Blunkett on the ropes as charity inquisition hits below the belt

Having put the Kimberley Quinn affair behind him and returned to the Cabinet, the Work and Pensions Secretary was only too happy to go head-to-head with one of Fleet Street's foremost "attack dogs".

"Blunkett's office rang back immediately, and asked how hostile he was expected to be," said an organiser. "When we said he could ask Morgan anything he wanted, they replied, in that case, he'd be delighted to take part."

That conversation took place in August. Yesterday, just two months later, Mr Blunkett was forced to keep his appointment and, as Mr Morgan's red-top colleagues might say, you couldn't really have made it up.

With his career being threatened by a fresh round of allegations concerning his private life, Mr Blunkett was speaking in public for the first time since a blonde ex-girlfriend, Sally Anderson, employed Max Clifford to sell her story.

Michael Gove, the Tory MP who would chair proceedings, opened hostilities by apologising for the quarters in which the MP for Sheffield Brightside found himself. "I know, in comparison to what you're used to David, that these are unbelievably squalid surroundings for you to enjoy a meal in," he announced, "but sadly Annabel's was already fully booked this lunchtime."

The audience roared. Mr Blunkett, who renounced his membership of the society nightclub after details of his dinners there with Ms Anderson and an Asian businessman were splashed across the news pages, shuffled nervously in his chair.

Then it was Mr Morgan's turn. "You politicians have this great way of saying that the media bring you down," he said, when Mr Blunkett asked about a hatchet-job he'd performed during his time on the Daily Mirror. "My view would be that you drop your trousers quite happily without our having to help you."

Again, the room dissolved into hilarity. Again, Blunkett shuffled in his seat. "I'm just checking that mine are still done up," he said, before returning to the safe territory of asking Mr Morgan soft questions about his career.

The expected showdown deteriorated into a phoney war. This was largely the fault of Mr Blunkett, who decided against poking the hornets' nest of the forthcoming "city slickers" trial.

The 10-minute slot soon became a sort of advertorial for Mr Morgan's memoirs. Which is exactly how Mr Blunkett wanted it: to have gone on the offensive would have prompted a skirmish that could only have ended in mutually assured destruction.

It fell to Jim Naughtie, the Today programme host and audience member, to ask Mr Morgan the only tricky question of the day, from the floor: "How much, to the nearest £5,000, did you make from buying shares tipped in your newspaper?"

And Mr Morgan, in the manner of the politician he'd come to do battle with, refused to say.