UK News 16-12-2004 Blunkett Resigns In Tears who: Home Secretary David Blunkett what: Resigns from Cabinet for improper fast-tracking of visa for ex-lover`s nanny where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Tony Blair`s government was left staggering months from a general election last night," says The Guardian, "after the prime minister`s hard-hitting ally, David Blunkett, resigned as home secretary." The seeds of his demise were sown in August, when news broke that he had fathered a love child with married Spectator publisher Kimberly Quinn, but at that stage "even his many critics in the Labour Party did not imagine it would end in his resignation," comments The Independent. Indeed, his Cabinet status was stronger than most. But the undignified scrap with his ex-lover gradually overpowered his authority and yesterday, after it became clear that Sir Alan Budd had found evidence that Mr Blunkett had expedited the fast-tracking of a visa for his lover`s nanny, the home secretary announced that he was resigning. He told the BBC`s Andrew Marr that he was doing it because he knew he had let down the thousands of people who believed in his "honesty and integrity". "In time people are going to understand the enormity of what I have been through," he went on, "what I was prepared to sacrifice for that little boy, along with my three older sons." His post will be filled by education secretary Charles Clarke, and his job in turn will be taken by Bolton MP Ruth Kelly, a 36-year-old mother of four who has made a rapid rise through the Labour ranks. The Guardian says she is a Catholic and "takes a conciously strong moral line on issues such as parenting and antisocial behaviour". [... more]

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