Key players in the tangled web over Downing Street

Alastair Campbell

Mr Campbell recently said he believed the Government had overcome its reputation for "spin". But he added: "Famous last words."

Today he must be in despair over the damage the past week has done to Downing Street's reputation for probity. Mr Campbell, now its director of communications and strategy, will be directing the damage limitation by his press office, with the tricky task of grilling Cherie Blair over her version of events falling to him.

And no doubt he will feel all his doubts about her closeness to Carole Caplin have been confirmed.

Godric Smith and Tom Kelly

The week has been acutely uncomfortable for the two civil servants who replaced Mr Campbell as the Prime Minister's official spokesmen. Mr Smith, who worked at Number 10 under John Major, gave the initial denial that Peter Foster was financial adviser to Mrs Blair, which was blown apart by leaked e-mails.

Mr Kelly, who was an adviser to Peter Mandelson at the Northern Ireland Office, was wrong-footed on Monday after news came that Mrs Blair had intervened in Mr Foster's deportation proceedings. Yesterday he went on the attack, lambasting the "character assassination" by the media against Mrs Blair.

Fiona Millar

Alastair Campbell's partner, with whom he has three children, is Mrs Blair's personal assistant and long regarded as a close confidante. But she has seemed powerless to curb Ms Caplin's sway over Mrs Blair. Ms Millar privately told friends her entreaties to Mrs Blair to distance herself from her lifestyle guru fell on stony ground.

A former tabloid reporter, she would have been well aware of the dangers of the Prime Minister's links with a former topless model and enthusiastic champion of New Age remedies.

Sir Andrew Turnbull

Tony Blair asked the recently appointed cabinet secretary whether he had observed the ministerial code of conduct in using a blind trust to buy the Bristol flats. Sir Andrew, who has served 30 years in Whitehall, told him he had. But confusion remains about when this reassurance was obtained.

Iain Duncan Smith

The Opposition leader was initially reluctant to become involved. On Friday he said: "What I will want to look at and what we will all want to look at is whether the Government is involved, and whether or not it's right or wrong, and I can't make a judgement on that."

The following morning the Daily Mail wrote a scathing leader attacking the Tories' failure to get involved. By Sunday, Mr Duncan Smith was saying the affair raised questions about Downing Street's integrity. He is demanding to know whether ministers interfered in Mr Foster's fight against deportation.

Max Clifford

Last week the veteran publicist, correctly predicted that more lurid revelations about Mrs Blair and Carole Caplin were on the way. He had been approached by three former business associates of Mr Foster, bitter over their involvement in a slimming product he was promoting. He introduced them to the News of the World, which failed to take up the story.

But another investor sold it to The Mail on Sunday, which kicked off the media storm 10 days ago. Mr Clifford denied involvement in the sale or speaking to or acting for Mr Foster.