Star comment: Tory relief as Maria Miller quits role

Cling on, cling on, cling on... try to brazen it out . . . the increasingly lukewarm expressions of support from colleagues who begin to step away from the scene of the impending implosion.

And now she has fallen on her hat pin.

Politically she had become a busted flush, a dead woman walking, a liability to the Tories and an obvious target for the Miliband mantra that the Conservatives are out of touch with ordinary people.

The manner of her departure says something about why it became inevitable that she would have to go sooner or later. In her own mind, she will have gone at a time of her choosing having successfully resisted those who had been calling from the start for her to resign.

Here was a politician who was brought down by her conduct in public office in the wider sense. Her over-claiming of expenses was reprehensible, but was objectively an old offence and had she conducted herself with the necessary degree of humility and contrition the media, the public, and her constituents, might have been more forgiving.

Instead she talked and acted as if she could not see what all the fuss was about, and bullied and blustered. She apologised, briefly, but in a manner which confirmed the impression that she felt she did not really have anything to apologise for.

And what of David Cameron? It is yet another wrong call. He declared his full backing for Mrs Miller, in the same way he has backed others close to him who have had to make for the exit door.

The affair is damaging for him personally as it calls into question his judgment and leadership. If Mrs Miller was going to go, and had to go, why did he not sack her immediately as a strong and decisive leader would have done?

Maria Miller appears to have gone because she could see that she was losing the support of her own party. Mr Cameron is leader of that party and yet did not want to see which way the political wind was blowing.

One of his favourite phrases is about doing "the right thing". Before her resignation, Mr Cameron said Mrs Miller had done the right thing.

On the contrary, she got it wrong, and being on the wrong side of unfolding events is a awkward place for David Cameron to be.