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Second UK cabinet minister quits over expenses scandal
Wed Jun 3, 2009 10:50am EDT
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By Adrian Croft and Frank Prenesti
LONDON (Reuters) - A second British cabinet minister announced she was resigning Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Gordon Brown's authority and his future as leader of the increasingly out-of-favor Labor Party.
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears' decision to quit, on the eve of European and local elections in which Brown's party faces a rout, followed a similar move by interior minister Jacqui Smith and pre-empted a widely-expected cabinet reshuffle.
Blears and Smith are the highest profile casualties of the fallout from disclosures about outlandish, taxpayer-funded expenses claims made by members of parliament at a time when recession is forcing hundreds of thousands out of work.
"Today I have told the prime minister that I am resigning from the government," Blears, who is responsible for local government affairs, said in a statement.
Saying she wanted to focus on her Manchester constituency in northern England, she said: "Most of all I want to help the Labor party to reconnect with the British people."
Business minister Peter Mandelson said the uproar over expenses, which has damaged all of the main political parties, could hurt Britain's economic prospects.
"If people believe our political institutions are being diminished or that our democratic system is being weakened they will start to draw economic and commercial conclusions from that if we are not careful," he said.
FOR THEIR OWN SAKE
Brown's Labor party trails the opposition Conservatives by up to 20 points with a general election due by mid-2010 and has pinned any hope of bouncing back on a fast improvement in Britain's recession-hit economy.
Brown's reshuffle, which could come as early as Friday, had been seen as an opportunity to revive his flagging fortunes. But analysts said the resignations would probably dampen its impact.
"They are uninterested in Gordon Brown and the appearance of Gordon Brown's government, they are doing this for their own sake," said Tony Travers, politics professor at London School of Economics.
Labor has faced the brunt of voter anger against many MPs who have milked the allowances system, claiming from taxpayers the cost of everything from duck houses to cleaning a moat.
Blears last month agreed to pay more than 13,000 pounds ($21,000) in tax on the sale of a property.
She was seen as taking a pot shot at Brown in a newspaper article she wrote last month when she said the government had shown a "lamentable failure" to get its message across.
Smith's reputation suffered in March when a leaked copy of her parliamentary expenses claims showed she had charged taxpayers for her husband's rental of two pornographic movies. Continued...
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