Not everyone paid a financial price.

0:46:410:46:45

Greg Dyke's private wealth probably made it easier for him to go.

0:46:450:46:49

One of the issues, I made money. It's interesting,

0:46:490:46:52

the only two people who left the BBC at that time,

0:46:520:46:55

given the numbers that had been involved in Hutton, were myself

0:46:550:46:58

and Gavin Davies, who were the only two who didn't have a mortgage.

0:46:580:47:03

But whether it is financial or emotional,

0:47:030:47:06

resignation always racks up a cost.

0:47:060:47:09

I intend to join those tomorrow night who vote against military action.

0:47:150:47:20

It is a truism to say all resignations have consequences.

0:47:230:47:27

The point is, nobody knows what the consequences will be.

0:47:270:47:31

It is for that reason, and that reason alone,

0:47:310:47:34

and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the Government.

0:47:340:47:38

Hear, hear!

0:47:380:47:40

For Robin Cook, it was the surprise of the first standing ovation in the history of the Commons.

0:47:400:47:45

For Richard Luce, reaction to his resignation demonstrated a strength of democracy.

0:47:500:47:55

I went in rather nervously to Parliament, having resigned,

0:47:550:48:00

and wondering what people were feeling,

0:48:000:48:02

but members of Parliament from all parties came up privately and said,

0:48:020:48:06

"Thank you for doing that and there, but for the grace of God, go I."

0:48:060:48:11

I thought that was gratifying and it made me feel

0:48:110:48:14

that principled resignation as a matter of honour

0:48:140:48:17

is a good thing for our democratic system.

0:48:170:48:20

You murdering bastard!

0:48:200:48:22

Stephen Bolsin's revelations, backed by his resignation, helped change the Health Service.

0:48:240:48:30

Bastard!

0:48:300:48:32

You murderer!

0:48:320:48:34

Surgeon, James Wisheart, and hospital Chief Executive, John Roylance, were struck off.

0:48:340:48:41

Surgeon, Janardan Dhasmana, was found guilty of serious professional

0:48:410:48:45

misconduct and not allowed to operate on children for three years.

0:48:450:48:50

We are victims of a gross injustice.

0:48:500:48:53

The injustice that our children were taken from us.

0:48:530:48:57

It sparked the biggest ever public inquiry into the workings

0:48:580:49:02

of the Health Service and overhauled monitoring of hospital deaths.

0:49:020:49:07

I've got no doubt that clinical governance

0:49:070:49:11

has changed the Health Service and made it much, much safer.

0:49:110:49:15

I suspect that the events in Bristol and my resignation

0:49:150:49:20

and publicising of them has saved thousands of lives,

0:49:200:49:23

if not tens of thousands of lives, in a relatively short period of time.

0:49:230:49:28

I'm obviously delighted and just gobsmacked.

0:49:310:49:36

-I'm speechless, quite frankly.

-Would you do it again?

0:49:360:49:40

I have no regrets, I would do it, again, yes.

0:49:400:49:42

A year after her arrest at GCHQ, the Government dropped all charges

0:49:420:49:47

against Katharine Gun and proved to Katharine that she was right.

0:49:470:49:52

It was fantastic. I was at Liberty at the time,

0:49:520:49:54

I was in London. We got the news,

0:49:540:49:59

and we were just jumping around hugging each other.

0:49:590:50:02

There was a sort of 24-hour media circus,

0:50:020:50:07

at Liberty headquarters. I was talking to Jeremy Paxman.

0:50:070:50:12

It was all really surreal, looking back on it now.

0:50:140:50:18

Who are you to make a judgement on whether it is legal or illegal,

0:50:180:50:21

moral or immoral?

0:50:210:50:23

My conscience compelled me to reveal it to the public

0:50:230:50:28

and I think the reaction that I've seen and also the fact

0:50:280:50:34

that they've dropped the charges

0:50:340:50:36

is pretty much vindicating what I did.

0:50:360:50:39

Jacqui Smith eventually lost her seat,

0:50:390:50:43

but her marriage was strengthened.

0:50:430:50:46

Some people say, "Why forgive your husband and not make him sleep on the sofa?"

