ENGLISH novelist William Thackeray was no doubt in the throes of a great romance when he wrote: "It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all."

It is unclear whether David Blunkett, waking this morning as a common-or-garden MP and not the third most powerful man in the Cabinet, would agree with the 19th Century scribe.

No doubt Mr Blunkett wishes he had loved "more wisely" when he fell under the spell of married US magazine publisher Kimberly Quinn, a woman enamoured by the trappings of power.

But despite having the drive, intelligence and determination to overcome blindness to become Home Secretary, his judgement seemed to fly out the window when she walked in the door.

And this set in train a sequence of events which cost him his job as Home Secretary.

So devoted was Mr Blunkett to his flirtatious lover, he exerted pressure to fast-track a visa for her Filipina nanny.

An email uncovered by Sir Alan Budd, leading an inquiry into whether the Home Secretary abused his position, revealed Mr Blunkett asked officials at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate for "no favours" but to act "slightly quicker".

This was the final nail in Mr Blunkett's coffin.

He was already facing damaging allegations that the nanny received a visa within days to visit her sister in Austria. It would normally take weeks.

He had admitted abusing Parliamentary perks - handing his lover two first-class train tickets to Derbyshire which should only have been used by an MP's spouse.

And he became embroiled in a bitter and highly public battle over the paternity of pregnant Mrs Quinn's two-year-old son and unborn child. These weakened his position on an almost daily basis - making it increasingly difficult for him to remain undistracted from his role as Home Secretary. Matters worsened when it emerged Mr Blunkett had launched stinging attacks on his Cabinet colleagues in a new biography - claiming Charles Clarke had "gone soft", Jack Straw had left the Home Office "in a mess" and John Prescott was preoccupied with his 'Two Jags' image.

In the end, his position became untenable and he was forced to resign. He admitted that for three weeks he had been a "dead man walking".

Despite Tony Blair insisting to the last that he was eager to keep his Home Secretary on board, the Prime Minister must have breathed a sigh of relief at the lancing of the boil.

The issue goes to the heart of questions about trust, truthfulness and integrity which have been buffeting the Government.

These issues will be crucial when it comes to wooing voters - especially moral Middle England - in the run up to the General Election in May.

It is a blow to Mr Blair, who relied on Mr Blunkett's image as a tough,

authoritarian, straight-talking man-of-the-people.

Law and order and security will be key planks in Labour's election campaign - and the now-deposed Home Secretary was seen as someone who appealed to working class voters and Tory supporters.

Mr Blunkett was behind controversial policies such as the introduction of ID cards, detention of terror suspects without charge or trial - ruled illegal this week by the Law Lords - curbing the right to jury trial and telling jurors of a defendants previous convictions and removing benefits for asylum seekers. All of which had the civil liberties brigade up in arms.

For many it will be ironic that the man blamed for some of the most blatant assaults ever made on the rights of individuals in the UK has finally gone because he pulled a couple of strings for a woman with whom he was probably genuinely in love.

Updated: 09:36 Friday, December 17, 2004