Another Squeak, Another Splash

The brilliant James Purnell, whose moderate centre-left ideology and neo-Italianate artistic sensibilities have exercised your correspondent before, has announced his departure from Parliament at the next election. According to Britain's leading liberal newspaper, this "suggests that promising young MPs (sic) see no immediate future for themselves in Westminster". Apparently Britain's leading liberal newspaper defines promising as having held a couple of positions in a feverishly incompetent cabinet; surely it cannot have in mind last summer's failed putsch, when Purnell and a couple of other fifth-raters flounced out of the Government expecting eminent fourth-raters like the Upper Miliband to rally to their soiled little flag? It is rather more likely that Purnell now considers the business of serving his constituents from the back benches a task unworthy of his capabilities; certainly it is unlikely to compare, either socially or philosophically, to the business of serving himself on the front benches. Then again, perhaps he merely wishes to avoid being the Michael Portillo of 2010; his majority is only just above eight thousand.