Where does Sajid Javid’s resignation statement rank in Commons history?

From Geoffrey Howe to Robin Cook, ministers have used their return to the back benches to inflict political injury on their former bosses, says Sean O'Grady

For Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, the former chancellor is now an enemy, biding his time (AFP)

When a minister resigns – or, more often, to save blushes, is asked to resign – from the government, they have a traditional chance to make a “personal statement” to the House of Commons (granted at the speaker’s discretion). It is supposed to be heard in silence, and not be interrupted. It is “personal” in the sense that the individual is now a backbencher, and not speaking on behalf of the government. It is also “personal” in the sense that the vengeful invective can be so personal to the prime minister who fired them that it does immediate and lasting damage to their careers.

Some, like Geoffrey Howe’s fatal assault on Margaret Thatcher in 1990 (he was her deputy prime minister), can change the course of history and bring about the end of an era. Howe’s remarks were supposedly framed by his wife, Elspeth, who had even less time for Maggie, not least because she bullied Geoffrey. In any case the speech drew a laugh and then gasps of astonishment in quick succession before he sat down:

“It’s rather like sending our opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that, before the first ball is bowled, their bats have been broken by the team captain,” said Howe. “The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.” Thatcher, prime minister for 11 years and undefeated in three general elections, was out within a fortnight, the process having been started about a year before, as it happens, by a personal statement from another ex-chancellor, Nigel Lawson.