What's actually happening is the engine is trying to die, as the engine slows so does the power steering pump giving less assitance hence heavy steering, it eventually cuts out hence the battery light to show no charge.
So you have a very simple cold stalling fault.
Unlikely to be the ISCV(idle speed control valve) as this controls the idle speed at all temperatures, more likely to be a mixture problem, of air to fuel(termed AFR = Air Fuel Ratio), saying choke was on the right track, as these were used to "choke" the air supply so the afr went rich(more fuel less air).
The thing that controls this on your engine is the LAMBDA sensor, this "reads"(senses) the amount of air(oxygen) in the exhaust and so works out the AFR as it knows the fuel it is putting in, this refers to the ecu to sort it out.
If this sensor cannot/does not read correctly everything goes up the swanny.
I would firstly check for anything obvious like a blocked air filter, air leaks on the induction(air going into the engine) side, if nothing obvious goto a friendly mot station to get a read out of exhaust gasses.
Universal lambda's are only around £35, the last festa I did was a 1.25 zetec se, changed the lambda,(dead easy on these), and fuel went from 170 miles a tank to over 300 to a tank.
Some cars are still turning up with "TESCO" lambda's, tesco had a bad batch of fuel that killed these a few years back, but most have been fixed by now.
It would certainly not hurt to clean the iscv if the above fails.
What is the idle like when hot nice and stable or a bit lumpy.
tabetha