Liam Fox was absolutely right to resign as defence secretary. He also jumped before he was pushed. He quit not because he was forced to do so by a callous prime minister or by a hostile press but because he was, quite simply, in the wrong. Mr Foxs own resignation letter concedes as much. He writes in the letter that he had allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my government activities to become blurred. The consequences of that blurring had become clearer in recent days, Mr Fox continued and he was very sorry for it. But what had also become clearer, far more importantly but unmentioned by Mr Fox in his letter, is the astonishing scale of that blurring, the systematic and routine nature of it, and the unacceptability of such conduct by any senior minister, especially one charged with the protection of national security. Mr Foxs deliberate strategy of liaising with his friend and fellow neocon Adam Werritty at every turn in the exercise of his ministerial duties, while keeping his officials in the dark about the political and financial significance of the Werritty connection, was a serious failure of judgment which risked compromising his ministerial duty. It was also pretty indisputably a breach of the spirit and the letter of the ministerial code by which Mr Fox was bound and these breaches had, by the end, seriously damaged departmental and service trust in him. When the details of the meetings, networks and financing of the Werritty connection are measured against the codes injunction that Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises or could reasonably be perceived to arise between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise, it is clear that Mr Fox had decisively placed himself in the wrong. The code insists that ministers must be proactive about avoiding such conflicts. Mr Fox seems to have been the reverse. He was proactive about ensuring that such conflicts would occur. This was terribly reckless behaviour. The fault lies with Mr Fox and with no one else. He certainly should be sorry. Mr Fox has not just let himself and his government down. He has also let the country down. The post of defence secretary may not be what it once was. But it is still special. No defence secretary has resigned in disgrace which is what has happened to Mr Fox in modern times. A defence secretary has a national responsibility as well as a party one. Defence still rightly commands a certain bipartisan significance, which was again evident in the restrained way that Labour has not forced the issues surrounding Mr Fox in recent days. If a Labour defence secretary had behaved in the way that Mr Fox has done, remember, the hue and cry would have been visceral. There would have been claims that the disgrace of the defence secretary represented something more generally rotten in the government. A certain humility is therefore in order from the Conservatives in the aftermath of this affair. That is something which the new defence secretary, Philip Hammond, might ponder. So should Mr Foxs admirers on the right of the Tory party. As a former candidate for the leadership of the party, an unashamed partisan of the Thatcherite right, and a man with a prodigious capacity for scheming and plotting, Mr Fox is a significant casualty in party management terms. His departure to the backbenches is potentially disruptive for the Tory party and for the government. It is likely to provide rightwing Tory MPs who cannot reconcile themselves to coalition with an ideological champion. But there is no justification for such a response. Mr Cameron was careful throughout the past week not to do anything that might stoke that sense of grievance. Mr Fox was the author of his own misfortunes. He let the government down. He acted very foolishly. There should be no entry for the former defence secretary in any Foxs book of martyrs. The Guardian editorial