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She said, "I hear you're thinking of resigning. I order you not to." | 0:00:09 | 0:00:14 | |
I said, "Prime Minister. To me, it is a matter of honour." | 0:00:14 | 0:00:17 | |
-ALL: -Bring back Greg! Bring back Greg! | 0:00:17 | 0:00:21 | |
I didn't sleep much and I suppose I decided then that I would go. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
If you have lost the support of the board, you can't really stay. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
If I had resigned, it would have been a cowardly resignation, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
because I'd done nothing wrong. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
Home Secretary, are you going to resign? | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
I stepped out of the car | 0:00:41 | 0:00:42 | |
and I think the only thing I said to him was, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:44 | |
"I'm going to have to resign." | 0:00:44 | 0:00:45 | |
Bastard! | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
You murderer! | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
You see a pile of dead children's bodies in your mind | 0:00:49 | 0:00:53 | |
because these people wouldn't stop operating on them, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:56 | |
One of us had to resign and they weren't going to. | 0:00:56 | 0:01:01 | |
Resigning is about honour and dishonour. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
Matters of principle and taste and decency. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:15 | |
Being caught out and taking responsibility. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:21 | |
But are there universal truths about resigning? | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
Can the experience of those who have taken that giant step and resigned | 0:01:24 | 0:01:29 | |
teach us some important lessons? | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
The catalyst that turns thought about resigning into action | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
is usually a crisis. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
Major Norman and his section where out-numbered ten to one. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
They were ten yards away from us within about ten minutes. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
We all came to terms very quickly with the fact that we were | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
probably going to die in the next half an hour. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. | 0:01:56 | 0:02:00 | |
Foreign Office Minister Richard Luce was facing HIS crisis. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
Things deteriorated very, very fast indeed. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
At that point, I made sure that | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
I was equipped with my stick. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
I always like a stick when there's a crisis. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:14 | |
So I was walking around with a stick and everyone said, | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
"There must be some problem." | 0:02:16 | 0:02:17 | |
In Port Stanley, the Governor was surrounded by Argentine soldiers. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:22 | |
Will you talk to them, sir? | 0:02:22 | 0:02:23 | |
I'll talk to them but I'm not walking out. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
I'm not surrendering to the bloody Argies, Patrick. Certainly not. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:30 | |
Richard Luce was already considering resigning. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
The invasion took place on that Friday morning | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
and my first instinct was to say, | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
"Well, I'm the minister of state with day-to-day responsibility. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
"I should go." | 0:02:41 | 0:02:42 | |
But not everyone would think the crisis merits resignation. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
Another crisis. another matter of life and death. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
Bristol Royal Infirmary in the 1990s. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:01 | |
Too many children were dying after heart operations. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
The mortician pointed to a series of small bodies on slabs | 0:03:06 | 0:03:11 | |
in the mortuary and said, "When is somebody going to do something about | 0:03:11 | 0:03:16 | |
"these children dying after cardiac surgery?" | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
On his own initiative, Consultant Anaesthetist Dr Stephen Bolsin | 0:03:18 | 0:03:23 | |
collected evidence pointing to problems | 0:03:23 | 0:03:25 | |
with the competence of two surgeons. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:30 | |
The problem was dreadful. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:31 | |
We discovered, at the end of Mr Dhasmana's series of operations, | 0:03:31 | 0:03:37 | |
that 9 out of 13 tiny babies had died. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
The acceptable mortality was way under 10% | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
and the mortality in Bristol was way over 60%. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
My feeling was that was because people were too arrogant to | 0:03:49 | 0:03:55 | |
actually stop doing the operations and that the institution was | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
completely indifferent to the outcomes. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
Bolsin would go on to take action. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
'It was this doctor's decision to blow the whistle, which turned | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
'the public spotlight on Bristol.' | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
But first, he had to resign. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
In the year 2000, Richard Desmond took over Express Newspapers. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:21 | |
My politics? Well, I suppose I'm a socialist really. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
But in the years that followed, it was concern about the politics | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
of his papers that led to a crisis for one of his journalists. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:34 | |
You may have read some of my other earth-shattering exclusives. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
"Michael Jackson To Attend Jade Goody's Funeral." | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
He didn't. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
"Robbie Williams Pops Pill At Heroes Concert." | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
He didn't either. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:47 | |
Daily Star journalist Richard Peppiatt | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
says he was sick of making up stories. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:54 | |
This is his resignation letter. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:56 | |
"Matt Lucas On Suicide Watch." He wasn't. | 0:04:56 | 0:05:00 | |
"Jordan Turns To Buddha." | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
She might have, but I doubt it. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
ALL: E-D-L! | 0:05:06 | 0:05:07 | |
But Peppiatt's final straw was his concern over the paper's reporting | 0:05:07 | 0:05:12 | |
of the English Defence League. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:14 | |
People of Britain, to come and fight for your country! | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
The Daily Star seemed to be openly courting the English Defence League. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
They were writing quite positive articles about them. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
All the sort of terminology that had always existed around them. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
Right-wing thugs, extremists, | 0:05:28 | 0:05:30 | |
was directly told to be removed. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:34 | |
We were just to refer to them as the EDL, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
as if you were talking about the Lib Dems or the Tories. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:41 | |
And to me, that was a real wake-up call. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
Richard Peppiatt's was a personal crisis. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
But in 2004, the BBC was plunged into a corporate crisis | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
over its journalism. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:55 | |
Until the BBC acknowledge that is a lie I will keep banging on | 0:05:55 | 0:05:59 | |
and they better issue an apology pretty quick. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:03 | |
It was condemned by the Hutton report into the death | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
of Dr David Kelly. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
On the eve of a crucial governors' meeting, | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
its Director General, Greg Dyke, believed he'd survive the furore. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:16 | |
I never had any intention of resigning. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
I didn't think it would be necessary. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:19 | |
There was a deal done the night before | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
and Gavin Davis, the Chairman, said he was going to go. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
I talked to Pauline Neville-Jones, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
who's one of the other governors, and said, | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
"Well, does it help if I offer to resign?" And she said, "Yeah. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:35 | |
We couldn't let both of you go." | 0:06:35 | 0:06:36 | |
"Gavin's going to go anyway. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
"Why don't you offer to resign and we'll keep you?" | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
The governors denied there was any deal with Dyke. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:47 | |
