In 1954, an inquiry into the Crichel Down affair, a dispute over farmland in Dorset, was damning about the actions of those acting for the government. The Minister of Agriculture, Sir Thomas Dugdale, told the House of Commons: “the responsibility rests with me. That responsibility I wholly accept.” He resigned, and his resignation became the classic example of individual ministerial responsibility.
Papers released thirty years later complicated the story. They showed that Dugdale had known and approved of his civil servants’ actions, and had to an extent passed the blame to them himself.