When the Queen held a banquet for President George W Bush last year she laid on the full panoply of state. Dining in splendour at Buckingham Palace were Tony Blair, assorted ministers, princes and ambassadors, Sir Richard Branson and other tycoons.

And then there was Kimberly Quinn. The little-known publisher of The Spectator was seated next to David Blunkett, the home secretary.

Observers were curious. Okay, she was American, but what was she doing at such an exalted occasion? What they did not know was that she was Blunkett’s lover and that he was besotted with her.

It was an early episode in a story that has been compared to a soap opera — a saga of love, infidelity and betrayal in high places. This drama is much more serious than a mere soap, however. It is potentially tragic.

Blunkett began last week with his job on the line after friends of Quinn — now his former lover — claimed that he had abused his powers by “fast-tracking” a visa application for her nanny.

It looked briefly like the home secretary might end it on a high note after Mr Justice Ryder allowed him to go ahead with a court fight for access to Quinn’s two-year-old son William.

But last night Blunkett’s position was again looking shaky after he was forced to admit a second messy affair with a civil servant nearly 20 years his junior when he was education secretary. She, too, was living with another man at the time Blunkett made his advances.

As Blunkett and Quinn tussled over William last week, their friends did battle for public opinion. “Blunkett’s telling porkies left, right and centre,” claimed the Quinn camp. Nonsense, said Blunkett’s defenders, he was heartbroken.

Kimberly’s husband, Stephen Quinn, told The Sunday Times that he was standing by her but added: “She will have to deal with these issues in the longer term. She can’t avoid that.”

There is a good deal more at stake. Blunkett’s political career is in the balance with an election looming. Quinn’s health, and that of her unborn child, are a serious concern; and the perplexity of her son — when he is eventually old enough to take all this in — hardly bears thinking about.

THE drama first erupted in August when the News of the World reported that the home secretary was “having a secret affair with a married mum”.

Quinn’s side now claims Blunkett leaked the information himself in an effort to prise her away from her husband. In fact, it was nothing so contrived. The News of the World had been tipped off about the affair by an independent source.

Blunkett’s supporters say the first they knew of the impending exposé was when Andy Coulson, the editor of the News of the World, called to offer the cabinet minister the opportunity to comment. Aides say Blunkett refused to co-operate.

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