This week, columnist Ruth Wishart reflects on the dying art of the honourable exit from political life.

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There’s a chap called Michael Bates – well, actually, not so much a chap as your actual Lord – whom you might scarcely have registered.

But he did get his five minutes of fame last month when he tendered his resignation as a junior minister in the Department for International Development.

His crime? He arrived two minutes late for a session where he was due to answer questions.

They don’t much make ‘em like that any more.

Michael’s noble gesture was turned down by his bosses on the grounds that he had hardly committed the political crime of the century.

But we might pause to compare and contrast his attempt to fall on his sword by what more usually happens in the other house.

There have been four high profile ministerial scalps taken from the current cabinet in less than a year – and the Commons trajectory is rather different.

In chapter one they are accused of conduct unbecoming. In chapter two they hotly deny any wrongdoing of any kind. Three sees them go through trial by media. And number four is out the door.

The irony of all of which is that some of the folk most recently propelled out through that revolving door are actually amongst the more competent operators, whilst some of those still parking their bottoms on ministerial limos are gaffe prone liabilities.

There are also rather different interpretations of what constitutes a matter of honour.

The late Willie Whitelaw offered his resignation to the blessed Maggie after an intruder found his way into the Queen’s bedchamber.

He hadn’t actually provided the ladder: he just thought, as Home Secretary, the buck stopped with him.

Whereas the bold Boris, who bizarrely appears still to be Foreign Secretary, sailed on with his customary insouciance when he got his facts disastrously wrong over the imprisoned British mum Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who now still languishes in an Iranian jail.

Yet perhaps the two most arresting resignations in recent memory came from men who had both served as foreign secretaries in their respective governments.

Geoffrey Howe had become Mrs Thatcher’s chancellor by the time he threw in the towel in 1990. But his low key speech had the devastating impact of helping the Iron Lady’s premiership implode just weeks later.

Then there was Labour’s Robin Cook, whose speech on the eve of the Iraq war outlining why he couldn’t support it is generally considered one of the finest addresses made on that contentious topic.

Compared with moments of high drama like those, the current prolonged exits seem rather less than honourable.