Culture secretary wrote memo to David Cameron supporting family's £8bn bid, despite being warned he should not intervene

Jeremy Hunt's grip on ministerial office looked increasingly precarious after the Leveson inquiry heard that he had written an outspoken memo for David Cameron, staunchly supporting the Murdoch family's £8bn bid for BSkyB, a month before he was handed the task of adjudicating on whether to approve the media merger in an apolitical, "quasi-judicial" manner.

The culture secretary also demanded that the prime minister intervene to rein in Vince Cable, who was at the time responsible for the BSkyB bid – a request that explicitly contradicts a statement Hunt gave to parliament last month, in which he told MPs that he made "absolutely no interventions" to put pressure on the business secretary to wave the controversial takeover through.

It also raised fresh questions about the judgment of the prime minister and in particular his then cabinet secretary, Lord O'Donnell, who had ruled that Hunt would not prejudge the £8bn takeover even though he had publicly supported the bid. Cameron did not tell O'Donnell of the memo, but No 10 insisted the memo was "entirely consistent" with Hunt's previous public statements that the Murdoch's bid for BSkyB raised no media plurality issues.

The inquiry heard that the culture secretary drafted the email on his private Gmail account on 19 November 2010 despite being warned by his officials that he should not intervene because the decision was being taken exclusively by Cable. In the memo he voiced concern that Cable, the business secretary, had referred the takeover to media regulator Ofcom, warning him that James Murdoch was "pretty furious" and that the government "could end up in the wrong place in terms of media policy as a result".

Hunt wrote enthusiastically about the bid, saying Murdoch wanted to combine Sky television with the Sun and the Times to create a company spanning "from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad" and would revolutionise the media in the same way that James's father Rupert transformed newspapers by crushing the print unions at Wapping – although there was widespread opposition to a takeover that would have brought the largest broadcaster and the largest newspaper group together.

The News Corp bid was opposed by the rest of Fleet Street, including the owners of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph as well as the publishers of the Guardian and the Daily Mirror, and briefly by the BBC – but in his memo Hunt chose to characterise the deal's opponents in nakedly political terms, saying: "I think it would be totally wrong to cave into the Mark Thompson/Channel 4/Guardian line."

At the time, formal responsibility for adjudicating on the bid rested with Cable, who was stripped of the role by Cameron in December 2010 after it emerged that he had been secretly recorded by two reporters working for the Daily Telegraph saying that he had declared "war on Murdoch". Cable was deemed unable to rule fairly on the bid in the light of his remarks.

In the memo Hunt also requested that Cameron organise a meeting with himself, Nick Clegg and Cable, who was refusing to meet Murdoch, "to discuss the policy issues that are thrown up as a result" – although the sole legal responsibility for determining whether the bid should be approved rested with Cable. No such meeting took place.

Last month, however, Hunt denied to MPs that he sought to lobby against Cable. Speaking in the Commons Hunt said: "I made absolutely no interventions seeking to influence a quasi-judicial decision that was at that time the responsibility of the secretary of state for business. However, it is my responsibility to understand what is going on in the media industry and the impact of this very important sector, which employs thousands of people. That is why I was interested to find out what was going on."

It is a breach of the ministerial code to fail to tell the truth to parliament and the shadow culture secretary, Harriet Harman, said it was clear from evidence that Cameron gave responsibility to Hunt for ruling on the BSkyB bid when he knew only too well that the culture secretary was actively supporting it. "The prime minister should never have given him the job. It is clear Jeremy Hunt was not the impartial arbiter he was required to be, and he should already have resigned."

No 10 hit back, claiming: "Hunt's note is entirely consistent with his public statements on the BSkyB bid prior to taking on the quasi-judicial role. It also makes clear that 'it would be totally wrong for the government to get involved in a competition issue which has to be decided at arms length'. The PM has made clear throughout that he recused himself from decisions relating to BSkyB and did not seek to influence the process in any way."

Hunt was not himself at Leveson, which heard evidence from his former special adviser Adam Smith, who resigned last month after it emerged he had been in repeated contact with James Murdoch's chief lobbyist, Frédéric Michel, during the year-long bid approval process. The inquiry heard that Smith had been in contact with Michel more than 1,000 times by text, phone or email in the year after the Sky bid was launched in June 2010, with the two men sometimes speaking as often as four times a day. On one occasion Michel texted Hunt: "You were great at the Commons today" and Hunt replied: "Merci. Large drink tonight!"

