Michael White and David Hencke

Whitehall ²⁾ breathed a sigh of relief this week after Sir Alan Budd ³⁾ cleared civil servants of covering up events surrounding the fast-tracking of a visa application for the nanny of David Blankett’s then lover, Kimberly Quinn.

Mr Blunkett resigned as home secretary last week, making a tearful exit from government, after it became clear that Sir Alan’s report would find that staff in his office had helped speed up the visa application.

Four days after Mr Blunkett resigned following the emergence of an email that proved his office had been in contact with the immigration and nationality directorate (IND) over the visa, the increasingly public row between him and Mrs Quinn continued to dominate the weekend papers. Friends of David Blunkett accused Sir Alan of being “mesmerized” by his former lover into accepting her account, while friends of Mrs Quinn insisted she had not wished to bring him down but simply for him to stay out of her life.

The saga took a further twist when it was revealed that Mrs Quinn was also having an affair with Simon Hoggart, the Guardian’s political sketch writer and the Spectator’s wine correspondent.

Sir Alan found that an email sent from the home office had the effect of speeding up the visa for the Filipina nanny, Leoncia Casalme, to stay in Britain indefinitely.

On Tuesday the parliamentary commissioner for standards in public life, Sir Philip Mawer, upheld a complaint against Mr Blunkett that he had misused two first-class rail tickets, intended for MPs’ wives, when he gave them to Mrs Quinn.

Mr Blunkett, who has already repaid £ 179 to cover the cost of the train journeys, immediately apologised for his mistake.

Both Mr Blunkett and Mrs Quinn were said to be suffering from nervous exhaustion after several weeks in the glare of the media headlights.

Both face a further difficult day on Thursday when the next stage of Mr Blunkett’s case for access to her two-year-old boy reaches the high court. He claims to be the father of the child from his three-year relationship with the publisher of the Spectator.

Mrs Quinn, 43, heavily pregnant with a second child, left hospital last Friday after after 18 days of treatment for complications that her husband, Stephen, said had been brought on by stress.

Mr Blunkett’s resignation came as a dramatic end to one of the most tenacious political careers. As a child born blind in a poor home, he rose to hold one of the most important and demanding offices in the state – and lost it for love.

Though the cabinet’s combative education secretary, Charles Clarke, was almost immediately promoted to fill his shoes, MPs on all sides at Westminster ⁴⁾ were actually aware that the prime minister had also sustained a blow.

Mr Blair ⁵⁾ has lost another close political and personal ally soon after accepting that Peter Mandelson ⁶⁾, now an EU commissioner, could not return to cabinet for a third time, almost certainly hastening the day when he will hand over power to Gordon Brown ⁷⁾.

But Blair loyalists dominated the promotions prompted by Mr Blunkett’s departure. The former Guardian journalist Ruth Kelly, 36, deputy to the Blairite Alan Milburn, took over as education secretary to become the sixth woman cabinet minister and trusted former No 10 ⁸⁾ adviser, moved to take her job in the Blair campaign entourage.

In emotional TV interviews after the news was confirmed, Mr Blunkett made clear that he had risked – and halted – his career for love.

He said: “I misunderstood what we had. I misunderstood that someone [Mrs Quinn] could do this, not just to me, but to a little one as well” in the couple’s fight over paternity and custody of what he called “that little lad” he loved.