The Spectator

Blunkett’s kiss and tell

Blunkett’s kiss and tell

There is no prize for predicting the two least exciting political events of 2005: the publication of Sir Alan Budd’s inquiry into David Blunkett’s alleged ‘fast-tracking’ of a visa application for his former lover’s nanny, and the conclusion of Sir Philip Mawer’s investigation into the Home Secretary’s misuse of a first-class Parliamentary rail warrant to speed his mistress to his Derbyshire weekend home. Unless Mr Blunkett has already resigned, these investigations — which needless to say will cost taxpayers vastly more than the railway tickets in question — are no more likely to assassinate him than Lords Hutton and Butler finished off the ministers involved in their respective inquiries.

Clearly, The Spectator has an interest to declare in the Blunkett affair. As is well known, Kimberly Quinn, Mr Blunkett’s former lover, is the magazine’s publisher. But we are confident that most impartial observers would agree with us that the Home Secretary’s alleged misuses of his position amount to little. There is no suggestion that Leoncia Casalme, Mrs Quinn’s Filipina nanny, was an improper person to enter the country; the issue is whether, with a little help from Mr Blunkett with her paperwork, she was able to achieve permanent residency in Britain a little sooner than she would otherwise have been able to do. As for Mr Blunkett’s use of the rail warrant — which he has admitted was wrong, and the cost of which he has already repaid — his offence was to stretch the rules governing one of many absurdly generous MPs’ perks. According to the rules, MPs are entitled to confer free rail tickets upon spouses, partners and homosexual lovers. It is clear that Mr Blunkett did count Mrs Quinn as his partner; the complication is that in being a married woman she officially counted as someone else’s partner.

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