Blunkett: Hatreds at heart of Blair's Cabinet

Diaries: David Blunkett
13 April 2012

An extraordinary portrait of a Blair government riven by seething hatreds and serial incompetence is revealed today.

Less than a year after he was forced out of office for a second time, David Blunkett's explosive diaries - serialised this week in the Daily Mail - provide a devastating insider's account of the Cabinet. His brutally frank memoirs and the revelations they contain are political dynamite that will send shockwaves through Westminster and Whitehall.

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My living nightmare, by David Blunkett - read his breathtaking diaries here

As well as giving a searingly vivid account of his own downfall over his affair with Kimberly Quinn, the married publisher of The Spectator magazine, Mr Blunkett's diaries spell out how seething bitterness within the Cabinet left him with virtually no allies as he fought to save his career. The diaries also reveal:

Deep divisions within the Cabinet over the decision to go to war against Iraq;

Mr Blunkett's despair at the behaviour of President George Bush and his administration - a despair he makes clear was shared by others;

How Gordon Brown - who gave his support to the war only at the 11th hour - appeared to question the point of attending the War Cabinet, complaining that he learnt more about events in Iraq from the media;

How, after 9/11, Mr Blunkett had to conceal major security worries in this country from the public;

How he nearly came to blows with another Cabinet minister;

Explosive rows with Chancellor Brown and simmering feuds with other key figures including John Prescott, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon and former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens.

The diaries - dictated into a tape recorder every night

while he was in office - also reveal the true depth of Mr Blunkett's mental turmoil as he wrestled with his private life while trying to cope with the demands of being Home Secretary.

Astonishingly, given Mr Blunkett's own assessment of his state of mind - 'I think I am going mad' - he reveals that the Prime Minister told him just two months after his first resignation that he would be ready to invite him back into the Cabinet once his problems were sorted out.

Mr Blair even suggested that the cut and thrust of Cabinet office would be therapeutic.

The most disturbing passages, which we print today, chronicle how fear of mental illness and battles with illhealth at the height of his turbulent affair with Mrs Quinn left him struggling 'to hide the hurt, the emotion, the churning that is tearing my guts out'. Mr Blunkett casts aside the reserve traditionally adopted by politicians in their memoirs to reveal the depths of a despair he believes left him 'clinically depressed'.

He does not name Mrs Quinn, nor does he mention that their three-year affair produced a son, William, now four, who became the subject of a painful paternity dispute in the courts.

But his claim that his private life must remain private does not prevent him describing candidly the way the revelation of their affair in the summer of 2004 consumed his final period as Home Secretary.

'Virtually every day for the next 15 months was either a nightmare or an anticipated nightmare, with massive collateral damage to family and friends,' he says in today's instalment.

As the scandal engulfed him, he reveals feeling 'absolutely lousy, a combination of real depression and physical illness. I think all of this is now getting to me.'

Today's extract also highlights how he was sometimes barely on speaking terms with John Prescott and was unable to 'make my peace' with the Deputy Prime Minister after speaking publicly of his sensitivity about being dubbed 'Two Jags'.

Elsewhere, he singles out former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon for his over-enthusiasm for military force and reveals how his predecessor as Home Secretary, Jack Straw, bitterly accused Mr Blunkett of undermining him.

Mr Blunkett resigned in December 2004 over claims that he fast-tracked a visa for Mrs Quinn's Filipina nanny. He returned to Cabinet after the May 2005 election as Work and Pensions Secretary, but was forced out again six months later after failing to seek permission before accepting a lucrative directorship.

He reveals his bitterness over his decision to speak in brutally candid terms about the failings of his colleagues to journalist Stephen Pollard for a biography that appeared at the height of his troubles in 2004. His damning verdict on ministers such as Mr Straw and Charles Clarke left him with no Cabinet support.

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