LONDON -- Alan Milburn, the British secretary of state for health, resigned last year to "spend more time with his family." This excuse has often been used to cover some misdemeanor or a falling out with colleagues, but in this case it seems to have been genuine.

Milburn felt that his commitments and his work did not give him enough time to be with his family and see his children as they were growing up. He was, however, reappointed to the Cabinet recently and given oversight of preparations for the Labour Party in the next election expected next spring.

Why did he again accept office? Did he find that family politics and backbiting were even less palatable than the equivalent in government? Or was he simply bored with his family? Did ambition for power make him decide to forgo family relationships in favor of a return to government. Only Milburn knows the answers to these questions, and he is hardly likely to give honest public answers at this stage in his career. Perhaps he may do so when he comes to write the inevitable political memoir.