Stepping down.

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson did no more in the House of Commons last month than to pull off a reprieve. The Conservatives feel he is more of a liability than an asset. Therein lies the heart of the matter - the prime minister will resign when his party begins to feel that his continuance will spell doom in the next general election. Right now there is no alternative leader in sight. An election now will send the Tories into the wilderness.

By objective standards of public morality, Boris Johnson ought to have resigned. As the leader of the opposition pointed out, Boris Johnson had lied to the House of Commons and to the nation at large. But his party stood by him.

That said, it would be cynical to leave an important question to the vicissitudes of the politics of the day. In his classic Cabinet Government, Sir Ivor Jennings laid down two propositions. One, 'The most elementary qualification demanded of a minister is honesty and incorruptibility. It is, however, necessary not only that he should possess this qualification but also that he should appear to possess it.' The benefit of the doubt does not go to him. Once under a cloud the minister, especially the prime minister, must go.

Jennings' second proposition is that 'a minister cannot hide behind the error of a subordinate. Within a department there must be substantial delegation of power, but the most essential characteristic of the civil service is the responsibility of the minister for every act done in his department'.

Once under a cloud, a minister must resign.

To quote Lord Morrison, 'The proper answer of the minister is that, if the House wants anybody's head it must be his head as the responsible minister... .'

In extreme cases, a minister has resigned because of the lapse of his departmental official. It does not, however, follow from that that a minister would also be held guilty of impropriety in the sense of moral turpitude or deviation from the path of rectitude because of an act of impropriety on the part on the part of the departmental official. Unless the circumstances of the case show that a minister by some positive act or deliberate omission has abetted the commission of that impropriety by the civil servant.

The highest point was reached in 1954 in the Crichel Down affair when the minister Sir Thomas Dugdale resigned over mistakes by a civil servant.

In India, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru liked 'strong men' around him, so long as they kept the opposition...