Mo Mowlam: Estelle Morris was squeezed out by No 10

Following her resignation as Education Secretary on Wednesday there have been acres of comment about my friend and former colleague Estelle Morris. But I think that what needs to be said about her can be done quite quickly and simply, because with her what you saw is what you got.

Estelle is a woman people could talk to and identify with. She did not come from London, which I think was important to her being who she was. She was honest, hardworking and knew that she had goals to achieve, and she wanted simply to be left alone to get on with the job of achieving them. When she was Schools Minister this was possible, but as Secretary of State there were too many other pressures to make it possible for her just to get on with the job.

When I was in government we used to chat occasionally when we met at the swimming pool. We both acknowledged that politics is tough, but we admitted to loving it. Estelle was never a moaner.

Estelle's very honest words when she resigned were clearly what she believed, what she sincerely felt. I just want to ask the question – why did she feel she was not up to the job? After all, everyone agrees that she is bright and knowledgeable about education.

I can only offer my interpretation – this is me and not her speaking. The constant pressure of the media can be frustrating and exhausting. It is important to keep the public informed about what the Government is doing and the press have to be used to do that. But it becomes exhausting to have to keep watching that you don't say something that can be misinterpreted. Because if this happens you then have to waste more time, energy and brain power on dealing with the press rather than getting on with what you had set out to do that day.

A free press is crucial in any society, but politicians I have met from other countries often comment on the unnecessarily aggressive and negative press we have in Britain. Although I think that the press are part of the problem, why are they like this? The spinning and half-truths that they are served up by some in government will also have helped to create the problem.

One of the major factors which has an effect on the way a secretary of state performs is the civil service. In the civil service there are some great people and some awful ones, but the problem does not really come from specific personalities. The problem is that once you become a minister you soon realise that the civil service is not there to service you. It is there to keep the ship of state running smoothly; that is what civil servants regard as their duty. This can be disconcerting, and can feel as if government is going on all around you, and that really all you have to do as secretary of state is to go along with the flow, open your mouth when required, attend meetings when requested and generally not step out of line. All this means that you have to try even harder to achieve what you want, rather than what your civil servants think you should be doing.

I am sure that, like me, Estelle found ways of handling this, but it is all time wasted, time that you want to use to set out to do what you want to do.

Please do not misinterpret this as an attack on the civil servants. It is not. But the actual structures of the service do need to be changed. Its methods and what it believes itself to be doing are outmoded. The world has changed a lot in the past 50 years, but our system of policy delivery has not changed with it. This can put too much pressure on ministers.

There are two other problems which I assume hit the Department for Education and Skills. One is the desire of No 10 to get results. On one level a completely worthy desire, but it can be less than helpful when the secretary of state is getting on with the job and No 10 comes in with requests for more speed in one area, or a change of emphasis in another. A department of state is not built to be quite so adaptable. This difficulty was perhaps made worse for Estelle by having No 10 in her department in the form of David Miliband, a very competent minister, but very close to No 10, having worked there and being so trusted there. It is possible that his presence could well have made Estelle feel squeezed.

The second pressure comes from the Treasury, especially with such a hands-on Chancellor as Gordon Brown. Constant reporting and monitoring of performance can seem to be delivering value for money for the public, but at the same time it can cause increased bureaucracy and undermine morale – not to mention taking up even more of the valuable time and energy of the secretary of state.

The only other explanation I can offer for why Estelle left is simply that she is an honest and principled individual. As Secretary of State for Education she had to confront the political world I have described directly and she didn't like it. Many may also argue that part of the problem was that she was a woman. In other words, so the argument runs, she lacked the aggressive "bruiser" instincts that are necessary to make it in the Cabinet. Perhaps. But if this is true then it is a sad reflection on the nature of politics, and we should look to make a change.

The author is a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and served in Tony Blair's Cabinet from 1997 to 2001.