Portrait of the Week – 28 January 2006

Mr Mark Oaten withdrew his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats and then resigned as its Home Affairs spokesman after the News of the World publicised repeated visits to a 23-year-old rent boy. Mr Sven-Goran Eriksson agreed with the Football Association to resign as the England football manager after the World Cup, and to take a £2.5 million pay-off. The News of the World reported that he had said to a journalist in disguise in Dubai that he was considering his future after the World Cup; Mr Eriksson also had talks with the FA’s so-called compliance unit because the paper had said he had named three unnamed premiership clubs as being involved in corruption. The profits of Manchester United fell by 11 per cent to £46 million, with its media revenues falling by £7.5 million. Mr David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, said in an interview, ‘When it comes to the economy, I am absolutely clear that stability and responsibility come first, second and third as our priorities –— and that they come before the commitment to cut taxes.’ Mr George Galloway, the Respect MP, appeared on Celebrity Big Brother dressed in a leotard, performing a mime with Mr Pete Burns, a surgically modified singer. Mrs Hilary Spurling, who was the literary editor of The Spectator from 1966 to 1970, won the Whitbread Prize with her biography of Matisse. Michael Wharton, the author for 49 years of the Peter Simple column in the Daily Telegraph, died, aged 92. Dr Zaki Badawi, the principal of the Muslim College, London, died, aged 83. A 19ft female northern bottlenosed whale became lost in the Thames, swimming up to Battersea; after two days it was hoisted on to a tug in an attempt to return it to the sea, but it died at Gravesend.