Michel was repeatedly asked whether he thought that Smith was speaking for the minister. The inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC asked Michel: "You don't appear very willing to tell us, Mr Michel, whether Mr Hunt was supportive [of the Sky bid] or not ... or are you frankly not assisting us? Can we be clear?" Michel replied: "My view is that Jeremy Hunt was probably supportive of some of the arguments."

The Hunt memo was drafted by him and Smith to be sent to Cameron as part of a process of providing him with fortnightly political updates. Downing Street confirmed that Cameron received the memo dated four days after Hunt had a phone conversation with James Murdoch – a telephone call that was necessary because the minister had been banned from meeting the media mogul by his permanent secretary Jonathan Stephens.

Downing Street was further embarrassed yesterday when it emerged that Cameron's press secretary Craig Oliver met Michel for a "discreet" dinner in July 2011 two days after the Guardian broke the story about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

Draft of Jeremy Hunt's letter to David Cameron, November 2010

James Murdoch is pretty furious at Vince [Cable]'s referral to Ofcom [of News Corp's bid to take full control of BSkyB]. He doesn't think he will get a fair hearing from Ofcom. I am privately concerned about this because News Corp are very litigious and we could end up in the wrong place in terms of media policy. Essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the move to Wapping and create the world's first multi-platform media operator available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad. Isn't this what all media companies have to do ultimately? ... we must be very careful that any attempt to block it is done on plurality grounds ...

The UK has the chance to lead the way on this as we did in the 80s with the Wapping move but if we block it our media sector will suffer for years ... I think it would be totally wrong to cave into the Mark Thompson/Channel 4/Guardian line that this represents a substantial change of control given that we all know Sky is controlled by News Corp now anyway... It would be totally wrong for the government to get involved in a competition issue which has to be decided at arm's length. However I do think you, I, Vince and [Nick Clegg] should meet to discuss the policy issues that are thrown up as a result.

Jeremy Hunt to MPs, 25 April 2012

I made absolutely no interventions seeking to influence a quasi-judicial decision that was at that time [Cable's] responsibility ... However, it is my responsibility to understand what is going on in the media industry and the impact of this very important sector, which employs thousands of people. That is why I was interested to find out what was going on.

Contraction of 0.3%, coupled with more bad news from the eurozone, increases pressure on government to intervene to boost economic growth

The prospect of fresh action to boost the flagging British economy loomed larger on Thursday after official figures showed a steeper fall in activity than previously thought and the crisis-hit eurozone drifted towards a deeper slump.

Labour seized on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing that gross domestic product declined by 0.3% in the first three months of 2012 as evidence that Britain is ill-prepared to withstand a deterioration in the rest of Europe over the coming months.

The ONS had originally pencilled in a 0.2% drop in output for the first quarter but said that the downturn in the UK's construction sector was even more pronounced than it had previously projected. Britain's economy was 0.1% smaller at the end of the three months to March than it was a year earlier, the ONS added.

A survey of business activity in the eurozone showed that the worsening of the debt crisis looks likely to have a marked impact on business activity. The purchasing managers' index – a forward-looking guide to sentiment in the manufacturing and service sectors – slid to a 35-month low of 45.9 in May, from 46.7 in April and 49.1 in March. Manufacturing was particularly weak, with activity contracting at the fastest rate for nearly three years while services activity shrank at the fastest rate for seven months.

Meanwhile, a key measure of German business confidence – the Ifo index – revealed that fears about the break-up of the single currency are starting to cast a shadow over Europe's biggest economy. Business confidence fell from 109.9 to 106.9, reversing all its gains of the past five months.

The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, said: "It's now clear that this is a recession made in Downing Street by this government's failed policies. Despite all the problems in the euro area, France, Germany and the eurozone as a whole have so far avoided recession and only exports to other countries stopped us going into recession a year ago. The result is that Britain is now in a weaker position if things get worse in the eurozone in the coming months."

