Faces of the week

Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are CAROLE CAPLIN (main picture), with ANGLE-GRINDER MAN, WESLEY CLARK, MADONNA and SHEB WOOLEY (clockwise from top left)

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CAROLE CAPLIN

Carole Caplin, the lifestyle adviser to Cherie Blair, has had her swipe card to 10 Downing Street withdrawn as part of a general shake-up at the court of King Tony. She's said to be furious, but will she sell her story?

If you believe what you read in Britain's tabloid press, the decision to freeze out Carole Caplin from the Blairs' inner circle poses a bigger threat to New Labour than Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Clare Short put together.

In our celebrity-obsessed world, 41-year-old Carole Caplin is a media godsend. It's not that she is beautiful, though that helps. Rather, it's that she has been personally close to the Blair family for many years.

The fear among some of Blair's staff is that "she knows too much." In a roundabout way, Carole Caplin is a media creation. In 1994, Cherie Blair was a hard-working, gifted lawyer, busily trying to juggle her personal and professional demands.

Her husband's promotion to head of the Labour Party that year, inevitably meant that the spotlight would fall more and more upon her as the party's "first lady".

A woman scorned? Carole Caplin

Some said her appearances suggested she was particularly deficient in the media-savvy department.

So, when she employs a charismatic woman she's met two years before at her gym in Islington, someone who is prepared to give forthright advice on how best to show herself off and how to look after her health and fitness needs, it was just what the spin-doctor ordered.

The pair became girlie friends. Carole was soon a regular holiday guest. But fears began that, perhaps, Ms Caplin had a Rasputin-like hold over Mrs Blair, that her influence could damage the party.

This suspicion came to the fore during the controversy surrounding the purchase of two apartments in Bristol, by Mrs Blair.

It transpired that a discount had been secured by one Peter Foster, the boyfriend of Carole Caplin.

Former topless model

Foster was a convicted fraudster, and the idea that the Blairs were surrounding themselves with dodgy dealers out for themselves, took root.

So who was this woman? Carole Caplin was a former model who once posed topless for Men Only magazine, and had a brief career as a rock singer during which time she dated Gary Numan and Adam Ant.

With Cherie at the Chelsea Flower Show

Her interest in health and fitness began after she contracted ME. Along with her mother, Carole set up a lifestyle consultancy company.

They advocated alternative therapies such as crystal healing. In a book written in the 1980s, Carole Caplin recommends celery leaf tea, and rubbing the body with exotic oils.

Her current Lifesmart company promotes alternative grooming, Feng Shui and spiritual exercise.

But now things appear to be anything but calm.

Ms Caplin claims she has been the victim of systematic attempts to hack into her bank accounts in a bid by Number 10 to discredit her.

She has denied she is planning a reveal-all book about the Blairs. If no book is forthcoming, the teeth-gnashing among publishers will only be drowned out by sighs of relief from spin doctors.

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ANGLE-GRINDER MAN Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, its the UK's newest super-hero, Angle-Grinder Man. Styling himself the country's "first wheel-clamp and speed camera vigilante cum subversive superhero philanthropist entertainer type person", he uses his tool to free cars from London's ubiquitous Denver Boots. A police spokesperson snaps: "What might seem a light-hearted gesture to some would be considered criminal damage to others." That's probably what they said about Clark Kent too. Full story

WESLEY CLARK Former Nato commander, General Wesley Clark, has announced that he is to seek the Democratic nomination for US President. Born in Arkansas, he was first in his class at West Point before going to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. One former army colleague says Clark is "way too articulate, way too good looking and perceived to be too wired to fit in with our culture." He thrashed Slobodan Milosevic and his cronies in Kosovo. But how tough would Dubya be? Full story

MADONNA Madonna has published the first in a series of five children's books. English Roses is the story of four little girls who exclude another girl from their circle. The book deals with "envy and jealousy and how these emotions cause so much unnecessary suffering in our lives". Well at least it's a departure from Madge's last opus, Sex, which featured the diva and friends in various erotic poses. Full story

SHEB WOOLEY Sheb Wooley, who died this week aged 82, had a dual career as actor and country singer. His 1958 single, Purple People Eater, a parody on the then current craze for monster movies and flying saucers, became a huge hit single. Wooley, who was a real cow hand on his father's farm as a youth, secured roles in several cowboy films, most notably High Noon. No relation though, to The Archers' Jack Wooley.