Portrait of the week | 15 November 2003

Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, pressed for the issuing of identity cards, despite lack of enthusiasm in the Cabinet; ‘An ID card is not a luxury or a whim — it is a necessity,’ he said. Mr Michael Howard, the new leader of the Opposition, chose Maurice, Lord Saatchi, and Dr Liam Fox to take on between them the tasks of the party chairman, from which post Mrs Theresa May was removed to become shadow environment and transport secretary. In a shadow Cabinet reduced to 12, Mr Oliver Letwin got the Exchequer, Mr David Davis the Home Office, Mr Tim Yeo health and education, and Mr David Willetts policy co-ordination (writing the manifesto). A council of senior men, not in the shadow Cabinet, was formed by Mr John Major, Mr William Hague, Mr Iain Duncan Smith and Mr Kenneth Clarke. Mr Michael Portillo said he would not stand again for Parliament. The lease of Conservative Central Office went on sale at £6 million. The police investigated remarks made to a local newspaper by the Rt Revd Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester: ‘Some people who are primarily homosexual can reorientate themselves. I would encourage them to consider that.’ The police concluded that the law had not been broken, although Mr Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Cheshire, said: ‘We need to be very aware of the position of minorities in the county and make sure diversity is celebrated.’ The Prince of Wales, abroad on a visit to Oman, of all places, had a statement issued denying unspecified allegations; an injunction had been granted preventing newspapers reporting them, but the courts permitted the press to say that Mr Michael Fawcett, the Prince’s former personal assistant, had sought the injunction. Mr Mark Bolland, a former aide to the Prince, volunteered the information in the press that the Prince was ‘emphatically not gay or bisexual’; Mr Bolland said that Sir Michael Peat, the Prince’s private secretary, had asked him a year ago: ‘Do you think Charles is bisexual?’ Sir Michael himself said that the unnamed source of the allegations, another former servant, had suffered from alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the Falklands war.