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The one-off drama, under the working title of A Very Social Secretary, will star Bernard Hill and Blunkett, Victoria Hamilton as Kimberly Quinn and Robert Lindsay as Tony Blair.

Launch night of the channel will also see the first edition of The Last Word, a sideways look at the day’s events that will be fronted by a rotating line-up of presenters including Stanley Johnson, father of Tory MP Boris, plus David Mitchell and Mark Dolan.

Channel 4 has pledged two-thirds of the More4’s £33m programme budget will be spent on original, British content.

Morgan Spurlock, thorn in the side of global fast food outlet MacDonald’s after his Oscar-nominated movie Super Size Me, will present The Last Word for a week and viewers will also see the premiere of his new documentary series, 30 Days.

More4 is expected to roll out programming already aired on other Channel 4 strands such as The Madness of King George, The Crying Game and Dance With A Stranger, from FilmFour, plus repeats of documentaries Demolition, Jamie’s Great Escape, Priest Idol and Monarchy.

Chief executive Andy Duncan said: “We’re understandably excited about our launch line-up and convinced that More4 represents a significant extension of choice for our viewers.

“No other commercial broadcaster in the UK would contemplate launching a free-to-air channel with the richness and creative ambition of More4, which aims to make a significant public service contribution in its own right.

More4 is the third digital and cable offshoot since the launch of Channel 4 in the 1980s.

FilmFour was unveiled in November 1998, while E4 was launched in January 2001.

Peter Dale, head of More4, said: “These are programmes of a scale and an ambition that would not seem out of place on Channel 4 itself and yet are very thin on the ground elsewhere in the digital TV universe.

“They sum up what we want More4 to be – a lively, outspoken and above all entertaining channel for discerning viewers who want more from digital TV than repeats, football and back-to-back acquisitions.”

By Kevin May