0:50:480:50:52

If he watches porn films, we can argue about that,

0:50:520:50:55

but if he makes a silly mistake on a claim form and I'm silly enough

0:50:550:51:00

to sign it, that shouldn't undermine everything that he has contributed

0:51:000:51:05

to my career and everything that we've got together as a relationship.

0:51:050:51:10

Richard Peppiatt's letter was finally published

0:51:100:51:14

in The Guardian and struck a blow for journalistic ethics.

0:51:140:51:18

I went from having about ten followers on Twitter,

0:51:180:51:21

because I had just joined it, to 2,000 in about six hours.

0:51:210:51:26

And people e-mailing me from, you know, all over the world,

0:51:260:51:30

sort of saying, "Bloody hell, well done, you know.

0:51:300:51:33

"You've done a really good thing here."

0:51:330:51:35

A lot of journalists I knew and journalists I didn't know

0:51:350:51:38

on Fleet Street who got in touch to say, "Congratulations, you have

0:51:380:51:43

"been very brave to do that. Thank God someone's finally speaking out."

0:51:430:51:48

The Daily Star says it has never endorsed the EDL.

0:51:480:51:52

Peppiatt couldn't resign, he'd only been a casual reporter for two years.

0:51:520:51:58

He was unhappy at not getting a staff post.

0:51:580:52:01

And he had been warned about offering to make up quotes.

0:52:010:52:05

There are still nurses within the Health Service who,

0:52:110:52:14

as it were, disapprove of people with AIDS.

0:52:140:52:17

Jonathan Grimshaw found fulfilment

0:52:170:52:21

and a commitment to helping others with HIV.

0:52:210:52:25

Ten years after my diagnosis,

0:52:260:52:28

I achieved everything I wanted to achieve.

0:52:280:52:32

HIV gave me the reason to do something which I thought was important with my life.

0:52:320:52:37

For me, spending the time well, meant, I suppose, doing something

0:52:370:52:42

to help people who are going through

0:52:420:52:45

this awful trauma and social rejection

0:52:450:52:50

and not being cared for when they had this terrible disease.

0:52:500:52:55

Even when it takes place in the worst of circumstances,

0:52:560:53:01

a resignation can still be an uplifting experience.

0:53:010:53:06

Once the resignation has passed, there is time to pause for reflection.

0:53:090:53:14

I really hope that Greg will be able to move on from this,

0:53:160:53:20

and that's important, not just for him,

0:53:200:53:23

but it's important also for the BBC.

0:53:230:53:26

About 18 months, two years later,

0:53:260:53:28

it was still sort of dominating my life, really.

0:53:280:53:31

This was a traumatic event.

0:53:310:53:33

So for two years, I looked around what else I should do with my life.

0:53:330:53:38

But if you've just had that sort of bust-up with the Government,

0:53:380:53:42

you don't get offered a lot of work...

0:53:420:53:45

..because Blair was still the Prime Minister.

0:53:460:53:48

And one day my daughter, who was about 20 at the time,

0:53:480:53:52

just looked at me and said, "Look, just get over it."

0:53:520:53:55

And I thought, "She's right. You just have to get over it."

0:53:550:53:58

My son, one Sunday afternoon, looked up at me as we were playing

0:54:000:54:04

with a tennis ball in the sun and he said to me very innocently,

0:54:040:54:08

"Daddy, why do you smile so much more in Australia?"

0:54:080:54:12

It was really a very moving moment for me, that I realised that

0:54:120:54:17

the kids had noticed, but they just hadn't commented on it.

0:54:170:54:20

The depressing thing for me probably is that I will be remembered

0:54:210:54:27

for being put in a position where I had to resign because of the expenses scandal.

0:54:270:54:32

I'm sad about that, but one of the things I have certainly learnt

0:54:320:54:35

over the last two years is, you know who you are,

0:54:350:54:38

regardless of what other people say about you.

0:54:380:54:41

I knew that in resigning as I did,

0:54:410:54:43

it wouldn't just be The Daily Star I'd never work at,

0:54:430:54:46

it would be any tabloid, they'd all turn their backs on me.

0:54:460:54:50

You have broken the code of omerta.

