Will he stay or will he go now?

AS David Blunkett left his Sheffield home yesterday morning, there were signs that the strain of two weeks of having his private life paraded for public consumption were starting to show. "If people are sick and tired of hearing and reading about David Blunkett," he told the waiting reporters, "I have every sympathy with you, because I am as well."

It may have been characteristic of the good humoured approach the Home Secretary takes to his position in the public eye, but for a man who, until recently, was notoriously protective of his private life, the exasperation that it is him rather than his policies that have been making the headlines was plain.

Tales of tearful late-night phone calls and of playing plaintive loud music down the phone (Metallica or Janet Jackson, accounts vary), have illuminated a side that few could have imagined to a politician who seems to pride himself on his hardline image. But the sorry saga has already taken its toll on his career, and may yet exact a higher price.

It is now two weeks since newspapers first reported that Mr Blunkett wanted a DNA test to determine if he was the father of the two-year-old son of his former lover Kimberly Quinn, and the unborn child she is carrying.

But what at first seemed an unusual and perhaps warming tale of a politician for once wanting to claim paternity instead of deny it, swiftly deteriorated into something else entirely, as the bitterness of the break-up between the two former lovers became apparent.

Accusations that the Home Secretary had fast-tracked a visa application for Mrs Quinn's former nanny, and that he had abused his position in other ways, including giving his ex-lover a first class train ticket assigned to him, were seen as retaliation for Mr Blunkett's efforts to prove the children are his. But if Mr Blunkett hoped that setting up an immediate inquiry into the most serious allegation - concerning the visa application - would take the heat out of the affair, he would be sadly mistaken.

INSTEAD, there has been a steady accumulation of hints and allegations, which have derailed his attempts at damage limitation. Aspersions have been cast on the narrow scope of the inquiry; letters from the Home Office to the nanny saying her visa application could take a year, instead of the 19 days it did take, were published; the nanny herself came forward with claims her former employer had said she had a "friend" who could help with the visa, and over the weekend it emerged that Mrs Quinn was keen to give evidence to the inquiry.

The weekend also saw allegations that Mr Blunkett had an affair with a civil servant when he was Education Secretary. Although there has been no suggestion of any impropriety, and the civil servant, Denise Maguire, was single when she embarked on the relationship, this new revelation is a sign of the momentum building up against the Home Secretary's attempts to stay in office. He may dismiss the claims as "tittle-tattle", and he may have the "unswerving" support of the Prime Minister, but, even without a "killer fact", the sheer pressure itself could prove his undoing.

And it can hardly have done his cause any good that yesterday he was quoted as disparaging his Cabinet colleagues, many of whom have offered robust support over the past fortnight.

Mr Blunkett's best hope now is that the inquiry, chaired by former civil servant Sir Alan Budd, clears him of any wrong-doing when it reports, which could be as early as this week. This could give him a chance to draw a line under the affair, provided there are no new revelations, according to Dr Nick Randall, politics lecturer at Newcastle University.

"The individual allegations of impropriety are relatively small beer," he says. "The most damaging one is obviously the visa application getting speeded up, but with the insistence with which he has stood his ground, I suspect at least he believes that he has not committed any actual impropriety."

ALTHOUGH it is unlikely that there will be evidence of wrong-doing, the weight of attention has forced the Home Office to change its line on the application. From originally insisting that it was simply one of many which had been speeded up in an attempt to clear a backlog, the line now seems to be that an over-zealous junior civil servant, knowing of his boss's interest in the case, took it upon himself to process the visa double-quick.

But even if the allegations themselves do not have the substance to knock Mr Blunkett off his perch, this does not mean his position is safe, says Dr Randall.

"What is damaging is the kind of character which is coming out about David Blunkett, now he is pursuing his former lover through the court, and there are suspicions that he leaked a lot of this material as part of a desire to get this woman back," he says.

Although the Home Office has rejected claims that Mr Blunkett was behind the initial revelations over the affair, in themselves these are a sign of how corroded the relationship has become.

"Taking this very aggressive line and writing to lawyers left, right and centre is not something that is doing him any credit as a politician," says Dr Randall. "In a way, that is more damaging, and if anything is going to get him it is that rather than the particular allegations.

"He has prided himself on being a tough Home Secretary, but that is the political stance. This is the real Blunkett, and it will leave him in a much weaker position, regardless of whether he stays in this particular post or in the Cabinet."

The Home Secretary may have been partly shielded from criticism by his many friends in the media, particularly the right-wing newspapers which are admiring of his tough stance on asylum and immigration, but others have wondered if it is possible to conduct a high-profile and time-consuming battle for custody of one's children with a job reckoned to be among the most onerous in government.

Tony Blair has unhesitating backed his Home Secretary so far, a position which some have seen as a kind of weakness, but Dr Randall interprets more as loyalty to a man seen as a key ally, and respect for an effective political operator.

Mr Blunkett has both left-wing credibility, although this is being eroded with every draconian measure he announces as Home Secretary, and political intelligence lacking in many of his colleagues. He prides himself on his blunt speaking and ability to communicate with Labour voters.

'HE is a very valuable ally for Tony Blair. He is a big hitter and an ally against Gordon Brown when the going gets tough," says Dr Randall.

"Politically, he is a key figure in Cabinet and Blair is keen to keep him there, at least until Blunkett can choose the manner of his own departure."

Unlike Mr Blair's predecessor, John Major, whose authority was undermined by trying to cling onto ministers who were eventually forced to resign anyway, Dr Randall says there seems little sign that the Prime Minister himself has been damaged by the affair, which has been partly due to the unusual situation of a politician trying to take responsibility for his offspring.

"I think we have probably seen the worst of the allegations now, and I think he can ride it out in the short-term," he says.

"I think what may happen, providing there are no new scandals, is we will see Blunkett in his post until the next election, and then he may step down from the Cabinet saying he has achieved everything he wanted to and he wants to spend more time with his family."

Which family that is, the three sons from his first wife or the two children he claims to have with Mrs Quinn, is now up to the courts to decide. But for Mr Blunkett, as he told reporters yesterday, he can only hope that attention will soon turn away from his personal life.

"I hope I can now just get on with the job, the job that I have been appointed to do by the Prime Minister, and do it to the best of my ability," he said. Whether this hope proves forlorn remains to be seen.