Ruth Kelly has always been a far more impressive minister than her public persona or reputation suggested. When I worked with her when she was education secretary, her knowledge and interest in the detail and consequences of policy was always abundantly clear; I am sure she brought the same commitment and grasp of detail to her transport job, and her departure is a loss for a government in which delivery matters. Moreover, her lunchtime interview on the World At One and conference speech today showed that, when she spoke from the heart, her sincerity shone through, despite a not wholly unfair reputation for poor public performances.But I do think both Ben Brogan and Daniel Finkelstein are right when they suggest that the manner in which this resignation was 'announced' stinks. Someone who presumably thinks they are doing Gordon Brown a favour has undone a lot of the good he achieved in his powerful speech yesterday by leaking the story. It reflects an approach seen with David Cairns last week and it suggests that the people around Brown simply don't understand the extent to which they are damaging him and precipitating further revolts. Whoever thought it a good idea to feed this story to Newsnight should be in possession of their marching orders pronto.