0:54:500:54:53

But I can get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror

0:54:530:54:56

and smile and know that that day I can go about my business

0:54:560:55:02

in a manner that I don't feel is detracting from the world.

0:55:020:55:07

I'm trying to put something into it.

0:55:070:55:10

I didn't have a bloody clue what I was going to do.

0:55:110:55:15

I had a very bad bout of depression, which I think was literally a depression.

0:55:150:55:20

It was depressurising and because of the way my mind works,

0:55:200:55:25

that sometimes does take me into a pretty dark place.

0:55:250:55:28

I had a very bad bout of depression, but I got over that.

0:55:280:55:33

I then started to do different things

0:55:330:55:36

and definitely ended up in a better place.

0:55:360:55:39

If there are things out there that really should come out,

0:55:410:55:45

hey, why not?

0:55:450:55:46

'I am able to talk about it without developing the shakes

0:55:460:55:49

'and the trembles, so I have moved on from it.

0:55:490:55:52

'My life has changed dramatically since then.'

0:55:520:55:56

I don't have a secure job. I don't have a secure income.

0:55:560:56:00

But there have been other remarkable opportunities and experiences

0:56:000:56:08

that I've had that I wouldn't have had if I had stayed there.

0:56:080:56:12

I remember thinking, "Oh my goodness, I'm no longer a minister.

0:56:160:56:21

"I haven't got an official car."

0:56:210:56:22

I said to my wife, "How am I going to get to Parliament? What am I going to do?"

0:56:220:56:26

She said, "There's something called the Tube, try that!"

0:56:260:56:30

I hadn't realised that there were new doors

0:56:320:56:34

which didn't open automatically, you had to press a button.

0:56:340:56:37

And the doors didn't open,

0:56:370:56:39

and I started to get very angry, "What a disgraceful Tube this is."

0:56:390:56:43

And a man behind me said, "All you do is press that button," and the door opened.

0:56:430:56:48

And it just shows, the world changes and you can be quite cushioned.

0:56:480:56:53

And there are still some sweet moments to savour

0:56:540:56:58

when those who have overseen your downfall face the axe themselves.

0:56:580:57:03

I always remember Jack Charlton saying he had a little black book

0:57:030:57:07

and he had a few names in there.

0:57:070:57:09

Everybody, I think, has got a few names in a little black book.

0:57:090:57:13

Amongst the names in my little black book would be Blair,

0:57:130:57:16

it would be Campbell, the Cabinet Ministers around them.

0:57:160:57:19

There were a couple of people on the board who I made it very clear at the time that I didn't like.

0:57:190:57:24

Baroness Hogg, and she happened to be married to the guy who got done

0:57:240:57:28

for claiming cleaning the moat on his expenses.

0:57:280:57:32

And I looked up that day and thought, "There is a God after all."

0:57:320:57:36

In the last 50 years, much has changed.

0:57:420:57:47

Society is more tolerant, but quicker to call for heads to roll.

0:57:470:57:51

The honourable resignation may be less common in politics,

0:57:510:57:56

but it's still to be found.

0:57:560:57:57

In other walks of life, it has flourished.

0:57:570:58:00

And perhaps there are some universal truths

0:58:000:58:03

which have remained unchanged.

0:58:030:58:07

Resigning is personal. It is painful and it is important.

0:58:070:58:14

You have got loss of lives, always in the back of your mind.

0:58:160:58:20

Lord Franks' committee said the Government could not have done anything to stop that invasion,

0:58:200:58:26

but it is nevertheless very painful to think what it led to.

0:58:260:58:30

I don't think I would do anything differently,

0:58:330:58:37

but I think that if I knew then

0:58:370:58:41

what I know now,

0:58:410:58:44

I wouldn't have applied for the job in Bristol.

0:58:440:58:46

When I tell people I was sacked from the Army for being gay,

0:58:500:58:53

they laugh and go, "No, really? Really? Did that happen?"

0:58:530:58:57

Never, since the moment I hit that button,

0:59:000:59:03

have I doubted that what I did was the right thing.

0:59:030:59:06

My advice to anybody who is facing resignation is, don't resign, wait,

0:59:090:59:15

because it looks different in the morning.

0:59:150:59:17

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