Hague '5/1 to go before party conference'
Friday, 3 September 2010 5:40 PM
By politics.co.uk staff
William Hague is 5/1 to resign as foreign secretary before the Tory party conference in October, bookmakers have said.
The news comes as the row over William Hague's relationship with aide Christopher Myers refused to die down.
"Mr Hague has looked somewhat ill at ease under the media spotlight of the past few days, and with his private life coming under scrutiny some observers of the political scene are speculating that he could decide to take himself and his wife out of the limelight by standing down," said Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe.
Figures at the top of the Tory party have publicly questioned the foreign secretary's decision to share a hotel room with a younger man who he later took on as a special advisor.
"Mr Hague himself now seems to understand that it was poor judgement to share a hotel room with an assistant," John Redwood wrote yesterday. Lord Tebbit also questioned Mr Hague's judgement.
Mr Hague attempted to put the situation behind him on Wednesday with a lengthy and highly personal statement revealing that his wife had suffered a miscarriage and that the couple were struggling to have children.
That statement served merely to highlight the story further, and many Westminster observers questioned whether it was wise to pursue the damage limitation course followed by the foreign secretary.
Sally Bercow told the Today programme this morning: "On a human level, I felt really sorry for Ffion Hague and for William.
"But my first thought was why are you doing this? You don't need to disclose this level of detail to prove you're not gay.
"I think he was given duff PR advice.
"It's elevated something that was circulating on the internet to the national press and the national media. At the most, he should have just said he denied having a gay relationship and said he was happily married."
Analysts have questioned whether the tactic was to use the publication of Tony Blair's memoirs as a cover for the statement, which would have been expected to garner less media attention as a result.
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