British cabinet minister quits

2005-11-02 13:37

London - British cabinet minister David Blunkett resigned on Wednesday for breaching a strict code on outside employment, a major embarrassment for his close friend and ally Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"David Blunkett said that he had reflected on the position and he believed his position to be untenable, and for the sake of both the prime minister and the government he was therefore tendering his resignation which the prime minister reluctantly has accepted," Blair's official spokesperson said.

It is the second political scandal to engulf Blunkett, Britain's only blind legislator, in recent months.

He was forced to quit as home secretary in December following a messy love affair with a married woman, with whom Blunkett said he had fathered a son. That affair with Kimberly Quinn, the American publisher of the Spectator magazine, made Blunkett a target for satire - recently in a play and in a TV production.

Brought back

Blair brought him back into the cabinet less than five months later, putting him in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions. Some had questioned Blair's judgment in bringing Blunkett back so soon, and until Wednesday Blair had strongly backed the minister as questions were raised about his conduct.

Blunkett has been under intense pressure to quit since it was revealed that he took a lucrative company directorship, worked for a business consultancy and a charity shortly after losing his job as home secretary, without first consulting a parliamentary advisory committee.

Under the Ministerial Code of Conduct, former ministers are required to consult the committee over any appointment they take up within two years of leaving office.

Blunkett said Monday he had simply misunderstood the guidelines and announced that he was selling £15 000 worth of shares in the company, DNA Bioscience, for which he was briefly a non-executive director.

That defence was undermined by the disclosure of letters to Blunkett advising him that he needed to consult the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

The Blunkett controversy, and an open split in the cabinet over banning smoking in public places, has contributed to speculation that Blair's authority is waning. Blair has said he is serving his last term as prime minister, but has not set a date for standing down.

- AP