Blair stands by under pressure Home Secretary

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today expressed his “full confidence” in his Home Secretary David Blunkett, as he faced demands for a judicial inquiry into claims that he abused his position to help his lover.

Conservatives called for a judge to be appointed to investigate a series of allegations in the Sunday Telegraph, most seriously that he intervened to rush through a visa allowing former mistress Kimberly Quinn’s nanny to stay in Britain.

Mr Blunkett strenuously denied all the allegations, insisting that he had simply been asked to check over a visa application form for Filipina Leoncia “Luz” Casalme to see it was filled in correctly.

And 10 Downing Street released a statement to say: “The Prime Minister has full confidence in David Blunkett. As last week showed, he is continuing to do a first-rate job as Home Secretary.”

In a separate development, the same newspaper quoted an unnamed “friend” of the Home Secretary as saying that a DNA test on Mrs Quinn’s two-year-old son William had shown that Mr Blunkett is his father.

Mr Blunkett is understood to have hired lawyers to contest the paternity of both William and Mrs Quinn’s unborn baby, which is due in February.

Last night Mr Blunkett refused to confirm any details of the supposed DNA test.

But he said: “I am mortified that such deeply private information should be put in the public domain. No friend of mine has spoken to the press about these matters with my agreement.”

Meanwhile, Mrs Quinn’s husband Stephen used an interview with the Sunday Times to declare that he had forgiven her for her affair with Mr Blunkett, which began shortly after their wedding in 2001.

“I adore my wife and I love William more than I can say,” Mr Quinn told the paper. “I’ll take a bet with you: I won’t win the lottery, but Kimberly Quinn, William Quinn and his brother – we will all be together for a very long time.”

The Sunday Telegraph alleged that Mr Blunkett sent his official government driver to pick up Ms Casalme’s passport after Mrs Quinn sought his assistance in the spring of 2003.

The 36-year-old nanny is understood to have entered the country on a short-term visa in July or August 1999. If this is correct, she would not have been eligible for a permanent visa until four years later – July 2003 at the earliest.

The paper claims that Mr Blunkett promised to deal with the visa problem and later told Mrs Quinn “she would never have got it if it hadn’t been for me”.

Although the claim about the visa application is the most potentially damaging allegation against Mr Blunkett, the Sunday Telegraph lists a series of supposed irregularities relating to the period of his relationship with Mrs Quinn.

The paper alleges that he:

:: Shared confidential information with her, advising her to tell her parents to avoid Newark airport in New York hours before a security scare and telling her in advance about a police raid in Manchester;

:: Ordered a policeman to stand guard outside her Mayfair home during a May Day anti-capitalist demonstration;

:: Gave her a first-class rail ticket assigned to him for his work as an MP and used his government chauffeur to drive her to meet him at his Derbyshire home;

:: Put pressure on the US Embassy to issue a temporary passport for William, so she could take her son to France in 2003; and

:: Took her to Spain for a wedding accompanied by four bodyguards and a driver paid for by the British taxpayer.

Britain's Shadow home secretary David Davis called for an independent inquiry into the claims.

“These are clearly very serious allegations which impact on David Blunkett’s public office,” said Mr Davis.