Clare Short says she'll stay, but Blair hit by two more Ministerial resignations

The International Development Secretary Clare Short is staying in Government, it emerged today.

After the resignation yesterday of Robin Cook as Leader of the Commons, support the Government in the vote on Iraq but said she remained "very critical" of the way the crisis had been handled.

"I know I will be heavily criticised for my decision and many people will feel I have let them down. But I am doing what I think is right in the circumstances which we are now in."

She had previously warned that she would quit if the Government went to war without the authorisation of a fresh United Nations resolution, having condemned Tony Blair's handling of the crisis as "reckless". But she has been impressed by a fresh Anglo-American commitment to put the UN in charge of any post-Saddam reconstruction.

Her decision to stay offered the Prime Minister some respite following the decision to resign yesterday by Robin Cook as Leader of the Commons.

However, Mr Blair was hit by two other ministerial resignations ahead of today's crucial Commons debate.

The junior Health Minister Lord Hunt announced that he had decided to go, saying: "It's such a critical issue that I thought it wouldn't be right for me to stay when I didn't support the Government."

The Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I don't know who Lord Hunt is - obviously a minister of Government ... I had to look that up."

Home Office minister John Denham then became the third MP to quit the Government over Iraq, saying: "I cannot support the Government in tonight's vote."