According to the ONS, the downturn in the first quarter was of the same magnitude as the contraction in the final quarter of 2011, undermining hopes that the economy was moving towards recovery.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg suggested earlier this week that the coalition plans to expand its policy of credit easing, using government guarantees to kickstart spending on infrastructure and housing to boost the economy. According to the ONS, construction output declined by 4.8% in the first three months of the year, after a 0.2% decline in the fourth quarter of 2011, helping to explain the government's change of heart about pumping fresh cash into building projects.

"Over the past 18 months, the economy has experienced a mild contraction in output. This reflects global economic headwinds as well as domestic economic conditions such as the impact of continuing high rates of inflation in the UK," the ONS said.

With the extra bank holiday for the Queen's diamond jubilee expected to depress economic output in the second quarter of the year, as workers down tools and fire up their barbecues, analysts believe it will be autumn at the earliest before the UK emerges from recession.

However, as Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, has stressed, events in the eurozone, where leaders are battling to contain the impact of the political paralysis in Greece, present a major risk to the outlook in the weeks ahead.

David Miles, the one member of the Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC) to vote for further quantitative easing this month, said: "No one on the MPC feels comfortable with the prolonged and substantial overshoot of inflation above its target level. But that does not mean bringing inflation back to target very rapidly is the best thing to do.

"In a situation where weak demand is likely to be having a negative impact upon productive capacity, the cost of having a tighter monetary policy to bring inflation back to target fast will be some long-lasting damage to incomes."

Howard Archer, of consultancy IHS Global Insight, described the growth figures as "very disappointing".

Watchdog says only 13 officers have been prosecuted and found guilty following the thousands of claims

The police watchdog has revealed how more than 8,500 allegations about corruption have been recorded by forces in England and Wales in three years – but only 13 police officers have been prosecuted and found guilty.

Calling for additional powers and resources to tackle police corruption linked to the private sector, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) warned that although corruption in the police is not deemed to be "widespread", it has a "corrosive" impact on public trust.

Detailing hundreds of cases of alleged corruption investigated or supervised by the watchdog, including some of "serious corruption, sometimes at a senior level", the IPCC called on ministers to consider giving the body more teeth.

It said the Home Office should consider whether the watchdog "can be resourced to carry out more investigations and exercise greater oversight in this area". The report shows allegations of corruption have steadily increased in recent years.

The report comes in a dramatic week in which parliament has heard allegations that officers within the Metropolitan police's anti-corruption unit were paid bribes. Within 24 hours of the allegations being raised before MPs, the Met – which had been investigating the case since October – made a series of arrests.

The Guardian revealed on Tuesday that the force was investigating allegations that a firm of private investigators, RISC Management, composed of former Met police officers, may have paid bribes to serving police officers in the force's anti-corruption unit.

Details of the case, which involves allegations of payments amounting to £20,000, were raised in evidence to the home affairs select committee. The following day, the offices of RISC Management were raided, and a serving Scotland Yard detective and three former Met police officers were arrested. One of the arrested former Met detectives was Keith Hunter, the chief executive of RISC Management.

The IPCC report makes specific reference to concerns about potentially corrupt relationships between police officers and the private sector. The watchdog's inquiry was launched in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal and related allegations that police officers received illicit payments from journalists.

The IPCC noted that it investigated only a small fraction of the corruption allegations, owing to its limited remit and resources, leaving individual forces to investigate their own officers in the vast majority of cases.

"The public is understandably doubtful about the extent to which, in this particular instance, the police can investigate themselves," said the IPCC's new chair, Dame Anne Owers. In a sign she would be seeking greater power and resources for the IPCC for tackling corruption, she said she would raise these concerns with ministers directly.

She added: "This report illustrates the kind of behaviour that undermines public confidence in the police such as abuse of authority, perverting the course of justice and accepting generous hospitality."

The report, which also called for more effective national system for handling allegations against very senior officers, collated data for all forces in England and Wales between 2008 and 2011. During that three year period, 8,542 allegations of corruption were recorded by police forces. Of those, only 837 were referred to the IPCC. The watchdog only had the resources or powers to independently investigate 21 of the most serious cases.

However, only a small proportion of the 8,500-plus allegations about corruption resulted in police officers being prosecuted. In total, 18 officers were charged and prosecuted following independent or "managed" IPCC investigations; 13 were found guilty.

The report said these allegations included rape and sexual assault, the fraudulent use of corporate credit cards, perverting the course of justice, the provision of false statements, and the misuse of police databases. Eleven of those found guilty were constables, one was a sergeant and the other a commander.

