Son's sudden departure

While Chancellor Kohl was enjoying the freedom of the City of London yesterday, his youngest son, Peter, appeared to have made use of his freedom to leave it.

Peter, aged 33, has been working as an investment banker in London for five years. But he suddenly left his former employer last month without notifying colleagues of a new career path.

Staff at the London branch of Salomon Brothers, the American investment bank, said he had left without leaving any forwarding address.

A former colleage said: "He definitely didn't want to be seen just as the son of his father. We left him alone because he clearly wanted to live life as himself, not a young Helmut Kohl."