Very comradely, Bob.

And that's the attitude that will ensure we are in opposition for years to come. Our party can only win when the traditional socialist wing and the centre-left social democratic wing are united and we dominate the centre of British politics.

I have no doubt that some sections of the party will be celebrating Purnell's announcement today but to rejoice in losing one of the best young candidates who might have been able to put us in a winning position again would be to show that we have learnt nothing and we are heading back to the dark days of the 1980s.

His departure today is a huge loss for the Labour Party and I hope he will continue to play a role in developing a way forward for Labour after the election through the Open Left project.

Our party can only win when the traditional socialist wing and the centre-left social democratic wing are united

As long as we are united around the things the centre-left social democratic wing want, presumably, otherwise they will take their ball home and refuse to play anymore.

One down a few more to go, but will Purnell go to the Lib Dem's I doubt it, Tories yes , but why did he not just cross the room, it does look at if he has been given another jobs.

One step nearer the repulsive Ed Balls succeeding Brown as Labour Leader.

Shock?         No shock!

Loss?           No loss!

Goodbye?     Good riddance!

Mr Piper: dead right. We shouldn't forget Purnell giggling on Radio 4 last month when in conversation with Nick Robinson he recalled how he forced Gordon Brown into accepting the Freud amateur welfare reforms lock stock and barrel. We now have the obscene spectacle of people with terminal cancer, or undergoing chemotherapy being denied ESA at "work focused interviews"by ATOS the private company that does the DWPs dirty work for them.

At no time did Purnell express embarrassment that, within weeks of accepting multimillionaire investment banker Freud's crackpot scheme, Freud decamped to the Tory party in exchange for a peerage, so while Purnell was taking the bill through (and only 30 Labour MPs had the backbone to oppose it) Freud was taking his reward and Purnell was doing the Tory's work for them by implementing their policies.

"Rejoice at that news" should be on the lips of every TRUE Labour supporter today. The privately educated Purnell should never have been a member of the Labour Party, let alone a Labour MP

I don't think he'd go to the Lib-Dems. Not Right wing enough for him. I suspect if Cameron gets a landslide you might find Purnell on the Tory benches, where - lets be honest - he truly belongs.

Good post Bob (and Alan). We can also remember the expenses farrago, telling the Commons that his London home was his second home and the taxman that it was his main one.

Just opening a celebratory bottle of Brakspear's, definitely put a shine on the start of my weekend!

One point I'd disagree on though: I'd be surprised to see this toadying egotistical non-entity turn up on the Tory benches. The only principle the right-wing slime-bag has is self-interest. I expect he's decided in light of the Westminster gravy train running a little dry that he'll do better for himself dishing-up smug tripe for his media pals and a couple of hard-earned *cough* company directorships.

Now if only we could get rid of Margaret "BNP-Lite" Hodge as well...

Purnell's remarks today:

“We can and should win. It has been a genuine achievement to prevent recession turning into depression and Gordon deserves huge praise. As for Cameron, Gordon is right. The more he says, the less it means. He is pretty shallow. I’d like to see Gordon re-elected and prove what I said last June to be wrong.”

I'm struggling to identify the "disloyalty" that deserved that bitchy sectarian rant.

I agree with Labour Member above. I thought that Matthew Parris's article in the Times today was apt. I read recently on Tom Harris's blog of how he was treated over the AV part of the Constitutional Bill. He wondered if debate was no longer possible in the party. It seems that Tom Harris is right given some of the views above. James Purnell offered debate about the future but was unable to do this as an MP. He was one of the few who had grasped the need to do so.

The Party has lost a young, articulate and thinking MP - the type we need if we are to continue to govern. James Purnell was an excellent Work and Pensions Minister - his views very much reflected those of Middle England. Oh I forgot - the Labour Party are not interested in Middle England and seem to forget that votes from Middle England are necessary to win an election. Peter Mandelson is now ensuring the PM changes course to attract such votes but I myself feel it is rather late in the day.

I struggle after supporting the party for 42 years to stomach some of the above comment. It seems like many other life supporters of Labour that I too am being driven out.....oh well.....

Bob, are you serious?

You continue to be an utter enigma.

Here you are supporting PFI, privatisation of public services and nanny-statism through your role as a councillor on Sandwell Council. Your continued membership of the Labour party suggests that you endorse and support these policies. If you didn't, you would resign and join another party.

And yet now you claim that Purnell is a liability to the Labour Party.

If Purnell is a liability, what does that make you?

Again Bob - what exactly is the point of Bob Piper? You're either ineffectual, by your own admittance; anti-Labour - by your own admittance; or just utterly useless. Which one is it, Bob?

Connor, still questions and no answers. Why did the Green Party shut down your website? Is there no free speech in the Green Party? I know you don't allow dissent and you all have to behave like clones. Perhaps you should join Labour and be allowed to think for yourself (although, with some of your potty ideas, perhaps not).

"I'm struggling to identify the "disloyalty" that deserved that bitchy sectarian rant."

So because he made a generic, token statement upon announcing his resignation we are supposed to forget his previous actions and words. The man was one of the most odious of the Blairite clique and spent his time as a minister peddling odious Tory policies. Good riddance.

Good riddance and the sooner the Labour Party manages to turf out vacant opportunists like Purnell the better.

But Purnell's strategy is obvious.

He clearly thinks Labour will lose and wants to position himself between now and the election result to better his long-term career prospects.

