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Kitty Ussher's resignation last night is curious. She says she is also stepping down from Parliament at the next election, because of the problems of combining politics with being the mother of two chilldren under five.

If so, why be a minister as well as an MP? She says she discussed her retirement from Parliament with Prime Minister Gordon Brown some time ago. This is strange too. Only last week she gave a ´óÏó´«Ã½ colleague of mine the strongest impression that she would be contesting the next election.

It must be intensely annoying only nine days after Mr Brown completed his reshuffle. One minister told me: "She was convinced she was going to be sacked in the reshuffle and frankly it would have been better if she had fessed up then, because now there's got to be another bloody change."

So another woman leaves the government - following on from Jacqui Smith, Beverley Hughes, Hazel Blears, Caroline Flint and Jane Kennedy. And another Blairite quits - after Smith, Blears, James Purnell, John Hutton and Caroline Flint.