Smith joins roll call of resigning MPs
Updated on 02 June 2009
Just two days before the local and European elections, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson join the growing list of MPs who are standing down.
Jacqui Smith is to quit as soon as Gordon Brown completes his anticipated reshuffle, creating yet more turmoil for the beleaguered Labour government.
Smith was one of the first ministers to face criticism over her expenses arrangements, not least in connection with her husband's claim for renting an adult film.
But hers is not the only departure.
The prime minister’s controversial bag-carrier, Tom Watson, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes, Bury North MP David Chaytor, and former health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, will also leave parliament at the next election.
Some might have gone anyway, but most are in one way or another victims of the expenses scandal.
But what about the other embattled second-homers in cabinet: Purnell, Hoon, and Blears?
Does the prime minister have the political traction to manage a reshuffle that will stick?
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, joins us from Westminster and David Hill, the former director of communications at Number 10 are with me in the studio.