In the majority of the cases, questions over officer's conduct were not supplied by colleagues, but came to light after allegations from the public.

A larger number of cases were dealt with internally, with 87 police officers facing misconduct hearings within their forces – in 87% of those cases, the allegations of corruption were upheld. However, the most common punishment was a "written warning". The next most likely sanction was involved placing the officers under supervision or providing them with more training.

Only 14 officers – 18% of the total found guilty at misconduct hearings – were dismissed from the police or required to resign.

The cases revealed in the report found that the most senior officer to be found guilty of corruption-related misconduct was a chief constable, the highest-ranking officer in the force. His deputy was found guilty of "discreditable conduct".

Most cases in the report – 33% of reported allegations – involve alleged cases of perverting the course of justice. The next most common form of corruption allegation is theft and fraud.

Another case involved a retired 63-year-old detective chief superintendent and a retired 55-year-old detective constable who received prison sentences after admitting charges of misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to commit fraud.

After retiring from South Wales police, the former detective chief superintendent began working as a private investigator – his co-defendant, the detective constable, rejoined the force in a civilian role, as an administrator.

The two men then struck up a corrupt arrangement whereby, in exchange for payment, the civilian administrator would conduct illicit checks on police databases and disclose information to the investigator to assist him in his work.

The IPCC said: "The investigation also revealed that the administrator had links with a known criminal and he was found guilty of money-laundering after the police seized £200,000 from his property."

Owers added: "There are strong links between public trust and perceptions of police corruption. A serious focus on tackling police corruption is important, not just because it unearths unethical police behaviour, but because of the role it plays in wider public trust, views of police legitimacy and, on a practical level, cooperation and compliance with the police."

Deputy chief constable Bernard Lawson, who chairs the counter-corruption advisory group for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "This report again recognises that corruption is neither endemic nor widespread in the police service. However, the actions of a few corrupt officers can corrode the great work of so many working hard daily to protect the public."

Poll commissioned by anti-independence campaign finds only a third of Scots want to leave UK

Alistair Darling has claimed that Alex Salmond's campaign for Scottish independence has stalled at the starting line after a poll found that only a third of Scots want to leave the UK.

The poll findings were released by the former chancellor a few hours before Salmond launched his party's long-awaited "Yes Scotland" campaign for the referendum on independence in 2014, centred on a new public declaration supporting separation under the slogan "Scotland's Future in Scotland's Hands".

The event at a multiscreen cinema in Edinburgh, billed as the largest community-based political movement in the country's history, will feature pro-independence celebrities and public figures including former Labour politicians such as the former Falkirk MP Dennis Canavan.

SNP activists around Scotland are being trained to act as campaigners for independence, and urged to attempt to convert and persuade as many work colleagues, friends and family members in their areas as possible, and to lobby opinion formers in their community.

In a deliberate attempt to undermine Friday's launch, Darling said that even though Salmond had held power for five years, the YouGov poll – paid for by the soon-to-be-launched anti-independence campaign – had confirmed that leaving the UK still appealed to a minority of voters.

The YouGov poll of 1,004 people found that only 33% of Scots would opt for independence, while 57% would reject it, findings which are close to several recent surveys but show lower support for independence than others.

In another damaging finding for the pro-independence movement, the poll also suggested that only 58% of people who voted for the SNP in last May's landslide victory for Salmond would back independence in a snap referendum, while 28% of SNP voters opposed it.

"Even after winning two Scottish general election victories, raising a war-chest of millions and deploying the full resources of the Scottish government, Alex Salmond has failed to convince Scots that they should leave the United Kingdom," Darling said.

"The nationalists will go to great lengths to try to prove there is a groundswell towards leaving the UK but the truth is that their campaign is stalled. Independence is as unpopular as it has ever been."

The polling results will not greatly surprise the "yes" campaign but Darling's intervention marks the first head-on challenge for Salmond by the anti-independence coalition formed by the three main pro-UK parties of Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, which is expected to launch formally in June.

Darling, who has confirmed he is setting up the pro-UK campaign, convened a private meeting of senior figures in all three parties at his home in Edinburgh earlier this month – an event lampooned by the first minister as a council of war with "tea and sandwiches".

