Steve Norris (54)
When Steve Norris finally secured the Conservative candidacy to run for mayor of London in January, the party leader, William Hague, was clearly delighted.
After the debacle of Lord Archer's resignation and Hague's ringing endorsement of the novelist as a candidate of "probity and integrity", and the near farce over Norris (54) being dropped by the mayoral selection committee and then reinstated, the Tory leadership desperately needed a good news story.
Now safely installed as the party's candidate, the colourful former Tory transport minister - he has admitted to a series of extra-marital affairs - has been busy emphasising political realities. A new mayor - if he or she is to achieve anything for Londoners - must work hand in hand with the Labour government. To that end Norris is proposing to ditch Conservative policy and support Labour plans for a public-private funding partnership for the Tube. However, he is seeking to reverse Labour policy by arguing for private money to run trains and public money to maintain and upgrade the system.
The son of a civil servant and a teacher from Liverpool, Norris was educated at the same grammar school on Merseyside as two of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.