If he jumped after the election, he'd be one of many, and it wouldn't have any impact, but now he has a degree of "sell ability" and companies may wish to take the chance to employ him, just in case Labour wins and he could be influential.

Purnell will never starve, He's a smart bloke, if unprincipled and will pick up a handful of company directorships or a leading job in the media.

It certainly possible that the Tories could take him in as well.

He's no loss to the LP.

Of course, as you say 'good-riddance' another moderate in the Labour party leaves. It's these people as MPs that Labour needs to get re-elected. Without people like Purnell, the Labour party will be relegated to its 1983 state.

"The privately educated Purnell should never have been a member of the Labour Party, let alone a Labour MP"

You may disagree with Purnell on many a political issue, but I'm certain that being 'privately educated' shouldn't prevent him from being a Labour MP. Aren't you supposed to be the party of the many? Or just the many that suits you?

Jan you wrote "James Purnell was an excellent Work and Pensions Minister - his views very much reflected those of Middle England"

With all due respect, are you joking?. This man, promoted what is official Tory policy. The outcome of their "reforms" has been that people who are terminally ill are being turned DOWN for ESA payments in favour of JSA which pays less, because we are focussing, in Purnells words "on what people CAN do rather than what they can't". Well a lot of people who only have a few months to live perhaps do have some energy but that is reserved for just getting through the days and the treatment. I know: I watched my parents die on painful cancers. It took mum 18 months and dad about 20.

May I remind you once again that even while Purnell was taking this repulsive bill through Parliament, Freud skulked off to officially join the Tory party in exchange for a life peerage.

Freud is a multimillionaire "investment banker"
Purnell is a privately educated man coming from an obviously wealthy background.

What do either of these two charlatans know about poverty or ill-health?.

They say that life begins at 40 and as Purnell reachs that milestone on March 2nd I suppose he is probably after a nice lucrative career - perhaps replacing Portillo on that late night TV political chat show?

As for "Middle England", pandering to the Sun newspaper "readers" and Daily Mail and Daily Express bigots should NOT be the first concern of the Labour party. Especially for somebody of 42 years standing within it.

Labour member, Jimmy, Jane et al:

It's precisely Purnell and his ilk (Blair, Mandelson, etc.) who have led the Labour Party into its current parlous state. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, continuing Tory privatisation and PFI, giving free-reign to the bankers and financiers. And to top it all off slashing the public sector to pay for the greed of the finance sector and the government's failure to regulate them.

The opposite of these policies (supported not just by the Labour left but also people in the centre of the party like Jon Cruddas) would have been massively popular: no expensive and bloody wars, re-nationalisation of the failing privatised railways, clamping down on off-shoring and corporate tax evasion (rather than lone parents and the terminally ill as Alan put so eloquently above), nationalising the failing banks rather than bailing them out only to see *OUR* money paying their bonuses.

Labour can be both popular and do the right thing for ordinary British people as soon as it breaks the pernicious influence of the likes of Purnell, Mandelson, Hodge... and starts listening to it's constituency: ordinary working people rather than The Daily Mail and The Sun.

I think I get it. Because Purnell criticised the PM, he's disloyal, whereas when the left attacks Purnell they're just being principled.

I really don't understand this nostalgia for opposition. I don't remember it being much fun.

Jimmy, With respect, it is not disloyalty to Gordon Brown. People like Purnell, Pat Hewitt, Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn have taken Labour so far right, the Tories have had most of their dirty work done for them. And the people who have done this have walked away and done very nicely thank you: Ms Hewitt sits on the board of Boots Chemist and BT to name but two, Milburn "advises" a private health company whom he had dealings with when he was health secretary.

Purnell - whatever he does - had the gall to laugh on BBC Radio 4 last month when he was interviewed about the "reforms" of amateur meddler David Freud. He admitted that his tactic had been to make Brown either implement Freud, or he would resign. Well he got his way but he still resigned.

His disloyalty is something I am sure he is thick skinned enough to live with, but the consequences on the sick and disabled is something THEY have to live with. that is his real shame.

Alan,

It's not disloyal to be on the right (or the left) for that matter. I have a horrible feeling we are going back to the time when it was not possible to argue about policy without turning it into a handbag fight.

Jimmy, I hope that we don't do that too. We should debate ideas openly on the basis of respect for others and accepting the democratic outcomes. And that doesn't mean attempting to destabilise the Party's elected leader with an attempted coup.

Yes, saying good riddance was intemperate, and probably wrong. But if James Purnell was unhappy about the direction the Leader was taking the Party he could have moved to the back benches, used the Party Conference to mobilise members behind his ideas, and initiated a Leadership contest under the Party rules to present the alternative to Party members instead of Guardian journalists in behind-the-scenes briefings.

And for the record, Brown's crew might want to try stopping that too.

"Alan,

It's not disloyal to be on the right"

No Jimmy, it Isn't. What IS arguably disloyal is to resign as a minister two hours before the poll closes on a series of important elections, as Purnell did, last June, one day after Hazel Blears, not just that but tip off The Times newspaper he was doing so. Then last week when he stood down as an MP he once again announced his intention to The Times. Why do that, if there is no animosity?

Precisely Alan. However Purnell may have had motivations other than animosity when he ran to his pals at The Times (twice). The words "smug", "self-important" and "tosser" spring to mind.

And don't be so apologetic Bob: what has Purnell done for ordinary working people in Britain while feathering his nest and preening himself in Westminster?