LONDON — 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.
Resignation in Britain -- An article in Thursday's Section A about the resignation of British Home Secretary David Blunkett said that Kimberly Quinn, an American woman with whom Blunkett had been involved, had been married three times. She has had two marriages.
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.
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