Director General was a job he never expected to get in the first place. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:52 | |
I'm not sure the BBC and I are made for each other, really. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
You know, there's one or two interesting jobs at the BBC, | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
but I'm not sure they'd offer them to me. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:57 | |
Like DG? | 0:06:57 | 0:06:58 | |
Well, I think Saddam Hussein has more chance of being offered | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
it than I have, really. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
Dyke would have to decide whether to fight for his dream job. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:08 | |
Today, British gays and lesbians who choose to serve in the ranks are | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
constantly defending a second front - to keep their sexuality secret. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
I was forced to lie, to myself and to other people, on a daily basis. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
The crisis for military policewoman Caroline Meagher was intensely private. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:34 | |
In the 1980s, she had to investigate gay and lesbian soldiers, | 0:07:34 | 0:07:38 | |
who were banned from serving in the armed forces. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
She was told to be suspicious of sporty women with short hair, | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
and men who walked funny and spent too long in front of the mirror. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
I could see, sometimes, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
the women looking at me with a question in their eyes | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
and I would see that question and feel ashamed. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:59 | |
Ashamed, I have to say. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
It's because Caroline is a lesbian herself. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
I just felt such a raging | 0:08:05 | 0:08:06 | |
and overwhelming sense of helplessness, impotence, rage at | 0:08:06 | 0:08:12 | |
the unfairness of it, the injustice, rage at being involved myself. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:18 | |
-Having to be a hypocrite It must felt monumental. -I want you to go in at 1700, OK? | 0:08:18 | 0:08:24 | |
I just think it's ridiculous, what they're claiming for. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:31 | |
It just seems a very unfair way of spending taxpayers' money, really. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
In 2009, Parliament was engulfed in a scandal over MPs' expenses. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:42 | |
It seems to be just taking the mick, really. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:43 | |
One incident was about to bring Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
crisis to a head. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:51 | |
My advisor rang me up and said there's going to be a story in | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
the Sunday Express about you having claimed porn films on your expenses. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:59 | |
Smith was on her way to a constituency meeting. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
She asked her husband, Richard, if he knew what had happened. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
We worked out that a receipt for broadband had included on it | 0:09:05 | 0:09:10 | |
Pay Per View films. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
And two of them had been porn films. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
Richard accepted they were ones he'd watched when I hadn't been there. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
I stepped out of the car and said to him, "I'm going to have to resign." | 0:09:17 | 0:09:23 | |
I'm really sorry for any embarrassment I have caused Jacqui. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
Quite obviously, | 0:09:26 | 0:09:27 | |
a claim should never have been made for these films. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
An apology won't be enough. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:33 | |
When I saw it, I was appalled. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
I was really shocked at what we were being asked to do. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
Early 2003 at GCHQ, the Government communications headquarters. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:47 | |
Katharine Gun had a crisis of conscience. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
She'd received an e-mail from the US government asking staff | 0:09:52 | 0:09:56 | |
to bug UN Security Council delegates. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
It was to gather information, which they could use to persuade | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
them or blackmail them or bribe them into voting for a resolution | 0:10:04 | 0:10:10 | |
that would authorise an invasion of Iraq. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:14 | |
I felt that e-mail required action. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
So the crisis can take many forms, | 0:10:19 | 0:10:21 | |
but it always points towards making that decision. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:26 | |
Mr Heath's future. Should he go? | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
The decision to resign is usually made in the worst of circumstances. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:43 | |
When pressure is at its most intense. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
He's hopeless. He ain't with the times. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
He's pompous - I know best, leave everything to me. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
Prime Minister Ted Heath was under huge pressure | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
after fighting an inconclusive election in February 1974. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
-We only see politicians on the goggle box. -He hasn't got the flair. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
Ted Heath resigned within days. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
Jacqui Smith was under pressure after the expenses revelations. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:16 | |
The Home Secretary is to face a parliamentary investigation... | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
Jacqui Smith returning to the shared London house... | 0:11:18 | 0:11:23 | |
I'd wake up after only a few hours and just fret about everything. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
What I was doing to everybody else, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:29 | |
and what it meant to my family and those that cared about me | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
and how I'd get on and if I could do it at all. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:37 | |
All of those things swilling around in your mind. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
You feel such stress and I'm not an easily-stressed person, | 0:11:41 | 0:11:49 | |
I'm not an easily depressed person but it begins | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
to wear you down when you have to be forever putting a brave face on it. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:58 | |
The pressure helped make up Jacqui Smith's mind. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
I said to the governors, who also discussed | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
whether they should go, I do need your confidence. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
An hour or so later I discovered they'd decided to suggest I leave. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:15 | |
Greg Dyke's gamble backfired. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:18 | |
The BBC's Governors accepted his offer of resignation. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
I got home on my own. I didn't get in until two o'clock in the morning. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:29 | |
Now he had to decide whether to stand by the offer to resign | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
he never wanted to be taken seriously in the first place. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
I remember I didn't sleep much. And I suppose I decided then I'd go. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:40 | |
That if you've lost the support of the board, you can't really stay. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
It's not worth it, too much aggro. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
At six o'clock, now it's the BBC's Director-General who goes. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:53 | |
Greg Dyke resigns after the Hutton Report, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
he wants the BBC's future protected. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
With the departure of Gavin and myself | 0:12:58 | 0:13:03 | |
and the apology I issued on behalf of the BBC yesterday, | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
I hope a line can now be drawn under this whole episode. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:10 | |
I was sacked by a bunch of gutless governors. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:13 | |
I think they lost their nerve. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:15 | |
I couldn't quite work out what they'd apologised for. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
They believed, because of my relationship with the Government, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:22 | |
that if I stayed on as Director-General, I wouldn't | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
be able to negotiate a decent Charter renewal. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:28 | |
My argument to that is that wasn't their job that day. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
Their job was to defend the journalistic integrity of the BBC. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:37 | |
Be fair, but don't let anyone pressurise you. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:43 | |
What do we want? Return the Dyke! When do we want it? Now! | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
Greg Dyke's own staff tried to get his decision reversed. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