Sources close to this group said a series of initiatives was being put in place to counter Yes Scotland. Officials within Yes Scotland said their 30-month long campaign, which is being funded largely by two gifts worth nearly £2m, was designed to slowly overcome the gap in support.

A spokesman for Yes Scotland said: "The independence referendum isn't being held tomorrow. The campaign launches tomorrow, and it will be the biggest community-based campaign that Scotland has ever seen."

The direct challenge to Salmond could bolster the first minister's efforts to win support from outside the SNP by polarising the parties and the debate, helping the first minister overcome significant reservations already being voiced by potential supporters about the SNP's policies and tactics.

Yes Scotland officials believe that Canavan's appearance alongside Salmond at the campaign launch will, as a popular former Labour MP, signal to many undecided Labour voters and trade unionists that independence is winning support on the mainstream left.

"Dennis has travelled the journey that we need lots of people in Scotland to travel: from a Labour MP to an independent in the Scottish parliament to standing on a yes platform in which he will make a substantial contribution," said the campaign's spokesman, Stephen Noon.

"He illustrates the sort of person who will be on display on that stage. People who have made journeys, from all sorts of different backgrounds."

Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green party leader, confirmed he would be attending the launch and signing the declaration, but again warned Salmond that so far the yes campaign was too dominated by the SNP and its centrist policies, including floating support for Nato and continued exploitation of North Sea oil and gas.

However, an influential non-party alliance of civic and voluntary groups called Future of Scotland, chaired by a former moderator of the Church of Scotland, Alison Elliot, urged both camps to wait for the voters to decide what sort of constitutional reform they wanted before launching their campaign.

Elliot, the convenor of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, warned that running a campaign at this early stage risked boring and alienating voters. "Politicians are jumping the gun," she said. "They should be speaking to people and helping them understand what any change might mean for them. Only then should the campaigning start. If the parties retreat to their corners at this stage we could be subjected to more than two years of political squabbling and tribalism.

"Ideally, the referendum process should reflect what people want to see - a popular rather than political mandate. If people feel disengaged and ill-informed, we risk a repeat of the low voter turnout in the recent local elections and other Scottish elections. This would be a disaster for a referendum on Scotland's constitutional future."

Angus Robertson, the SNP's campaign director, did not directly challenge the YouGov poll's findings but said it was essentially irrelevant, since the referendum was not being staged until the autumn of 2014.

"The referendum isn't happening tomorrow, as the poll tries to pretend. Today is the start of the biggest community-based campaign in Scotland's history, offering a positive, inclusive vision of Scotland's future as an independent nation – and we are extremely confident of winning the trust of the people and achieving a yes vote in autumn 2014.

"And Alistair Darling isn't even confident enough to ask the clear, straightforward question in the referendum consultation document. An independent Scotland will have the political and fiscal independence that we need to build a fair society and successful economy, while sharing a close social union with our friends and neighbours in England, including the Queen as our joint head of state."

Public accounts committee says cutting staff and hiring expensive outside consultants could be bad value for taxpayer

The growing practice of officials leaving the Ministry of Defence only to be re-employed as outside consultants could end up being "dreadful value for the taxpayer", a leading parliamentary watchdog has warned.

MoD spending on consultants has soared from £6m in 2007 to £270m in the last financial year, according to the latest figures. Yet the MoD is pursuing a programme of cuts unsure about the impact on continuing demand for skilled people, and the problem is exacerbated by poor morale, according to the Commons cross-party public accounts committee (PAC).

The Guardian earlier this year revealed that the money for the soaring cost of hiring specialist consultants had been drawn from the MoD's equipment budget, which is supposed to pay for the weapons, armour and vehicles needed by troops in Afghanistan and for other operations.

A confidential internal audit found the system for awarding contracts was being routinely abused. When the report was leaked to the Guardian, ministers promised to stamp out bad practice.

"The Ministry of Defence has gone ahead with cuts to its military and civilian workforce without a proper understanding of what skills it will need in the future," said Margaret Hodge, the PAC's chair. She said the committee recognised that the MoD had to make tough financial decisions if it was to reduce its spending by 7.5% a year by 2015, and that it had acted decisively.

The MoD plans to cut its civilian personnel by 29,000 and its military personnel by 25,000, in moves estimated to save £4.1bn between 2011 and 2015, the MPs report.

