I’ve not blogged about the whole David Blunkett affair thing yet, because I believe quitevery strongly that his personal life is exactly that – not something for everyone to pick through as they feel like it.
But over the last few days, as more and more allegations of impropriety emerged, I started to wonder whether his personal life had started to leak into his public one.
To quote the Sunday Telegraph (much as I’d rather not…):
The Home Secretary allegedly used his position to facilitate the granting of permanent residency for Leoncia “Luz” Casalme, a 36-year-old nanny working for Kimberly Quinn, the married woman with whom he had a secret three-year affair.
[...]
It is the allegations that he used his powers as Home Secretary to do favours for his mistress, however, that will cause a political storm. Our investigation can reveal that, in addition to his help for the nanny, the Home Secretary allegedly:
· Shared confidential security information with Mrs Quinn, in what a friend of hers described as “pillow talk”. This included advice to her parents to avoid Newark airport, in New York, hours before a security scare and giving Mrs Quinn advance knowledge of police raids in Manchester that led to the death of an officer in January, 2003;
· Ordered a policeman to stand outside Mrs Quinn’s Mayfair home to safeguard her against anti-capitalist rioting that had been expected during a May Day demonstration;
· Gave her first-class rail tickets in August 2002 which are thought to have been assigned to him for his work as an MP;
· Put pressure on the American embassy to issue a temporary passport for William Quinn in May 2003, so that Mrs Quinn and her son could join him on holiday in France;
· Used his government chauffeur to drive Mrs Quinn to his home in Derbyshire for weekend trysts;
· Took Mrs Quinn, the publisher of The Spectator, to Spain for a wedding, accompanied by four security men and a driver, with much of the cost allegedly met by the taxpayer.
Of course, when the story about his affair with Ms Quinn/Fortier broke, he flew the Home Office Press Officer out to France (I think), to discuss tactics of response there. If that isn’t an abuse of ministerial privilege, I don’t know what is.
As I’ve said, I don’t really care if he did or didn’t have an affair, nor do I care about the results of the paternity tests he’s trying to get. Most of the accusations levelled by the Torygraph above are fairly petty – but if the serious ones are true, he should seriously reconsider his position. In fact, he should be made to reconsider his position by the PM.
An interesting parallel is that with Boris Johnson’s alleged affair with Petronella Wyatt – Wibbler has linked to a couple of articles on it over at Boriswatch.
A BBC News article caught my eye:
