A saga of misplaced loyalties, weakness and incompetence

The resignation of Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Transport, was, like too many trains on the British railways, long overdue. Had he resigned in the immediate aftermath of the row about his special adviser, Jo Moore, he would have left with his honour – almost – intact. Had he summarily dismissed Ms Moore for her tasteless suggestion that 11 September would be a good day to "bury" bad news, he might never have had to resign at all.

Yesterday, eight months later, he cut a rather pathetic figure as he delivered his resignation statement from Downing Street, alone; the symbolism was almost painful. Even as he admitted to mistakes and accepted that he was a liability to the Government, he sought solace in a litany of self-justification. He defended his record as a torchbearer for Blairism at Education, at the Treasury, at the DTI and even at Transport, pleading to be remembered for something other than the Moore debacle and his endless dissembling.

In a final attempt to salvage something from the personal wreckage, he twice insisted with hurt indignation that he was an honourable man and no liar. The evidence, however, justifies the accusations of lying and, clearly, the "Liar-Byers" headlines were hurting the Government. The Secretary of State for Transport was thoroughly discredited well before he resigned, and this hobbled his performance of his ministerial duties. His word, whether to the City, to Parliament, to journalists or to voters, was simply not trusted.

But this was not the only reason his cabinet career has ended in such ignominy. It was, perhaps even more, a question of competence. He failed to appreciate how the public would view Ms Moore's memo. His department degenerated into disarray, while everything he touched seemed to fragment. He was blamed for the chaos on the railways, the congestion on the roads, the inability to resolve the running of London Underground, the cost over-run and periodic failures of the new air-traffic control centre. Last weekend, his department's entire transport strategy was slated by his own backbenchers, while even his time at Trade came back to haunt him with the Desmond affair.

Credibility, judgement, competence: on all three counts, Mr Byers fell far short of what is expected of someone heading such a key department. Yet Mr Blair should not escape all the blame for the Byers debacle. Mr Byers was, after all, the quintessential Blairite minister, in whose department presentation and performance were "spun" into one – until the bluff was called.

Curiously, loyalty lies at the heart of all this. It was Mr Byers' loyalty to Ms Moore that encouraged her to cling on for so long after her e-mail was leaked to The Independent, and it was Mr Blair's loyalty to a colleague from the same political and geographical background that explained why he clung on to such a discredited figure for far too long. Both decisions were serious misjudgements, reflecting indecision and weakness, not just in the Transport Department, but in Downing Street.

Mr Blair will now appoint a new minister at Transport, who will start with the slate wiped clean – although voters will not forget his failure after five years in government to modernise our transport systems. Meanwhile, however hard he tries to spin his resignation, Mr Byers' political obituary will consist of just two lines: Jo Moore's 11 September memo, and the conclusion he drew that finally prompted his resignation: "By remaining in office, I damage the Government."