I don't want to go but if you screw up, you have to go. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
Dyke would go on to regret his decision. | 0:13:54 | 0:14:00 | |
At Bristol Royal Infirmary, the pressure on Stephen Bolsin | 0:14:00 | 0:14:06 | |
was mounting. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:06 | |
He was given a warning by the hospital. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:10 | |
If I continued to raise concerns then my career in Bristol | 0:14:10 | 0:14:15 | |
would be threatened. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:16 | |
And that was a very serious threat. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
The stress lead me to become depressed in my job because I | 0:14:18 | 0:14:23 | |
couldn't impact the continuing and incessant deaths of these children. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:28 | |
I think it lead to tensions between Maggie, my wife and myself because | 0:14:28 | 0:14:34 | |
she was saying you've grown into someone who isn't the man I married. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:39 | |
-Have you declared war on the BBC? -Go away! | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
Despite being cleared by the Hutton Inquiry, Alastair Campbell was | 0:14:47 | 0:14:52 | |
also feeling the pressure to resign, but closer to home. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
I was doing a job that Fiona, my partner, had not wanted me to do | 0:14:55 | 0:14:59 | |
in the first place, doing it in a situation where | 0:14:59 | 0:15:02 | |
the major issue was Iraq and the policy that she totally opposed. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:06 | |
You spend all day defending the policy. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
You go home and you thought, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:10 | |
"Oh, God, I've got to have the bloody argument again!" | 0:15:10 | 0:15:12 | |
Campbell wanted to resign, but Tony Blair asked him to stay on. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:18 | |
-The pressure began to build. -Towards the end it, got very, very difficult. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:23 | |
You know, but I was definitely reaching a point where I thought, | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
"If I'm not careful, I push this too far, | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
"push it much further, you know, I end up without a family." | 0:15:29 | 0:15:34 | |
The only time I nearly lost it was when we had demonstrations | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
outside the house and I remember once my daughter, who was about nine, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
coming back from school with friends and people giving her | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
pictures of kids who had been gassed by Saddam at Halabja and saying, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:55 | |
"Can you ask your dad why he is doing this?" | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
Now, that was the only time when I sort of thought I might just go out and lamp somebody, but I didn't. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:07 | |
That would have been a resignation issue? | 0:16:07 | 0:16:09 | |
It might have been, it might not have been. John Prescott got away with it! | 0:16:09 | 0:16:13 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:16:13 | 0:16:15 | |
At GCHQ, Katharine Gun agonised over the secret e-mail | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
and eventually passed it to a journalist. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
On a visit to her newsagent's, she was shocked. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:29 | |
There it was, splashed across the front pages, "Dirty tricks." | 0:16:29 | 0:16:34 | |
Well, I was just trembling as soon as I picked it up, I was trembling. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:38 | |
It was only as an investigation was launched that Katharine realised she couldn't stay in her job. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:45 | |
By the Wednesday, I just couldn't keep it in any longer and I felt | 0:16:45 | 0:16:51 | |
I couldn't lead a duplicitous existence and I told my line manager. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:57 | |
I was very innocent, I suppose, perhaps I should have made it | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
a really loud, personal, in-your-face kind of announcement. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:09 | |
I don't know. I really don't. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:11 | |
Would it have been that expensive in hardware and money to have | 0:17:14 | 0:17:19 | |
sent a couple of frigates and a submarine? | 0:17:19 | 0:17:20 | |
Well, you don't really want to take that action | 0:17:20 | 0:17:25 | |
unless you feel that it is a real possibility that something serious will happen. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
Now, as it turned out, we were wrong in that sense. It did happen. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
Richard Luce was under fire from all sides. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
But on the day the Argentines invaded, his mother rang with a brilliant solution. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:44 | |
She called about ten times, so I took the call and she said, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
"Darling, I have got the answer for you." | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
I said, "Well, what's that?" | 0:17:50 | 0:17:51 | |
She said, "Arrange a football match between Argentina | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
"and Britain and that will end the war." | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
"It's a bit late, there's been an invasion!" | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
Voters can exert their own pressure on politicians who they want to go. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:08 | |
Health Minister Edwina Currie was forced to resign in 1988, | 0:18:08 | 0:18:12 | |
over the salmonella in eggs crisis. Some of her constituents were her greatest critics. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:18 | |
-I think she's done the right thing. -By resigning? -Yes. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
-Great. -Why? -Why? Because we don't like her round here. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
She just opens her mouth too much, doesn't she? | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
Sometimes the pressure to go can come from an outsider, with an axe to grind. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:36 | |
Jeffrey Archer was forced to resign as Mayor of London candidate | 0:18:36 | 0:18:40 | |
by a man who didn't want Archer in a position of power. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:43 | |
-How much are you earning? -Never mind. -That's my business. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
-That's your business. -The publicist, Max Clifford. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
He made sure a client's revelations about Archer committing perjury | 0:18:50 | 0:18:55 | |
in a libel trial forced Archer's resignation. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
The main concern I had was you don't want Jeffrey Archer in a position of power. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:04 | |
Today, in the centre of the media circus, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
the man who lied for Lord Archer. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
Clifford took to the airwaves with his client, Ted Francis, to get the desired result. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:14 | |
I disapproved of the idea of Jeffrey Archer becoming Mayor of London. I'm sure you feel the same. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:18 | |
Ted Francis was a guy that gave Jeffrey Archer his alibi. | 0:19:18 | 0:19:23 | |
So he came to me and the rest was history, | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
but I got the result I wanted inasmuch as Jeffrey Archer | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
wasn't going to be Mayor of London because of the scandal. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
So pressure can come from many directions and it is difficult to resist. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:41 | |
Any minister must have the full confidence of his colleagues. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
I therefore asked to see the Prime Minister to tender my resignation. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:55 | |
Honourable resignations are sometimes seen as an old-fashioned way of carrying the can. | 0:19:55 | 0:20:01 | |
Leon Brittan is believed to have resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
to save Mrs Thatcher's skin over the leaking of a letter. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:09 | |
I suppose he has to resign, but one can't help wondering | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
if he isn't the scapegoat of the Prime Minister? | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
Mrs Thatcher served for another four years. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
Few honourable resignations are as simple as they seem on the surface. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
To the South Atlantic. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
Quick...march! | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
One of the most celebrated was over the Falklands crisis in 1982. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:42 | |
Immediately after the Argentine invasion, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
Richard Luce sought out his boss, Lord Carrington. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:49 | |
Before I spoke, he saw my face and said, "You're not going to resign." | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
So I told him the reasons and he said, "No, now hang on. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:58 | |
"I'm the Foreign Secretary, I carry the can. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:00 | |
"You're my Minister of State. It is our duty to stay at our post." | 0:21:00 | 0:21:07 | |
It took a pounding from Parliament and, perhaps crucially, the Press | 0:21:07 | 0:21:12 | |
to finally make up Carrington's mind. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:14 | |
I think time led him to pause and reflect and he had been told | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
