Was Byers derailed or did he jump?

Did Mr Stephen Byers jump? Or was he pushed? The accounts of his resignation are by no means clear. Perhaps we shall never know the truth. In olden times ministers wrote letters to one another in pen and ink which could be preserved. Today they rely on the telephone or on more modern methods of communication, equally evanescent.

Mr Byers's version is that it all grew too much and that, while admitting to some mistakes but no wrongdoing, he was swallowing the whisky and pulling the trigger for the greater good. Or, as Ramsay MacDonald wrote in 1931:

"I commit political suicide to save the crisis. If there is no other way I shall do it as cheerfully as an ancient Jap."

Mr Byers did not by all accounts look any too cheerful at the hastily arranged press conference at No 10. On the previous day he had seen Mr Tony Blair. This indicates that he went voluntarily. He is said to have consulted his friend Mr Alan Milburn and his companion Jan, whose surname is never given in the papers but who is, I can reveal, called Cookson. This is my scoop of the week. He is said to have been upset by the publication of Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody's transport report: not so much by what it said, though that was certainly upsetting enough, as by its publication at midnight last Saturday to catch the Sunday papers.

Certainly Mr Blair did not make any very strenuous efforts to persuade him to stay. So much is agreed. But the press conference, with Mr Alastair Campbell a brooding presence in the background, like a judge who had forgotten to bring his black cap with him, argued for a push rather than a jump. Things had gone too far, Something Had to Be Done.

Mr Philip Gould, the focus-group man, was supposed to have hurried to No 10 with the intelligence that the Government's greatest liability was Mr Byers. The lead in the opinion polls was slipping by the day. For some reason, his remarks on the euro-referendum were supposed to have caused much indignation. It is hard to see why. He made them during a meal with no fewer than 25 women lobby correspondents. Anyone who had expected his observations to be treated on "lobby terms" was clearly deluding himself. He might just as well have broadcast his thoughts on Newsnight.

But equally, what he said – that the referendum would figure in the next Queen's Speech and that legislation might be required to hold it – was both uncontroversial and consistent with government policy. It is difficult to understand what all the fuss was about. The only explanation is that people go off their heads whenever a minister so much as mentions the euro.

The matter of Mr Byers, Sir Richard ("We're all fucked") Mottram, Mr Martin Sixsmith and Ms Jo Moore is now as impenetrable as the Westland affair, the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 or the Schleswig-Holstein question. Of the last, it was reputed that only three people had ever understood it, of whom the first was dead, the second had gone mad and the third had forgotten. Likewise, Mr Byers is said to have wanted to sack Ms Moore but to have been prevented by No 10. Alternatively, she wanted to go but was restrained both by Mr Byers and by the Prime Minister. There are various other permutations.

What matters is that a general impression was created that Mr Byers was up to no good. At first he was taken under the warm blanket of collective responsibility. The probability is that, on this occasion, the blanket was not removed when this became politically convenient: what happened when Sir Samuel Hoare's colleagues abandoned him over the Hoare-Laval pact to which they had previously given their assent.

Nor was Mr Byers taking responsibility for a mistake, as Lord Carrington did as Foreign Secretary after the invasion of the Falklands. Sir Thomas Dugdale is usually put into the same category because he resigned as Minister of Agriculture after the mishandling of the Crichel Down case in 1954. But he went, rather, because he considered that he and his civil servants had not been adequately supported by his colleagues in the government and on the back benches.

Mr Byers could certainly not complain about his level of support on the back benches. It was not all got up by the Whips. It was genuine, largely deriving from Mr Byers's robust performance over Railtrack. He did not take responsibility for anything except for having become an embarrassment to the Government. And he was fed up.

It was a great victory for the brutish press and a clear defeat for Mr Blair, who had been determined not to cave in as Mr John Major used to do regularly. The present Prime Minister would have been prepared to hold out until the summer recess, when he could have carried out the traditional July reshuffle. Mr Byers anticipated him and brought about more changes than would have occurred later, though Mr Campbell asserts the contrary. Mr Byers's successor, Mr Alistair Darling, is an ally of Mr Gordon Brown, who is portrayed as the true author of Mr Byers's misfortunes because he withheld the necessary cash. Mr Darling's successor at Social Security, Mr Andrew Smith, is doing as important a job as Mr Darling. I met him at some social event or other when he was an opposition MP. He said:

"Andrew Smith. You'll never have heard of me. I'm extremely boring."

I assured him that as an assiduous reader of Hansard and the reference books alike, I had indeed heard of him and that I was sure he must be highly interesting. The deadpan quality of his response shows distinct comic possibilities. In a Cabinet where only Mr John Prescott provides light relief, Mr Andrew ("Interesting") Smith could do a turn similar to that of the snooker player Mr Steve ("Interesting") Davis.

We do not know whether Mr Byers intends to make a resignation speech. In recent years the privilege has been much abused. Figures such as Mr Ron Davies and Lord Lamont, who had been dismissed, have been weakly allowed by the Speaker to orate as if they had resigned. By contrast, Mr Peter Mandelson displayed an admirable reticence. Correctly, such a speech should follow a resignation caused by a disagreement over government policy. Aneurin Bevan, Lord Lawson and Lord Howe of Aberavon all made proper resignation speeches. There were Thatcher loyalists who tried to claim unconvincingly that the last two did not have any disagreements with their colleagues at all. Mr Byers does not have any today with his. Yet it looks as if he truly resigned. If he wants it, he should be given a further go in the House.