Players rushed on and off the stage monologues were declaimed the saga unfolded – but all the while its main element was
Players rushed on and off the stage, monologues were declaimed, the saga unfolded – but all the while its main element was hidden from view.She won a titanic battle of spin with her former lover while never showing her face, but at what cost? Her exit from hospital – and the exit of her former lover from high office – has changed the dynamics of their relationship.In the end, Kimberly Quinn may find making a return to public life every bit as difficult as David Blunkett will.Additional reporting by David UsborneInto the limelight comes another figure at entertaining magazineSimon Hoggart is the latest contributor to The Spectator to be dragged reluctantly into the scandal limelight. Hoggart, the magazine’s wine correspondent, angrily denies claims in today’s News of the World that he had an affair with Kimberly Quinn at the same time as her relationship with David Blunkett. By way of contrast, other members of the magazine staff have admitted dalliances with fellow toilers in its townhouse offices in Doughty Street, London. She is coming to terms with that,” said one who has spoken for her.”This is just an awful situation for everybody,” her friend added.
“She is full of grief and remorse.”Kimberly’s flash-lit white face as she emerged from St Mary’s Hospital in west London on Friday night gives some credence to those who insist she is “fragile” and “vulnerable”.Her startled expression was a study in the aghast comprehension of consequences hitherto only dimly grasped.However, maintaining public sympathy in the months ahead may be hard. Less attractive will be the prospect of the final stages of the Quinns’ court battle with Mr Blunkett in the Family Division of the High Court, which he will now have the time to pursue with ever more vigour.Kimberly is said to recognise that she must, in the end, give Mr Blunkett access to his son. “If he’s the biological father it is obvious that he must have access. (She also gave $1,000 to the campaign to re-elect George Bush.) Marvin and Lugene, who love the theatre and opera, also have an apartment in Paris.In the short term, the couple will have their brief holiday before the birth of her second child in February. Publicity shots from the heyday of her career as Lugene Sanders explain where Kimberly got her looks.Nowadays, she runs her own company, C Sanders Emblems, an embroidery company that makes patches and logos for corporate uniforms across the country.
His three-storey Mayfair house, the backdrop to the Quinn camp’s briefings, gives an inflated impression of his financial standing, say senior magazine executives with whom he has worked.Those around Andrew Neil, her new boss at The Spectator, say there are signs that he is restless about the prospect of her return to the magazine after maternity leave, but Stephen Quinn has dismissed speculation that the couple will move to the US. However, it must be attractive for Kimberly and her children to spend more time in America to be nearer her parents and sister, Jennifer, who has two children of her own.Her mother, Lugene, is a former TV star best known in the US for her role as Babs in the Life of Riley sitcom. She became frightened of him.” Her detractors have an altogether different explanation for her decision to end the affair.”You can imagine that, in 2001, a rather scatter-brained girl like her could see David Blunkett becoming Prime Minister as the “stop Brown” candidate. He was clearly prepared to include her in his family – one of the first people he told was his ex-wife, Ruth, testament to an enduring trust between the two.Did Kimberly similarly confide in her relatives? If not, it is a curious coincidence that Mr Blunkett was in the US the week of the Solomons’ golden wedding anniversary.Strangest of all, perhaps, is why the relationship faltered. Contrary to reports, Mr Quinn, a divorcee himself, is not especially wealthy.
It was going to last another five or six years, and after that she was going to end up in Sheffield, far away from the Cond?ast life.”What does the future hold for her now? Financially, it will be comfortable, but not overly so. It would have completely gone to her head that she might be standing on the White House lawn, this girl from America, on an equal footing with Laura Bush.”These adventurous women always assume that the power of the men they are with is going to last for ever, when it doesn’t. In their three-year affair they had at least three foreign holidays.How could Mr Quinn possibly not have known about the affair? Yet her friends insist she was terrified that her husband would find out.”She was sure that Stephen would walk out on her when he found out,” a friend said. “That’s why she was so scared of it making the papers.”Friends say she turned to Mr Blunkett when she was “needy” – a strange emotional state to be in,, one might think, weeks after a marriage.Other aspects of their relationship seem curious. Her friends say she grew frightened by the intensity of his desire that they should be together “He never let up She was intimidated by his relentless passion. Mr Blunkett’s eldest son, Alastair, and his girlfriend accompanied the couple on at least one tryst, for instance. In his book on Mr Blunkett, Stephen Pollard writes that they met one or two nights a week and one weekend a month.