there would be a very nasty editorial in The Times on Monday, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:22 | |
not that an editorial of a newspaper should dictate what we do. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
It did on the Monday morning talk about ministers of the Foreign Office | 0:21:26 | 0:21:31 | |
being traitors, virtually being traitors to their country. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
I think that, apart from being deeply wounding, was something of a catalyst | 0:21:34 | 0:21:40 | |
for him to say, "Well perhaps the Prime Minister needs a new Foreign Minister." | 0:21:40 | 0:21:45 | |
But Margaret Thatcher intervened. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
She said, "I hear you're thinking of resigning, I order you not to." | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
And I said to her, "Prime Minister, to me it is a matter of honour." | 0:21:52 | 0:21:57 | |
And there was a surprising silence coming from Lady Thatcher | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
and she said, "I can't quarrel with honour." | 0:22:01 | 0:22:03 | |
It was a blow, but in a way, it's never a blow for politics | 0:22:03 | 0:22:10 | |
if you have someone doing what he deems to be the honourable thing. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
We have seen a very great national humiliation. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
I felt myself, like Lord Carrington, that it would be right | 0:22:17 | 0:22:21 | |
for the Prime Minister to have the chance to have new ministers at her disposal. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:27 | |
So the Press and Parliament and a Prime Minister's belief | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
in honour helped an honourable resignation get back on track. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
But doing the honourable thing isn't always so easy. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
The MPs' rule book is quite clear - | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
your main home is where you spend more nights than any other. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
Jacqui Smith insists she spends most of her time | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
at this southeast London house behind me, belonging to her sister. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was pilloried for clinging to office after the expenses revelations. | 0:22:54 | 0:23:01 | |
In fact, she wanted to go, but the decision wasn't hers alone. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:06 | |
It was the Friday before the G20 and my adviser said to me, | 0:23:06 | 0:23:12 | |
I think he's right, "The last thing the Prime Minister wants | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
"to happen this weekend is for the Home Secretary to resign." | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
Smith waited a few days and met the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:23 | |
He said to me, "If you resign about this, you know, you'll always | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
"be remembered as resigning because of expenses." | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
And I said, "Well, I know that to a certain extent, | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
"but I can't do the job that you asked me to do." | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
Eventually, he realised that I had made up my mind | 0:23:36 | 0:23:41 | |
and I was going to go | 0:23:41 | 0:23:42 | |
and then he persuaded me not to go until the reshuffle. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:47 | |
I didn't feel like crying. I felt a big relief. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
I felt a big weight lifted from me. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:55 | |
The interests of a Prime Minister derailed an honourable resignation, not a desperation to stay on. | 0:23:55 | 0:24:03 | |
Honour and political interest are often uneasy bedfellows. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
Resignations are a product of their times. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
The issue, the crisis, can be seen as a barometer | 0:24:15 | 0:24:19 | |
of what society deems to be acceptable behaviour. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
Marriage prospects are good. The proportion would be much higher | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
except for the regulation requiring all pregnant service women to resign. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
It was only in the last decade of the 20th century that the MoD | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
stopped discriminating against women. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
But homosexuality, that was another matter. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:44 | |
I think most red-blooded males, and I count myself among them, | 0:24:44 | 0:24:48 | |
are repelled by the physical genital activities of these people. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
Faced with a new posting to Northern Ireland, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
and the task of carrying out more investigations of gays in the Army, | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
Caroline Meagher handed in her resignation. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
I felt a relief, I suppose it had been at the back of my mind for ages | 0:25:02 | 0:25:07 | |
and I actually felt quite liberated. I felt very hopeful. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
But before she could work out her notice, | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
the Military Police arrived to investigate her own private life. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:19 | |
They were very sarcastic and delighted in saying, "It's you that we've come for." | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
And they went more or less straightaway to a photo | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
and removing the back of the photo, removed letters. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:33 | |
There was a stuffed toy there and they unzipped the toy | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
and reached in, and lo and behold, there was another cache of letters appeared and I knew then, | 0:25:36 | 0:25:43 | |
just my heart fell and I thought they have certainly planted evidence here. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:49 | |
Some of the letters I had not received. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
So they had been intercepted. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:56 | |
It is just not in the military where gays and lesbians felt hounded. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:03 | |
A 37-year-old computer programmer died after collapsing on the floor | 0:26:03 | 0:26:08 | |
of a gay disco called Heaven. He contracted AIDS. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:12 | |
The AIDS virus provoked widespread fear. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
Merely to be gay can cost your job. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:18 | |
Even a bishop said he found it difficult to shake hands with an AIDS sufferer. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:23 | |
I think three parts of them want burning and I do mean that. They want burning. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:28 | |
Like thousands of others, Jonathan Grimshaw knew there was little effective treatment, | 0:26:28 | 0:26:33 | |
a terrible prognosis, and a lot of prejudice. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
It's a terrifying prospect. If I was to be living at home, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:42 | |
I know that my flatmate could not cope. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:44 | |
I'm not sure that services | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
would be available from the local authority to look after me. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
So, I mean, I don't know what's going to happen. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
To be told something like that is just utterly devastating, | 0:26:52 | 0:26:57 | |
because it meant that it was a death sentence, really. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:02 | |
Friends of mine were being hounded out of their jobs. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:07 | |
Beset on all sides by this moral panic and believing he had little time left, | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
Jonathan decided to resign from his job in TV. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
If you're told that you have a terminal illness, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:19 | |
you find that people have a sort of surge of energy and they think, | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
"I don't want to kind of die insignificantly". | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
But I was so angry, | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
and so fired up, | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
and so determined to achieve | 0:27:31 | 0:27:34 | |
everything I wanted to achieve in, I don't know how many years I had, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
two years, three years, four years, that I absolutely threw myself into, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:45 | |
you know, really sort of committed campaigning work. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
Resignation led Jonathan to co-found Body Positive - a support group for HIV sufferers. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:56 | |
Sex has been at the heart of many political resignations. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:04 | |
War Secretary Jack Profumo's resignation in 1963, | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
followed his dalliance with a call girl who also slept with a Soviet naval attache. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:15 | |
Ten years later, Defence Minister Lord Lambton was also caught with a prostitute. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:20 | |
Why should a man of your social position and charm and personality have to go to whores for sex? | 0:28:20 | 0:28:25 | |
I think that people sometimes like variety. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
I think it's as simple as that and I think this impulse is probably understood by almost everybody. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:33 | |
