A row has begun over whether Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair was forced to resign by London's Conservative mayor Boris Johnson for political motives.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith suggested the mayor had not gone through the correct channels.
The Tories criticised her for continuing to back Sir Ian.
Sir Ian announced his resignation on Thursday, Hindley portrait use criticised ...
US politician killer had lost job ... blaming a lack of support from Mr Johnson.
He has faced controversies but said he was not going because of any failures.
'Keep politics out'
It has emerged that on his first day as the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority on Wednesday, Mr Johnson told Sir Ian the force needed fresh leadership.
The first the home secretary knew about it was when Sir Ian told her on Thursday morning.
Yet the formal procedure for removing the commissioner of Britain's biggest police force is that the authority must seek the home secretary's approval.
Ms Smith criticised the way the resignation had been handled, and suggested Mr Johnson did not understand the nature of the role of commissioner.
She told BBC's Question Time: "There's a process in place that the mayor chose not to respect.
"The mayor said on the first day in his job he didn't feel he had confidence in Sir Ian and that's why he took the decision to resign.
"What is important when you are both choosing and when you're supporting somebody that you're asking to do a job like that is that you keep party politics out of it."
'Lack of judgement'
Labour former London mayor Ken Livingston said the decision made the role "much more political".
But shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said it was right for Sir Ian to step down - and said ministers had shown a "serious lack of judgement" in continuing to express confidence in him.
"It is vital that a successor is appointed who can restore public confidence," he said.
And Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the resignation was "long overdue".
Sir Ian's tenure as head of Britain's biggest police force started confidently with reforms including community support officers, neighbourhood police, and a more diverse workforce, and he has presided over falling crime in the capital.
But he has been dogged by a string of controversies, including the shooting dead by police of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistaken for a suicide bomber.
He was also criticised after publicly questioning why the murders of two girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002, had been such a big story in the media.
It later emerged he had recorded a telephone conversation with the attorney general without asking his permission.
In 2006, in the course of arresting two brothers who were later cleared of any involvement in terrorism, armed Met officers shot and injured one of them.
Recently, Sir Ian has faced criticism over the racism row involving the Met's most senior Asian officer Tarique Ghaffur.
And Metropolitan Police Authority auditors are in the process of examining Scotland Yard contracts given to consultancy firm Impact Plus, run by a friend.
Announcing his resignation, Sir Ian said: "I am resigning not because of any failures of my service and not because the pressures of the office and the many stories that surround it are too much...
"However, at a meeting on Wednesday the new mayor made clear, in a very pleasant and determined way, that he wished there to be a change of leadership at the Met."
Mr Johnson said he believed the time was right for Sir Ian to go.
"He can be very proud of his record in helping to keep millions of Londoners safe from harm," he said.
"However, there comes a time in any organisation when it becomes clear that it would benefit from new leadership and new clarity of purpose."
Sir Ian will step down on 1 December.
His deputy, Sir Paul Stephenson, is understood to be the mayor's favoured candidate to take over the job.
(BBC)
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