Faces of the week

Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are (main picture) Betsy Duncan Smith, with (clockwise from top left) Pierluigi Collina, Eddie Stobart, Otto Guensche and Myleene Klass . Compiled by Chris Jones of the BBC News Profiles Unit.

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Betsy Duncan Smith

Her only ambition has been to be a good wife and mother. So it's an unfortunate irony that questions about whether Betsy Duncan Smith did enough work to justify her salary as the Quiet Man's diary secretary are seemingly making the mountain he has to climb to Number 10 even steeper.

The investigation by the parliamentary commissioner of standards Sir Philip Mawer puts Betsy in the place she least enjoys: the public spotlight.

Her aversion to publicity is well known, and helps explain why even just a year ago, senior Conservatives weren't sure how she spelled her name.

Now they know that she doesn't spell it with a second "e", that she's the daughter of the 5th Baron Cottesloe and a distant cousin of the late Princess of Wales.

I have never heard her express political opinions, but I am sure she's not a raving socialist. She's a good strong, even a natural, Conservative Tory MP Edward Leigh

They could see for themselves that with her good looks, elegant Chanel-style suits and strings of pearls, she was a photographic asset.

"If only Betsy were leader, we'd be miles ahead of Labour," is a notion allegedly heard frequently at Tory party gatherings. A curious idea, considering the comment by her mother, that Betsy was "certainly not political".

It is Betsy's inherited wealth that largely funds the Duncan Smiths' comfortable lifestyle.

Homebird

Two years ago Iain, Betsy and their two sons and two daughters moved from London into the Cottesloe family pile, a Tudor farmhouse near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, set in three acres with a swimming pool, tennis court and orchards.

IDS is in London most of the time, of course, but BDS, as she is sometimes called in Tory circles, stays at home, looking after their youngest daughter, Rosie. Their other three children are at boarding school.

Now 43, she took an early decision to make her family her career instead of hiring a nanny.

Her husband once remarked: "I know she is not my equal, she is my superior." And who knows, he probably meant it.

The spotlight Betsy tries to avoid

Her friend, Sarah Johnson, is also full of admiration: "The Betsy I know can break off from cooking supper to field the constant stream of phone calls, load the fax machine, check the e-mails, and still avoid burning the supper."

If all this conjures up an image of a downtrodden, submissive little woman, think again.

Mrs Duncan Smith was not the most enthusiastic supporter of her husband's decision to seek the Conservative leadership. And she has irritated some Tory strategists by refusing to make herself part of IDS's publicity package.

Good Old Girl

In a bygone age, the politician's wife was out of bounds for the media. The long, illicit love affair between Lady Dorothy Macmillan and the politician, Bob Boothby, was common knowledge in Fleet Street, but no newspaper dreamed of reporting it.

Today, such spouses must struggle to avoid being indelibly labelled. Jackie Ashley of the New Statesman says any self-respecting new Labour man wants a Modern Woman, like Cherie Blair.

But the Tory party, perceiving itself as the guardian of family and traditional values, prefers the Good Old Girl, like Betsy Duncan Smith.

The GOG "copes with the loneliness of her husband being absent... takes the late-night calls from bores, nutters and desperate constituents who plague so many MPs at home... and often loathes the public side of the job".

"I'm not sneering," says Jackie Ashley. "The Good Old Girl is a very impressive person."

PIERLUIGI COLLINA The world's most famous football referee once again found himself in the eye of a soccer storm. Pierluigi Collina officiated over the heated England-Turkey match, and worked hard to calm tempers. At half-time, after the Turkish defender Alpay had had a bust-up with England's David Beckham, Collina invited the two men to his dressing room. "He made us shake hands and hug," says Alpay. Strange days, though, when a bald man asks everyone else to keep their hair on. Full story

EDDIE STOBART Cumbria's finest, the ubiquitous road haulier Eddie Stobart is set to sell his company. Eddie's distinctive vehicles, of which there are more than a thousand, have become a familiar sight up and down the UK and his fan club can boast 25,000 members. But motorists and truck spotters shouldn't fret. The firm is being bought by a company part-owned by Mr Stobart's brother, and the famous livery will remain unchanged. Full story

MYLEENE KLASS The former Hear'Say singer, Myleene Klass, has decided to branch out into, wait for it... classical music. Klass, who studied the piano at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music, has released an album of popular pieces in the hope of introducing more people to the genre. "If I've touched just one person who didn't know what it was, then I've done a job today," she says. Well, roll over Beethoven. Full story

OTTO GUENSCHE The man who set fire to Adolf Hitler's body in the Berlin bunker in 1945, Otto Guensche, has died at the age of 86. After Hitler had shot himself, Guensche, his adjutant, helped carry his body up four flights of steps to the Chancellory garden where he doused it with petrol and threw on a lighted rag. Guensche was later interned by the Russians but survived to become a successful businessman in Germany. Full story