Anglican Mainstream

Ruth Kelly has repeatedly clashed with the Liberal party over embryo research and sexual orientation legislation

By Hilary White

MANCHESTER, September 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com ) – Ruth Kelly, Gordon Brown’s Secretary of State for Transport and one of the most prominent Catholic Labour MPs, announced at the party’s national conference that she will be leaving the Cabinet to "spend more time with her family."

"Being in frontline politics," she said, "and bringing up four children, and being a constituency MP, it has not been easy all the time. I do think it is time just to take a step back and repay the support that [my family] have given me over the years."

The Prime Minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today that there were "no political issues between Ruth and me."

But the expression of a politician’s desire to "spend more time with family" is normally taken by analysts as a common political cliché covering a conflict with the party, and Kelly’s announcement is no exception. The Daily Telegraph is linking Kelly’s departure to her opposition to the government’s human embryology bill, saying she informed the Prime Minister that she could not reconcile her Catholic faith with the bill’s provisions for human cloning and the creation of human/animal hybrids.

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