Alan Milburn's resignation as Health Secretary is one of the biggest shocks in politics in recent years. I'm using shock in it's real sense here, not in the headline writers sense as 'something we predicted would happen has happened'. This was one of those times where there'd been no rumours of this happening, no speculation from various unnamed sources, nothing of the usual spinning that lays the ground for your usual 'shock'. I was out of the country when Estelle Morris resigned, so I don't know if that was as similarly unheralded - can anyone enlighten me?

Because of its sheer out of the blue nature, I'm inclined to believe Milburn when he says he wants to spend more time with his family. The problem is that the phrase 'spend more time with my family' has been subjected to a kind of political 'crying wolf' with it having ben used many times over the years by people who have no desire to spend more time with their family. Because of that, Milburn's reasons for resigning are being analysed over and over again in the hopes of finding a 'real' reason, even if there isn't anything there. After all, for the politicians and journalists to accept that a man's desire to spend more time with his family is a genuine reason to leave his job might involve them getting some serious questions from their own families when they finally get to see them.

The important thing to remember is that Milburn, like a lot of the Cabinet, is still relatively young in political terms. It seems to me that he's made the calculation that he can live quite happily on an MP's wages (plus all the various other bits of work he can pick up now he's out of the cabinet - I suspect a number of papers are already making him offers to write for them) and spend some quality time with his family, then return to frontline politics in a few years, tanned, rested and ready. There's probably quite a lot of jealous looks being shot in his direction from other senior politicians right now.