Don't you? | 0:28:37 | 0:28:39 | |
I think a great many people may understand it, Lord Lambton, I think that is so. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:45 | |
If the call girl had said to me, | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
"Please, suddenly, darling, tell me about the laser ray," | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
or something or, "What do you think of the new Rolls-Royce engine for the MRCA?" | 0:28:51 | 0:28:59 | |
I would have known that something was up. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:04 | |
Despite his protestations, Lambton resigned. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:08 | |
Mr Parkinson left his London home this morning, firmly declining to add to his statement. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:14 | |
I will not, at any stage, say any more. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:19 | |
Misdemeanours didn't have to involve paying for sex to provoke the end of ministerial life. | 0:29:19 | 0:29:24 | |
Affairs could be fatal too. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
Will it affect your political future? | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
I have no further comment. I have no idea. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:32 | |
Cecil Parkinson resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary | 0:29:32 | 0:29:35 | |
in 1983 after revelations about an affair and a pregnancy. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:41 | |
A decade later, affairs and perhaps more crucially, | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
the hypocrisy they uncovered, was still an issue. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:49 | |
The only thing I want to say is how grateful I am for the support | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
and encouragement and how sad I am to leave the Government today. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:57 | |
Environment Minister, Tim Yeo, fell foul of the Tories' Back to Basics policy. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:03 | |
His extra-martial affair and resulting child led once again to resignation. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:09 | |
But by 1997, things were changing. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:13 | |
I can confirm that I'm leaving my wife. I want to make it clear | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
that the responsibility for this is entirely mine. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
A newspaper discovered that Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
was having an affair with a member of his staff. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:27 | |
This idea that I phoned him up and said you know, | 0:30:27 | 0:30:31 | |
"Wife or mistress, you decide." It wasn't like that at all. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:34 | |
I had almost this coded conversation where I was able to be clear to Robin, | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
but he was not being terribly clear back. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:42 | |
That's because Cook's wife, Margaret, was within earshot. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:47 | |
We got cut off. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:48 | |
He then obviously explained to Margaret what was going on | 0:30:48 | 0:30:52 | |
and when he phoned back I remember him saying, | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
"Look, you know, we're swimming in a sea of some emotional turbulence here." | 0:30:54 | 0:30:59 | |
And I then said, "Look, I've talked to Tony, | 0:30:59 | 0:31:01 | |
"and he does not see this as a resigning issue per se, | 0:31:01 | 0:31:06 | |
"but, you know, you do need some sort of sense of clarity about this." | 0:31:06 | 0:31:10 | |
And it was he who came back in the morning and said he'd decided to end his marriage. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:15 | |
Clarity meant Cook's marriage, not his career, was over. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:20 | |
Politicians, it seems, have learned to avoid the trap of preaching about family values. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:25 | |
And by the time we reach 21st century Britain, | 0:31:29 | 0:31:33 | |
married men can pay for sex and hang on to their jobs. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
Max Mosley led the FIA, the governing body for world motor sport, for 16 years. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:44 | |
A newspaper sting revealed he'd been having sadomasochistic sex with prostitutes. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:49 | |
There were the usual calls for resignation. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:51 | |
-You represent over 50 million members. -Correct. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
You would consider pulling all those out of the FA because of Mr Mosley's actions? | 0:31:54 | 0:31:59 | |
-We would consider that. -But Mosley refused to go. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
There are situations where you are in charge, | 0:32:03 | 0:32:05 | |
it is not your fault but you have to resign. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
I think if there'd been a big accident in Formula One, | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
with, say, part of the car going in the crowd, | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
something really serious like that, I would have felt probably | 0:32:14 | 0:32:18 | |
I ought to resign or at least offer my resignation. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:22 | |
If I had resigned, I don't think it would have been an honourable | 0:32:22 | 0:32:26 | |
resignation, I think it would have been a cowardly one, | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
because I had done nothing wrong. | 0:32:29 | 0:32:32 | |
I hadn't done something I shouldn't do, which is when you should resign. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:36 | |
This was something to do with my private life. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
So in the space of a generation, having one's sex life exposed | 0:32:39 | 0:32:44 | |
was no longer an automatic route to resignation. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
-Time to go, Prime Minister? Is it time to go? -Are you resigning? | 0:32:51 | 0:32:55 | |
Timing is crucial to resigning. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
It can mean the difference between a good and a bad resignation. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:04 | |
Why have you decided to resign from the Labour Party? | 0:33:04 | 0:33:08 | |
Because I joined the movement to defend people. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:13 | |
Lord George Brown's resignation from the Labour Party in 1976 | 0:33:13 | 0:33:18 | |
was marred by an unfortunate coincidence. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
He appeared to be drunk. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:22 | |
I resigned after 40 years or more because I think they are more | 0:33:22 | 0:33:29 | |
interested in establishments then they are in people. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
Photographs of him falling into the gutter after the interview didn't help. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:37 | |
Events can be the enemy of good timing. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:42 | |
"Wait, I know you're probably reaching for your phone to have me | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
"marched out of the building, but please, save on your bill. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:50 | |
"I quit." | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
Journalist, Richard Peppiatt, timed sending his resignation letter | 0:33:53 | 0:33:57 | |
to perfection. | 0:33:57 | 0:33:58 | |
The 1st March was going to be the day that I did it | 0:33:58 | 0:34:02 | |
and that was partly because that was the day I got paid! | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
I wanted to make sure that I got my expenses | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
for the last two months and my wages. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:10 | |
I just remember my finger hovering and just thinking and then going, | 0:34:10 | 0:34:17 | |
"No, you can do this. You're strong enough to do this." | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
And I hit the button and this wave of euphoria followed by... | 0:34:20 | 0:34:26 | |
I just burst into tears. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
And for about 30 seconds I was uncontrollably sobbing. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:33 | |
You really had not just had burnt your bridges, you'd gone back and strafed them for good measure! | 0:34:33 | 0:34:39 | |
Desmond was getting more than a simple "I quit" from Peppiatt. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:46 | |
"I suspect you see a perfect circle. I see a downward spiral. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:51 | |
"I see a cascade of shit pirouetting from your penthouse office, | 0:34:51 | 0:34:55 | |
"caking each layer of management, splattering all in between." | 0:34:55 | 0:35:01 | |
The Business Secretary promised to go to war on the Murdochs | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
and on their takeover of BSkyB. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
But a bigger media story bumped Peppiatt's letter from being published in the Guardian. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:12 | |
It was a real, real low point. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
There'd been so much planning and so much thought gone into | 0:35:14 | 0:35:19 | |
the timing of this and the letter itself, that when it didn't... | 0:35:19 | 0:35:25 | |
when the plan started going off the rails, I thought I'd lost control. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:29 | |
I don't want to go. | 0:35:37 | 0:35:38 | |
For goodness sake, who wants to resign from being Foreign Secretary? | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
I don't think you can allow something like this to happen | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
and to just ignore it. You have to take responsibility for it. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:51 | |
and it is quite clear, if you read the Press | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
