Former defence secretary Michael Portillo yesterday ruled himself out of the race to become the next chairman of defence contractor BAE Systems.
He dismissed as ''entirely wrong'' a report in the Sunday Telegraph that he was seeking to replace Sir Richard Evans as chairman of the FTSE-100 company.
The newspaper said Portillo had approached the board in the past two weeks to indicate his desire to replace Sir Richard, who will retire in May.
Portillo said: ''The report in today's Sunday Telegraph that I am seeking the chairmanship of BAE Systems is entirely wrong. I am not.
''Indeed I am a member of the nominations committee that is conducting the search for the new chairman.'' BAE Systems designs and manufactures civil and military aircraft, surface ships, submarines and a range of defence products including guided weapons systems.
Portillo, who will stand down as MP for Kensington and Chelsea at the next election, has been building a career as a business adviser and television presenter. He is the second former government minister from the Conservative party to be linked with the chairmanships of high-profile companies in the past month.
London mayoral candidate Steven Norris was unveiled as the new interim chairman of Jarvis - at the centre of the inquiry into the Potters Bar rail crash - following the resignation of Paris Moayedi on November 25.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article