The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, said last night he intends to divorce his estranged wife, Margaret, and marry his secretary, Ms Gaynor Regan, for whom he brought his 28-year marriage to an end.
Mr Cook made plain his intentions on arrival at Edinburgh Airport, where reporters questioned him about allegations in yesterday's press that he had had a string of extra-marital affairs.
Mr Cook, who was accompanied by Ms Regan, said: "The only relationship I have is with the woman I love and with the woman I will marry. And I am going to get married as soon as I get divorced."
Only hours previously, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, insisted his embattled colleague's job was safe and praised him for doing a "tremendous job".
Mr Cook was thought to be in Scotland to attend a meeting in his Livingston constituency.
Mr Blair, who is in Japan, was asked if the latest claims about Mr Cook's private life changed in any way the 100 per cent support he gave him when news of his marital break-up first broke in August.
Mr Blair replied: "No."
He continued: "If you take Robin Cook, for example on the international stage, he has made a huge reputation for himself. That guy is doing a tremendous job.
"You go to these international forums and he is a key player. They listen to him. He has had a tremendous influence even before we took over the presidency of the European Union."
Mr Blair, giving an interview on BBC TV's Breakfast with Frost on day three of his five-day visit to Tokyo, did admit to being peeved when the publicity generated by such matters distracted attention from his government's agenda.
His confirmation that Mr Cook's job was safe came just hours after Mrs Cook again spoke out on his behalf. Dismissing a report that her husband had considered quitting, she insisted: "There are no grounds for him to consider resigning."
Mrs Cook's expression of support came despite having talked in a television interview yesterday afternoon about the background to the disintegration of their marriage.
Last week allegations by Mrs Cook, a consultant haematologist at an Edinburgh hospital, that Mr Cook had engaged in other affairs before they split up, were repeated in several British papers.
A friend of Mrs Cook, writer Linda McDougall, has written a book, Westminster Women, extracts from which were published in Saturday's edition of the Times. Ms McDougall is married to Labour MP Mr Austin Mitchell.
In the book she reports Mrs Cook as saying that her husband had never given her a key to the London flat he used during parliamentary sessions, or taken her to the annual Labour Party conference or receptions in Whitehall, London's government district.