and the debates in the House of Commons, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:56 | |
that my judgement and my actions have been questioned. | 0:35:56 | 0:36:01 | |
After a weekend of press and Parliamentary criticism, | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
Lord Carrington resigned, speeding Richard Luce's own resignation timetable. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:09 | |
Lord Carrington rang me and said, "I'm going." | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
I said, "You know perfectly well I'm going too." | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
He said, "Well, you better be quick, because I'm going at 12.30, | 0:36:15 | 0:36:19 | |
"the time is 10.30 and you've got to see the Prime Minister | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
"if you're going. I don't think you should go," he kept saying. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:25 | |
The Marines who tried to defend the Falklands returned to Brize Norton. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:29 | |
Luce's job that day was to greet Falklands governor, Rex Hunt, and take him to London. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:35 | |
The General held his hand out to me and I refused to take it | 0:36:35 | 0:36:40 | |
and he looked very angry. His cheeks were twitching like mad | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
and he said, "I think it is very ungentlemanly not to shake hands." | 0:36:44 | 0:36:49 | |
And I said, "I think it's very uncivilised for you to invade our country." | 0:36:49 | 0:36:53 | |
We got into the car and drove at 70mph through the red lights to Number Ten and he said, | 0:36:53 | 0:36:58 | |
"If I may ask, do you do you always go round like this?" | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
I said, "Don't worry, only when I resign." | 0:37:01 | 0:37:03 | |
Lord Carrington goes, | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
the first political casualty of the Falklands crisis. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
And so did the Minister of State, Richard Luce, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
the man who'd previously negotiated with the Argentines. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:14 | |
I saw the Prime Minister and I did it just in time to fit in with Lord Carrington at 12.30. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:20 | |
A mere four days ago, scenes such as this were utterly unthinkable. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:25 | |
Even now it has to be said there is something almost unreal about them. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:29 | |
A British fleet put to sea, not on some training exercise, | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
but sailing with every intention of doing battle with an enemy. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
Seeing that lot go out, | 0:37:36 | 0:37:38 | |
I think the Argentineans will quake in their shoes | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
at the very sight of it. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:43 | |
And I hope they blow the Argentinean Navy to pieces | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
when they get out there, for starters. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
-What do you think about the Government sending this big fleet? -A lot of bloody bullshit! | 0:37:49 | 0:37:55 | |
Home Secretary, are you going to resign? | 0:37:55 | 0:37:57 | |
After a two month wait, | 0:37:57 | 0:37:59 | |
Jacqui Smith's resignation thunder was stolen. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:04 | |
The announcement was leaked. | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
It became public the day or a couple of days before the reshuffle, | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
which wasn't what I wanted to happen. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
It came out and hit the papers to coincide with my son's birthday. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:20 | |
But in some ways it sort of summed up why I needed to resign, | 0:38:20 | 0:38:23 | |
because I couldn't be with him even on his birthday and even though | 0:38:23 | 0:38:27 | |
once again the newspapers were full of what a terrible sleaze bag I was | 0:38:27 | 0:38:33 | |
and how awful his dad was. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:35 | |
So it sort of made it absolutely clear to me | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
that I was making the right decision. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:40 | |
Jacqui Smith's son may never have been a fan of Labour anyway. | 0:38:40 | 0:38:44 | |
-What do we think about Tony Blair? -Boring. Boring. Boring. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:50 | |
At Bristol, Stephen Bolsin failed to stop a scheduled operation on a baby boy. | 0:38:55 | 0:39:01 | |
Timing, for him, was a matter of life and death. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
It was the worst night of my professional career. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:09 | |
A small child's life was going to be ended the next day because | 0:39:09 | 0:39:17 | |
the surgeons were too proud to admit that they couldn't do the operation. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:23 | |
I realised then that I didn't actually want to work for | 0:39:23 | 0:39:26 | |
an organisation that was not prepared to intervene to save a child's life. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:33 | |
In secret, Stephen got a job in Australia and resigned from Bristol. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:40 | |
Three months after arriving in Australia, | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
he submitted a professional misconduct complaint to the GMC. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:47 | |
Max Mosley eventually announced that he would go, | 0:39:51 | 0:39:55 | |
but at a time of his choosing. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:57 | |
I'm going in October with some relief because it is very hard work. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:03 | |
But Mosley wasn't resigning, he was retiring. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:08 | |
In Profumo's case, for example, he was having an affair with a girl | 0:40:08 | 0:40:12 | |
who was also having an affair with the Russian military attache, | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
so he'd done something wrong and in his position, I would have probably done what he did. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:20 | |
But I felt I'd done nothing wrong. Nothing whatever. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:23 | |
It was just this newspaper had done something absolutely outrageous, | 0:40:23 | 0:40:27 | |
completely illegal, and I wasn't going to put up with it. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:33 | |
They had no right to go into private premises and take pictures and films | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
of adults engaged in activities which are no-one's business, | 0:40:37 | 0:40:42 | |
but those of people concerned. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
-Who are you from? -The BBC. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:40:46 | 0:40:50 | |
Greg Dyke was haunted by second thoughts. The timing was wrong. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:55 | |
Everyone involved in the Hutton Inquiry at the BBC, | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
when they read the report, read it with disbelief. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
I should have said no. I should have said, "Go on then, fire me. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:08 | |
"You want me to resign, I'm not going to, you fire me." | 0:41:08 | 0:41:11 | |
And it would have taken them days to sort that out | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
and in those days, the mood changed. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:19 | |
It was pretty clear that Hutton had been rejected. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
Good timing is an art. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:26 | |
It can desert even the most experienced when it comes to resigning. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:31 | |
REPORTER: Are you an embarrassment to the Prime Minister, Mr Blunkett? | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
Would you mind letting me go? | 0:41:35 | 0:41:38 | |
I have resigned from the Cabinet and I will make a full statement later today. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
So, the decision has been taken, the resignation submitted. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:48 | |
I'm very sorry that Nigel Lawson has gone. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:51 | |
We worked together for years and he has so many enormous achievements. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:55 | |
There is now a reckoning. | 0:41:55 | 0:41:58 | |
Sky Hawks, four or five came low across the bay | 0:42:06 | 0:42:09 | |
to bomb the two landing ships unloading men and supplies. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:12 | |
Despite the risk, the helicopters disappeared into the black cloud, | 0:42:12 | 0:42:17 | |
trying to pull men from the waters. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:20 | |
Throughout the period of conflict, I felt, | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
and so did Lord Carrington, very, very low. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:27 | |
I remember ringing him one day and saying, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
"I feel rather like a prisoner. I can't break out of this." | 0:42:30 | 0:42:34 | |
The priority was to save the living, not count the dead. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:37 | |
"People are being killed and even though we couldn't have done anything, I feel we're responsible." | 0:42:37 | 0:42:42 | |
He said, "I feel exactly the same, it's a nightmare." | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
Bit by bit, the Falkland Islands were re-taken. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
At GCHQ, Katharine Gun was arrested | 0:42:57 | 0:43:02 | |
after admitting she had sent the e-mail to the Press. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:05 | |
Everybody, including the security division personnel, | 0:43:05 | 0:43:10 | |
were remarkably nice... | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