"We are concerned that these cuts have been determined by the need to cut costs in the short term rather than by considering the MoD's strategic objectives in the long term and the skills it will need to deliver them successfully," Hodge added. "If the department loses key skills, it may have to spend even more money on replacing them, perhaps by buying them in from external consultants."

The MPs welcomed the department's candour about staff morale. Given the scale of change in the department it was not surprising morale was low, they added.

"Morale is not in a good place. We recognise that," Ursula Brennan, the MoD's top official, said in evidence to the PAC in March.

She added: "I do recognise that there is a problem of morale in the civil service and the military. People feel battered and bruised and they feel under a lot of pressure to deliver.

"But if you look around the country at the moment, there are a lot of people who feel under pressure. The economy is putting all of us under pressure."

The MoD is engaging in what it calls a "large-scale communications effort" to allow staff to have "a clear understanding of the programme of changes the department is undertaking".

As the relay enters Wales, Eddie Butler recalls the Olympic triumph of a champion whose grave lies high above two very different towns

The Olympic torch is entering Wales. On its way from Worcester to Cardiff it will be taken across the rolling countryside of Monmouthshire before its journey into the old industrial highland around Brynmawr and Blaenavon. The turning point of the torch relay, from the gently bucolic to the industrially bruised, is the market town of Abergavenny and, above it, the 561-metre (1,841ft) Blorenge mountain.

The contrast in the five miles that separate Abergavenny, picture-postcard pretty and home of the largest food festival in the UK, and Blaenavon, 91 metres down in a bowl on the other side of the Blorenge's summit, could not be starker.

Blaenavon was a cradle of industrial revolution, once rich in the ore, coal and limestone that made it an iron town of 20,000 inhabitants. It is now less than a third of that size, but is a world heritage site and home of the Big Pit national coal museum.

High on the moorland between the two towns is an outcrop of grey rocks, and set in the middle there is a green metal plaque marking the burial site of Foxhunter, the horse ridden by Sir Harry Llewellyn at the Helsinki Olympic Games of 1952.

On 2 August that year, the day before the end of a Games during which Britain had not won a single gold medal, the pair went clear in the second round of the team showjumping, and the country had a winner at last.

Wilf White, on Nizefela, and Duggie Stewart, on Aherlow, obviously played their part, but it was Foxhunter and Llewellyn who seemed to capture the public's imagination. Here was a tale of recovery, of converting 16.75 first-round faults into a clear in the second.

Llewellyn had had success as an amateur jockey before the war, finishing second on Ego in the 1936 Grand National. But after the war – he ended it as liaison officer to Montgomery – he concentrated on showjumping. He bought Foxhunter as a six-year-old in 1946, and they won a team bronze at the London Games of 1948, and then the gold in Helsinki.

Foxhunter's burial site between Blaenavon and Abergavenny is carefully placed. Llewellyn was born into a coal family, on the owners' side. His father, the chairman of Welsh Associated Collieries, took the baronetcy of Bwllfa, Aberdare in 1922.

Llewellyn had the money to live elsewhere, down off the mountain in a beautiful home, Llanfair Grange, near Abergavenny. After nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947, he turned to other businesses, with interests in brewing and television. After 1952 he set up a chain of cafes called Foxhunter.

The horse retired in 1955 and died in 1959. Llewellyn died in 1999 and his ashes were scattered around the horse's memorial. That is, between a coal town and the edge of the cliff that will look down on the Olympic torch, 60 years after Llewellyn and Foxhunter helped win Britain's one and only Olympic gold medal in the 1952 Games.

Eddie Butler is the Observer's rugby correspondent

Hugh Masekela and King of Rai among artists scheduled to perform at 30th anniversary of world music festival

The Nigerian musician Femi Kuti, whose funk interpretation of his father Fela's afrobeat has brought him to a new generation of fans, will be appearing at the world music festival Womad, it was announced on Thursday.

Also joining Robert Plant, Jimmy Cliff and Hugh Masekela on the bill will be Algerian singer Khaled, dubbed the King of Rai, and the blind singer-songwriter Gurrumul, an indigenous Australian.

