Lord Morris defends niece's integrity

Estelle Morris said the media could not cope with her

Lord Morris, the uncle of former Education Secretary Estelle Morris, has accused the media of being unable to handle his niece's honesty.

Ms Morris resigned from her ministerial post this week saying she was not up to the challenge, in the wake of the debacle over A-level marking and delays in vetting teachers for the new school year.

I can't understand how anyone would want to question her honesty and shining integrity

Lord Morris

She also revealed she had not coped with the demands of the modern media and the media was also unable to cope with her.

But her uncle Lord Alf Morris, himself a former Labour minister, said the media had been wrong to question her integrity.

He told BBC Radio's Five Live there were people in the modern media who just could not understand his niece.

"They can't believe that a parliamentarian and minister can be as transparently honest as Estelle has been," he said.

'New ground'

The peer said very few - if any - senior politicians had ever been so frank and candid in assessing themselves.

"She probably broke entirely new ground," he said.

"I don't think anyone for a long time has heard a minister on the brink of resignation say 'I probably did this wrong'."

Lord Morris said he was very close to his niece and could not see how anyone could cast doubt over her integrity, as happened in the recent A-levels fiasco, when there were questions raised about ministerial interference in grading students.

He predicted his niece would make a comeback, saying her work in the government was not done.

"I think she has a great deal more to contribute," he said.

Regret

In an interview with BBC News Ms Morris said she had "been honest with herself" and thought she had not been as good in the cabinet post as she had been in her old job as schools standards minister.

There were further calls for her to quit after she tried to intervene when an appeals panel reinstated two boys expelled for threatening a teacher.

And she faced more criticism over an apparent failure to honour her own promise to resign if education targets were missed.

Tony Blair's official spokesman said the prime minister had "accepted her resignation with regret" and government sources were reported as saying she had not been asked to leave her post.