..as were the investigating officers at the Special Branch. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:18 | |
Locked in a police cell, Katharine was visited by her husband. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:23 | |
I haven't thought about that for ages. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
Yeah, he was in tears. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:30 | |
And he, you know, said... | 0:43:30 | 0:43:31 | |
..I don't suppose he ever expected to see me on that side of the partition. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:41 | |
Erm...In a way, you know, it is in the situation | 0:43:41 | 0:43:45 | |
when someone else is crying, you end up being the strong one, | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
so I was not crying and I was saying, "It's going to be all right. | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
"Everything's going to be all right." | 0:43:51 | 0:43:53 | |
The princess has made the battle against AIDS | 0:43:55 | 0:43:58 | |
and the provision of help for those already suffering, one of her most dedicated causes. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:03 | |
Developments in medication meant an HIV diagnosis was no longer a death sentence. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:08 | |
Jonathan Grimshaw, who resigned expecting he had very few years | 0:44:08 | 0:44:12 | |
left to live, discovered a whole new future. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:15 | |
But like many who abandon good careers, he paid a price. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:20 | |
Most of us at that time were pretty young. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:23 | |
We hadn't had time in our jobs to build up a big pension pot | 0:44:23 | 0:44:28 | |
and when I look at my peers, people the same age, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:32 | |
the same sort of education as I had, | 0:44:32 | 0:44:35 | |
and a lot of them are doing great. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
Very good salaries and... | 0:44:38 | 0:44:41 | |
You know, I do feel... I do feel sort of cheated out of a life | 0:44:41 | 0:44:47 | |
because of HIV, but you know, | 0:44:47 | 0:44:50 | |
I mean strictly speaking, you know, I shouldn't be here. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:55 | |
The cost of not being able to resign on her own terms was serious for Caroline Meagher. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:11 | |
Instead of accepting my resignation, | 0:45:11 | 0:45:15 | |
I was subjected to humiliating interviews | 0:45:15 | 0:45:21 | |
where I was followed to the bathroom and watched | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
whilst I went to the toilet, invasive bullying questions. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:30 | |
I lost all of my so-called friends. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:34 | |
In the last five years, 260 homosexual men and women have been discharged. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:40 | |
Caroline was herself discharged from the Army for unnatural conduct, | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
contrary to military discipline. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
She was convicted of fraud for claiming travel expenses to visit her girlfriend. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:53 | |
I felt cheated out of my resignation that I wasn't being allowed to | 0:45:53 | 0:45:58 | |
just mark time quietly and leave with some shred of dignity | 0:45:58 | 0:46:05 | |
and some pride in my career. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:07 | |
Had I resigned I would have, in all probability, joined the police. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:11 | |
I would probably have two big fat pensions | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
and probably a very different standard of living. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
I was left with virtually nothing. I was unemployed for a long while. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
I was struggling on every level | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
and I feel, in a way, that that taught me an awful lot about myself. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:29 | |
In 2000, the ban on homosexuals in the military was finally lifted. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:35 | |
It came a decade too late for Caroline. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:39 | |
Not everyone paid a financial price. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:45 | |
Greg Dyke's private wealth probably made it easier for him to go. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:49 | |
One of the issues, I made money. It's interesting, | 0:46:49 | 0:46:52 | |
the only two people who left the BBC at that time, | 0:46:52 | 0:46:55 | |
given the numbers that had been involved in Hutton, were myself | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
and Gavin Davies, who were the only two who didn't have a mortgage. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:03 | |
But whether it is financial or emotional, | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
resignation always racks up a cost. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
I intend to join those tomorrow night who vote against military action. | 0:47:15 | 0:47:20 | |
It is a truism to say all resignations have consequences. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:27 | |
The point is, nobody knows what the consequences will be. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:31 | |
It is for that reason, and that reason alone, | 0:47:31 | 0:47:34 | |
and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the Government. | 0:47:34 | 0:47:38 | |
Hear, hear! | 0:47:38 | 0:47:40 | |
For Robin Cook, it was the surprise of the first standing ovation in the history of the Commons. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:45 | |
For Richard Luce, reaction to his resignation demonstrated a strength of democracy. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:55 | |
I went in rather nervously to Parliament, having resigned, | 0:47:55 | 0:48:00 | |
and wondering what people were feeling, | 0:48:00 | 0:48:02 | |
but members of Parliament from all parties came up privately and said, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
"Thank you for doing that and there, but for the grace of God, go I." | 0:48:06 | 0:48:11 | |
I thought that was gratifying and it made me feel | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
that principled resignation as a matter of honour | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
is a good thing for our democratic system. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
You murdering bastard! | 0:48:20 | 0:48:22 | |
Stephen Bolsin's revelations, backed by his resignation, helped change the Health Service. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:30 | |
Bastard! | 0:48:30 | 0:48:32 | |
You murderer! | 0:48:32 | 0:48:34 | |
Surgeon, James Wisheart, and hospital Chief Executive, John Roylance, were struck off. | 0:48:34 | 0:48:41 | |
Surgeon, Janardan Dhasmana, was found guilty of serious professional | 0:48:41 | 0:48:45 | |
misconduct and not allowed to operate on children for three years. | 0:48:45 | 0:48:50 | |
We are victims of a gross injustice. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
The injustice that our children were taken from us. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
It sparked the biggest ever public inquiry into the workings | 0:48:58 | 0:49:02 | |
of the Health Service and overhauled monitoring of hospital deaths. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:07 | |
I've got no doubt that clinical governance | 0:49:07 | 0:49:11 | |
has changed the Health Service and made it much, much safer. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:15 | |
I suspect that the events in Bristol and my resignation | 0:49:15 | 0:49:20 | |
and publicising of them has saved thousands of lives, | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
if not tens of thousands of lives, in a relatively short period of time. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:28 | |
I'm obviously delighted and just gobsmacked. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:36 | |
-I'm speechless, quite frankly. -Would you do it again? | 0:49:36 | 0:49:40 | |
I have no regrets, I would do it, again, yes. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:42 | |
A year after her arrest at GCHQ, the Government dropped all charges | 0:49:42 | 0:49:47 | |
against Katharine Gun and proved to Katharine that she was right. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:52 | |
It was fantastic. I was at Liberty at the time, | 0:49:52 | 0:49:54 | |
I was in London. We got the news, | 0:49:54 | 0:49:59 | |
and we were just jumping around hugging each other. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
There was a sort of 24-hour media circus, | 0:50:02 | 0:50:07 | |
at Liberty headquarters. I was talking to Jeremy Paxman. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:12 | |
It was all really surreal, looking back on it now. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
Who are you to make a judgement on whether it is legal or illegal, | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
moral or immoral? | 0:50:21 | 0:50:23 | |
My conscience compelled me to reveal it to the public | 0:50:23 | 0:50:28 | |
and I think the reaction that I've seen and also the fact | 0:50:28 | 0:50:34 | |
that they've dropped the charges | 0:50:34 | 0:50:36 | |
is pretty much vindicating what I did. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
Jacqui Smith eventually lost her seat, | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
but her marriage was strengthened. | 0:50:43 | 0:50:46 | |
Some people say, "Why forgive your husband and not make him sleep on the sofa?" | 0:50:48 | 0:50:52 | |
If he watches porn films, we can argue about that, | 0:50:52 | 0:50:55 | |
but if he makes a silly mistake on a claim form and I'm silly enough | 0:50:55 | 0:51:00 | |
to sign it, that shouldn't undermine everything that he has contributed | 0:51:00 | 0:51:05 | |
to my career and everything that we've got together as a relationship. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:10 | |
Richard Peppiatt's letter was finally published | 0:51:10 | 0:51:14 | |
in The Guardian and struck a blow for journalistic ethics. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:18 | |
I went from having about ten followers on Twitter, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:21 | |
