Whether Gordon Brown intended to hold a reshuffle or not, Jacqui Smith has just given him no choice, by letting it be known she will be resigning as Home Secretary at the end of the week. Tom Watson has made a similar decision.
The fact is that Jacqui Smith should never have been appointed to the position in the first place. To go into that job with no other Cabinet experience would be a tough ask on anyone, and despite a bright start in the job, she soon got bogged down in crisis after crisis. Labour MPs never really gave her unconditional support when things got rough, and too often she was undermined by the Prime Minister. Her final humiliation came at the hands of her husband (if that's not an unfortunate turn of phrase) and frankly, there was no way back for her after that.
I shall now again risk being flamed by my readers, but I have always thought Jacqui Smith is a thoroughly nice woman who was overwhelmed by the job. She allowed the authoritarian instincts of her department, instilled by her predecessors, to dominate her political agenda and she allowed herself to be dictated to by Number Ten. Whatever her failings may have been, and there many, she will always be able to say that she was the first woman Home Secretary - and that is an achievement in itself.
