Points of departure: how to resign when the going is good

Former BBC Director General Greg Dyke went through the motions of offering his resignation in a “deal” he claimed had been made with a BBC governor in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry into the circumstances around the death of government advisor Dr David Kelly. Dyke had no real intention of quitting, wanting instead to stay and defend the Corporation’s journalistic integrity in the face of Lord Hutton’s stinging criticism of how reporting of the Kelly story had been handled. But his plan backfired, the resignation was accepted and the TV veteran was left dazed and confused.

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith resigned in the MPs’ expenses scandal, when she was found to have made claims covering her husband’s rental of pornographic films. She is only one of many politicians who have been forced by circumstance to resign or felt they should quit on a point of honour.

Some, like Jeffrey Archer, did it with their backs against the wall; others, such as Leon Britton, did it to save the boss’s skin. Some were indiscreet in their personal lives, and many of these might feel now that their resignation would not be necessary in these more enlightened times, when a sexual peccadillo is viewed as a resigning matter possibly only if the individual or the organisation they belong to sets themselves up as a defender of traditional family values.

Conservative minister Tim Yeo fell foul of his party’s back-to-basics policy when his extra-marital affair came to light, yet Formula One boss Max Mosley felt no need to resign over sensational headlines about his sado-masochistic sex with prostitutes. The late Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook did not resign over revelations of his affair with a colleague, but later resigned over Tony Blair taking the country into the Iraq War.

Jonathan Grimshaw, who worked in broadcasting when he was diagnosed as HIV positive in the 1980s, resigned because the prognosis was bad at that time and he wanted to enjoy what time he had left. It turned out that drug developments meant many people with HIV have survived long-term. He turned his energies to co-founding Body Positive, a charity to help others in his situation, many of whom were socially ostracised at that time.

Resignations are fascinating, partly because many ordinary people who would never jeopardise their mortgage by actually doing so, nonetheless experience crises or hold long-festering gripes against employers of colleagues and fantasise about walking out.

“If only I could simply resign on a point of principle, having told him/her/them what I really think...” is a thought familiar to so many. But how do those who’ve made the decision to resign, whether completely voluntarily or because it has been foist upon them, view their actions in retrospect?

A thought-provoking BBC 4 documentary examines high-profile resignations, following the process from crisis to decision and deed via considerations of timing, cost and consequences, as well as the long-term legacy of what is usually a cataclysmic action.

Jacqui Smith (who has since lost her parliamentary seat) describes how Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked her, for his own political reasons, to delay her resignation for two months after she said she wished to go because her position was untenable. She reveals that, in the end, her marriage and family life were strengthened and adds: “You know who you are, regardless of what others say about you.”

Greg Dyke, who is currently chancellor of York University, said his resignation was very difficult to get over, and for two years he was haunted by second thoughts, until his young daughter said: “Dad, just get over it.” With the benefit of hindsight, he advises others: “Don’t resign. Wait. Things look different in the morning.”

The programme aims to reveal universal themes, says producer/director Dave Morrison. “Looking at the stories of resignations decades ago and recent crises, they all still raise relevant questions. Hearing about other people’s dilemmas and decisions, you can’t help but put yourself in their place and ask ‘what would I do?’

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My Resignation (BBC 4, Wednesday 9pm).