Other highlights include Switzerland's Mama Rosin who offer a take on the bluegrass of the American south and Mercury-nominated jazz band the Portico Quartet. Womad, the brainchild of Peter Gabriel, will take place in Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, from 27-29 July, and will this year celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Photographer Christopher Thomond travelled along the A62, documenting the effects of the recession on businesses in the north Manchester suburbs on route to Rochdale

Stop the Games! The security staff can't get through the Olympic traffic jams. But the beach volleyball show will go on

• Don't panic, but the Olympics may have to be cancelled. The Diary has been given a top-level briefing by the head of Olympic security for G4S, which is providing 10,000 guards for the Games, and the news is not good. At its Games security hub at Canary Wharf, which remotely manages logistics and staffing for the Olympic Park, there is a Truman Show-style bank of giant TV screens providing a stream of the latest info. Two of them permanently display the Transport for London web page, which gives tube and bus info. Forget missile strikes by al-Qaida, G4S's No 1 nightmare is the tube breaking down, as it has done repeatedly this week. If that happens, security staff can't get to the site, and, if staffing drops below specified levels, venues can't operate. Boris?

• More Olympics news. Transport for London today launched its planning tool on temporary road changes, which lets drivers check road closures during the Games. And it did it in the most shameless and chauvinistic way possible. TfL got the women's British beach volleyball team to set up their net in Parliament Square, guaranteeing gridlock as white van men overheated. Yes, we realise you were demonstrating Games-related traffic jams, but parading women in bikinis and sports bras is nothing but a cheap PR stunt. The Diary was trapped in the square for four hours and, frankly, it was a disgusting spectacle.

• Talking of Boris, which we vaguely were, two journalists with strong links to the London Evening Standard – former newsdesk hack Sam Lyon and current chief news correspondent Ross Lydall – are in the frame to replace the recently departed mayoral mouthpiece Guto Harri. Anyone would think there was an umbilical link between Boris and the Standard.

• Bob Geldof has given a fascinating interview to ShortList magazine. Q: Are you passionate about recycling? "No, I don't want to think about it at all. It's just a fucking pain in the arse, all these coloured bins and stuff. I don't have a choice, though. Down in London you get fucking hung, drawn and quartered in the fucking public square if you don't." Good points, thoughtfully made.

• Tony Blair may be set to re-enter frontline politics, but what about Gordon Brown? When, if ever, will he re-emerge? The ex-PM is said to be concentrating on being a good local MP in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Yet the diligent Fife Free Press has recorded little about Brown since he attended Cowdenbeath FC's vital match against Forfar Athletic, which clinched its elevation to the first division. That was on 21 April. Fife MSP John Park, who is said to be close to Brown, believes he could be part of the "dream team" (along with Alex Ferguson) to beat the SNP in the independence referendum. "He's potentially more popular than Alex Salmond," says Park, who must be extremely close. As the Heathcliff of the heather broods, the silence becomes deafening.

• Was too much champagne taken at the Journalism Foundation gala evening, which we reported on yesterday? There is growing confusion over who got the replica of the ring jeweller Stephen Webster created for Elizabeth Taylor. The hammer went down on Hugh Grant's bid of £10,000, but it has now been claimed by the Hon Geraldine Harmsworth Maxwell, a friend of Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev. The Journalism Foundation is checking its sources, and the Diary hopes to keep this starry ring cycle going for at least a month.

• Back to Bob's aperçus. Q: How many foreign-language films are in your DVD collection? "I don't have a DVD collection. I snap it out of the thing, watch it and give it back to the rental store. But we have a lot of foreign language, because the missus is French. They're always about some 85-year-old shagging an 18-year-old." Holy Motors!

• Hugh Muir is back next week, thank God, and apparently he's planning a hibu-style rebranding of the Diary. There's sure to be controversy, but ignore the whingers, Hugh. Merci, large drink tonight!

Twitter: @StephenMossGdn

The torch made its way from Cheltenham to Worcester, passing through Ledbury and Hereford on the way

Pressue will grow on culture secretary to resign after former aide reveals private email to Leveson inquiry

If Jeremy Hunt hoped the resignation of his close aide Adam Smith would draw the sting of the scandal surrounding his handling of Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB bid, his hopes would have been dashed by Smith's brief appearance before the Leveson inquiry on Thursday .

Though he spent little more than an hour in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice, Smith dropped the bombshell of the day by handing to the inquiry an email from his private account which could yet sever the slim thread connecting Hunt to his cabinet job.

