“No favours but slightly quicker”

Nanny trouble strikes again: David Blunkett has resigned as home secretary after an e-mail emerged showing a visa application for his ex-lover’s nanny had been fast-tracked. The e-mail had said “no favours but slightly quicker”. Blunkett said he had not been aware of its contents and insisted he had done nothing wrong.

So what happened then? Did a civil servant send the email on her/his own authority? If so, shouldn’t s/he be sacked?

In the meantime, I can see the phrase “no favours but slightly quicker” entering the British comic lexicon — like “Up to a point, Lord Copper” (denoting total disagreement) from Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Scoop. Or Mandy Rice-Davies’s “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” (Uttered while giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward when the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Viscount Astor had denied having met her.)