because I had just joined it, to 2,000 in about six hours. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:26 | |
And people e-mailing me from, you know, all over the world, | 0:51:26 | 0:51:30 | |
sort of saying, "Bloody hell, well done, you know. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:33 | |
"You've done a really good thing here." | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
A lot of journalists I knew and journalists I didn't know | 0:51:35 | 0:51:38 | |
on Fleet Street who got in touch to say, "Congratulations, you have | 0:51:38 | 0:51:43 | |
"been very brave to do that. Thank God someone's finally speaking out." | 0:51:43 | 0:51:48 | |
The Daily Star says it has never endorsed the EDL. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
Peppiatt couldn't resign, he'd only been a casual reporter for two years. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:58 | |
He was unhappy at not getting a staff post. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:01 | |
And he had been warned about offering to make up quotes. | 0:52:01 | 0:52:05 | |
There are still nurses within the Health Service who, | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
as it were, disapprove of people with AIDS. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
Jonathan Grimshaw found fulfilment | 0:52:17 | 0:52:21 | |
and a commitment to helping others with HIV. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:25 | |
Ten years after my diagnosis, | 0:52:26 | 0:52:28 | |
I achieved everything I wanted to achieve. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:32 | |
HIV gave me the reason to do something which I thought was important with my life. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:37 | |
For me, spending the time well, meant, I suppose, doing something | 0:52:37 | 0:52:42 | |
to help people who are going through | 0:52:42 | 0:52:45 | |
this awful trauma and social rejection | 0:52:45 | 0:52:50 | |
and not being cared for when they had this terrible disease. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:55 | |
Even when it takes place in the worst of circumstances, | 0:52:56 | 0:53:01 | |
a resignation can still be an uplifting experience. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:06 | |
Once the resignation has passed, there is time to pause for reflection. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:14 | |
I really hope that Greg will be able to move on from this, | 0:53:16 | 0:53:20 | |
and that's important, not just for him, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
but it's important also for the BBC. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
About 18 months, two years later, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:28 | |
it was still sort of dominating my life, really. | 0:53:28 | 0:53:31 | |
This was a traumatic event. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
So for two years, I looked around what else I should do with my life. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:38 | |
But if you've just had that sort of bust-up with the Government, | 0:53:38 | 0:53:42 | |
you don't get offered a lot of work... | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
..because Blair was still the Prime Minister. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
And one day my daughter, who was about 20 at the time, | 0:53:48 | 0:53:52 | |
just looked at me and said, "Look, just get over it." | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
And I thought, "She's right. You just have to get over it." | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
My son, one Sunday afternoon, looked up at me as we were playing | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
with a tennis ball in the sun and he said to me very innocently, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:08 | |
"Daddy, why do you smile so much more in Australia?" | 0:54:08 | 0:54:12 | |
It was really a very moving moment for me, that I realised that | 0:54:12 | 0:54:17 | |
the kids had noticed, but they just hadn't commented on it. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:20 | |
The depressing thing for me probably is that I will be remembered | 0:54:21 | 0:54:27 | |
for being put in a position where I had to resign because of the expenses scandal. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:32 | |
I'm sad about that, but one of the things I have certainly learnt | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
over the last two years is, you know who you are, | 0:54:35 | 0:54:38 | |
regardless of what other people say about you. | 0:54:38 | 0:54:41 | |
I knew that in resigning as I did, | 0:54:41 | 0:54:43 | |
it wouldn't just be The Daily Star I'd never work at, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
it would be any tabloid, they'd all turn their backs on me. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:50 | |
You have broken the code of omerta. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:53 | |
But I can get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror | 0:54:53 | 0:54:56 | |
and smile and know that that day I can go about my business | 0:54:56 | 0:55:02 | |
in a manner that I don't feel is detracting from the world. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:07 | |
I'm trying to put something into it. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
I didn't have a bloody clue what I was going to do. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:15 | |
I had a very bad bout of depression, which I think was literally a depression. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:20 | |
It was depressurising and because of the way my mind works, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:25 | |
that sometimes does take me into a pretty dark place. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
I had a very bad bout of depression, but I got over that. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:33 | |
I then started to do different things | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
and definitely ended up in a better place. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:39 | |
If there are things out there that really should come out, | 0:55:41 | 0:55:45 | |
hey, why not? | 0:55:45 | 0:55:46 | |
'I am able to talk about it without developing the shakes | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
'and the trembles, so I have moved on from it. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:52 | |
'My life has changed dramatically since then.' | 0:55:52 | 0:55:56 | |
I don't have a secure job. I don't have a secure income. | 0:55:56 | 0:56:00 | |
But there have been other remarkable opportunities and experiences | 0:56:00 | 0:56:08 | |
that I've had that I wouldn't have had if I had stayed there. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:12 | |
I remember thinking, "Oh my goodness, I'm no longer a minister. | 0:56:16 | 0:56:21 | |
"I haven't got an official car." | 0:56:21 | 0:56:22 | |
I said to my wife, "How am I going to get to Parliament? What am I going to do?" | 0:56:22 | 0:56:26 | |
She said, "There's something called the Tube, try that!" | 0:56:26 | 0:56:30 | |
I hadn't realised that there were new doors | 0:56:32 | 0:56:34 | |
which didn't open automatically, you had to press a button. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
And the doors didn't open, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
and I started to get very angry, "What a disgraceful Tube this is." | 0:56:39 | 0:56:43 | |
And a man behind me said, "All you do is press that button," and the door opened. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:48 | |
And it just shows, the world changes and you can be quite cushioned. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:53 | |
And there are still some sweet moments to savour | 0:56:54 | 0:56:58 | |
when those who have overseen your downfall face the axe themselves. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:03 | |
I always remember Jack Charlton saying he had a little black book | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
and he had a few names in there. | 0:57:07 | 0:57:09 | |
Everybody, I think, has got a few names in a little black book. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:13 | |
Amongst the names in my little black book would be Blair, | 0:57:13 | 0:57:16 | |
it would be Campbell, the Cabinet Ministers around them. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
There were a couple of people on the board who I made it very clear at the time that I didn't like. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:24 | |
Baroness Hogg, and she happened to be married to the guy who got done | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
for claiming cleaning the moat on his expenses. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:32 | |
And I looked up that day and thought, "There is a God after all." | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
In the last 50 years, much has changed. | 0:57:42 | 0:57:47 | |
Society is more tolerant, but quicker to call for heads to roll. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:51 | |
The honourable resignation may be less common in politics, | 0:57:51 | 0:57:56 | |
but it's still to be found. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:57 | |
In other walks of life, it has flourished. | 0:57:57 | 0:58:00 | |
And perhaps there are some universal truths | 0:58:00 | 0:58:03 | |
which have remained unchanged. | 0:58:03 | 0:58:07 | |
Resigning is personal. It is painful and it is important. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:14 | |
You have got loss of lives, always in the back of your mind. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:20 | |
Lord Franks' committee said the Government could not have done anything to stop that invasion, | 0:58:20 | 0:58:26 | |
but it is nevertheless very painful to think what it led to. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:30 | |
I don't think I would do anything differently, | 0:58:33 | 0:58:37 | |
but I think that if I knew then | 0:58:37 | 0:58:41 | |
what I know now, | 0:58:41 | 0:58:44 | |
I wouldn't have applied for the job in Bristol. | 0:58:44 | 0:58:46 | |
When I tell people I was sacked from the Army for being gay, | 0:58:50 | 0:58:53 | |
they laugh and go, "No, really? Really? Did that happen?" | 0:58:53 | 0:58:57 | |
Never, since the moment I hit that button, | 0:59:00 | 0:59:03 | |
have I doubted that what I did was the right thing. | 0:59:03 | 0:59:06 | |
My advice to anybody who is facing resignation is, don't resign, wait, | 0:59:09 | 0:59:15 | |
because it looks different in the morning. | 0:59:15 | 0:59:17 |