re: #529 Obdicut

But he’s not assuming any professional responsibility in saying that he could have done something different in any way. If he didn’t do anything wrong, then why resign? I lived in the UK, I know the culture in the UK, and I would not agree that people tend to resign at even the appearance of misjudgment, otherwise John Prescott would have resigned about 20 times by now, as would every single minister involved in the expenses scandals.

What he seems to be implying is that his biggest failing was not recognizing that Yates was incompetent, but he’s not actually taking responsibility for that. He’s just blaming Yates, while po-facedly claiming that he has full faith in Mr. Yates. That last bit is especially sleazy.

His resignation is tacit acceptance of his responsibility.

As for UK culture, I grew up in the UK. These kinds of resignations are not uncommon (perhaps less so now, but still not uncommon. Ken Livingstone is the embodiment of the ‘new’ UK).

Also, there is a lot of 20/20 hindsight going on here now.

I don’t believe Stephenson will suffer any lasting damage.