Blair to back Blunkett

Tony Blair today threw his full weight behind David Blunkett's battle to survive allegations made by his former lover.

The Prime Minister was planning to use his monthly press conference to fend off calls for the Home Secretary to consider resigning.

Mr Blunkett also received supportive phone calls from a string of Cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Gordon Brown, election coordinator Alan Milburn and Leader of the Commons, Peter Hain.

The top-level fight to save Mr Blunkett came after his ex-mistress Kimberly Quinn used a Sunday newspaper to claim that he abused his ministerial position during their three-year relationship.

Although the Home Secretary denied the charge, he was forced to announce an external inquiry into the most serious claim, that he fast-tracked a visa for her nanny.

A senior source, however, said a demand from shadow home secretary David Davis for the probe to be headed by a judge would be rejected. The source said it should be undertaken by "someone well versed in Whitehall", implying a retired senior civil servant.

In another concession, Mr Blunkett offered to repay the House of Commons authorities for free first-class rail tickets meant for MPs' spouses that he gave to Mrs Quinn to travel to meet him at his Derbyshire home.

However, he believes he acted within the rules because she was pregnant with his child and in a longterm relationship. After months of remaining silent about his private life, Mr Blunkett came out fighting with a public statement that he would defend his reputation for "trust, plain-speaking and straight talking".

He also declared for the first time that he is the father of Mrs Quinn's two-year-old son William. Friends of the minister claimed her decision to go public was triggered by his attempts to gain access to William and to an unborn child he also believes is his.

Mr Blunkett's friends were bitterly accusing her of an "attempted assassination" and alleging she created the furore to frighten him from pursuing his legal bid for access to the child. One friend said: "I cannot begin to know what has gone through that woman's mind.

"She has obviously lied to her husband as much as she has lied to David. She has, after all, lived a double life for three years." Mrs Quinn and her husband countered with a show of togetherness last night, returning side by side to their Mayfair home.

Mr Quinn clutched William to his chest as they unpacked their car and said his pregnant wife was feeling unwell.

Mrs Quinn is understood to have been off work with stress. But last Thursday she was spotted having lunch with Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph, which ran her version of the affair across three pages yesterday.

The newspaper contacted Mr Blunkett at 4pm on Saturday and a team of Home Office officials was assembled to check facts and agree to a public statement setting out the minister's response .

Crucially for Mr Blunkett, the Home Office statements were "signed off " as accurate by the permanent secretary to the Home Office, John Gieve. An inquiry is unlikely to dispute the account approved by such a senior figure as Mr Gieve without concrete evidence of falsehood.

Scepticism abut the inquiry deepened when it became clear it would have a narrow remit to examine only claims about the nanny's visa, not other allegations.

The most astonishing revelation was that Mr Blunkett had a DNA test carried out to prove that he was William's father, with one of his grown-up sons from his first marriage collecting a sample from the child, thought to be hair from his hairbrush. The test results were read out by Mrs Quinn when they were together.

Children's Minister Margaret Hodge became the first minister to publicly back Mr Blunkett today. "I have known David Blunkett for 25 years and I believe him," she said.