British Cabinet Official Quits Amid Scandal

Home Secretary David Blunkett resigned Wednesday, acknowledging that newly unearthed documents suggested that official favors were done for his mistress.

The resignation was a political and personal blow to Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had steadfastly defended Blunkett. The minister from Sheffield had been at the core of Blair’s Labor government.

Blunkett earned a reputation as a politician who was articulate, unflappable and tough on crime and terrorism. Many Britons considered Blunkett’s achievements a working-class success story that was more remarkable because he had been blind since birth.

But in the end, Blunkett succumbed to the steady stream of media accounts implying that he had intervened to speed up a visa for the nanny of Kimberly Quinn, the married woman from Los Angeles with whom Blunkett had a two-year affair.

Blunkett said he was unaware that any favoritism had been given to the nanny, but acknowledged that the new documents suggested that official action had been taken on his behalf.

The prime minister accepted the home secretary’s resignation and praised him.

“You leave government with your integrity intact and your achievements acknowledged by all. You are a force for good in British politics,” he told Blunkett in a letter released to reporters.

Blair appointed Education Secretary Charles Clarke to succeed Blunkett.

There has been a long line of British politicians humbled by extramarital relationships, dating from the scandal involving war minister John Profumo in the mid-1960s. Profumo acknowledged having relations with a call girl who also was the lover of a Soviet secret agent.

Only weeks before the Blunkett scandal, the British press was abuzz with a scandal involving Boris Johnson, a flamboyant member of Parliament and rising star in the Conservative Party, who was caught in an extramarital relationship and forced by conservative leader Michael Howard to relinquish his position in the Tories’ shadow Cabinet.

Blunkett’s relationship came into the public spotlight soon after the love affair ended in August and he began a legal process to prove his paternity of Quinn’s 2-year-old son and her second, unborn child.

Blunkett, 57, who is divorced with three grown sons, was forthright about his affection for Quinn and his anguish at her decision to end the affair. He has continued to press for visitation rights despite requests from Quinn and her husband, Stephen Quinn, that Blunkett drop family court proceedings, at least until the second child is born.

Allegations of impropriety by Blunkett in his official duties originally came from unidentified friends of Kimberly Quinn, who were quoted in several British papers. The newspaper stories led many here to believe that the Quinns were apparently fighting his claims to the children.

Kimberly Quinn came to Britain to study, entered journalism and became publisher of the Spectator, a popular right-wing magazine of political commentary.

She and Blunkett began their relationship a few months after her third marriage, to Stephen Quinn, a well-to-do magazine executive.

Ultimately, Blunkett’s career crashed not over the issue of his adulterous relationship, but over whether he misused his Home Office powers to help the nanny.

An independent investigator whose appointment Blunkett sought, saying it would clear his name, found among e-mails about the visa application a reference suggesting that there was at least some degree of special treatment. A note said, “No favors but slightly quicker.”

After learning of the existence of the e-mail from the investigator, Alan Budd, Blunkett said he decided to send his resignation to Blair, whom he described as a close and faithful friend.

In a tearful interview Wednesday evening on Sky Television, Blunkett said that the last three months had been the worst of his life, and that it all stemmed from his decision to insist on the right to an ongoing relationship with the son he believed was his.

His voice breaking, Blunkett said that “when I was given the option of walking into the sunset and disappearing out of the life of that little boy, I was right not to.”

“Quite honestly, what sort of human being, what sort of man, what sort of politician do the people want, who would ... put their career, put their public persona, before actually doing what a decent human being would want to do?

“I don’t think we want politicians like that, and if people do, then they don’t want me,” he said.

Blunkett declared that he would fight for reelection to Parliament on the Labor Party ticket.

“I shall be fighting alongside Tony Blair, I shall be campaigning with everything I’ve got, and I shall be hoping to rebuild my political contribution, and I shall do so on the basis of having retained my honesty and integrity,” he said.

The episode was being viewed as tragedy for Blunkett, who for many was an inspirational figure. He overcame early childhood separation from his parents to attend a school for the blind, the death of his father in an industrial accident when he was 11 and subsequent years of extreme poverty.

As home secretary, he played a key role in the passage of a terrorism law that allowed aggressive pursuit of suspected terrorists in the country, oversaw reform of Britain’s asylum policies and was the author of a proposal to institute mandatory national identification cards.

The Conservative Party’s shadow home secretary, David Davis, said that it was a “sad day” for a “remarkable man,” but that Blunkett had done the “honorable thing” by resigning.

“Ministers should not use public office to promote the cause of family or friends, but should work for the country as a whole,” Davis said. “I’m prepared to believe it was unintentional, but unwise.”