The email contained a draft of a remarkable memo Hunt sent to David Cameron on 19 November, after a little drafting help from Smith. The memo railed against the business secretary, Vince Cable, for moving against the BSkyB takeover bid being promoted by the Murdoch family, father and son. It nailed Hunt's own colours firmly to the mast, as a committed, even passionate supporter of the bid.

Hunt even summoned up the spirit of Margaret Thatcher and her historic Tory struggles against the unions in the 1980s, writing enthusiastically: "Essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the move to Wapping and create the world's first multiplatform media operator available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad."

This was not quite the way News Corporation had publicly presented its bid at the time, assuring the world it had no intention of "bundling" advertising and subscriptions to create a dominant media behemoth.

More significantly for Hunt's personal political fortunes, the words of the memo are the exact opposite of the picture he has sought to present to the world, that he approached the BSkyB bid – which he became responsible for deciding from late December 2011 – in an impartial spirit.

Furthermore, Hunt had attempted to save himself by forcing the resignation of his own special adviser on the grounds that the "tone and content" of Smith's emails and texts to News Corp had gone too far, because they represented Hunt as supportive of the bid. It now seems, after the publication of the Hunt memo, that his special adviser was reflecting the contents of his master's mind with perfect accuracy. If anything, he was too mild in the way he put it.

Hunt had used strong terms in private: he told the prime minister James Murdoch was "furious" that Cable was interfering with his media plans, and that it would be "totally wrong" to "cave in" to the bid's opponents.

No one will call this language "quasi-judicial" – the term the government repeatedly used to characterise Hunt's handling of the bid after he took over responsibility for it. It is likely to appear to his critics just as biased in the other direction as was Cable when he lost his control of the bid for recklessly saying he had "declared war" on the Murdochs.

The history of events at the end of 2010, from the moment on 4 November when Cable called in the regulators, shows how relentlessly James Murdoch and his PR man Frédéric Michel lobbied and berated the politicians who were trying to stand in their way. Only three days later, Murdoch was lunching at Chequers with Cameron. The next day, Michel lunched an aide to George Osborne, the chancellor, who he hoped could be persuaded to intervene.

Cable's own advisers refused to meet any of the Murdoch camp, saying it would be improper. So did Treasury minister Danny Alexander.

Michel and James Murdoch therefore concentrated their fire on Hunt and his team at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), even though they had no official role in the legal process being carried out at Cable's business department. Murdoch phoned Hunt and also arranged to meet him.

Hunt caused growing dismay in his department by his apparent enthusiasm for intervening on behalf of the Murdochs. As Michel's published emails reveal, and as counsel to the Leveson inquiry confirmed on Thursday, the DCMS legal director gave him a stern warning not to meet James Murdoch or interfere in Cable's handling of the bid. While not strictly illegal, he said that it would be "unwise".

Hunt was apparently more concerned to appease Murdoch than bow to all his department's proprieties: he appears to have held a mobile phone conversation with Murdoch, although he cancelled his face-to-face meeting. Hunt was already well-briefed on Murdoch's plans: Michel had previously sent him, via his adviser Smith, a lobbying package, outlining Murdoch's ambitious plans for a multimedia breakthrough comparable in scale to his father's move to Wapping in the 1980s.

Within weeks of Hunt launching his anti-Cable campaign in Downing Street, the business secretary would fall victim to a newspaper sting in which he confided that he had "declared war" on Murdoch, and responsibility for the bid was turned over to Hunt.

Hunt's critics will now read the text of his memo to Cameron as the final nail in the coffin of his claims to have switched mentally to a "quasi-judicial" role. This will certainly increase the pressure on him to step down. But it will also raise the question of why Cameron, knowing what a committed supporter of the bid Hunt was, thought it appropriate to give him the job of deciding on it.

What is now known, thanks to the Leveson process, is that James Murdoch was considerably mollified at the time. In the runup to that Christmas, he and Cameron shared a now notorious Christmas lunch at the Oxfordshire home of News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, in a less "furious" and presumably more festive spirit.

I agree with Simon Jenkins that "British energy policy is a dark underworld of fanatics" (Comment, 23 May) and I can't understand why the government is pushing for more investment in nuclear power when Fukushima is so recent. I've also heard Ed Davey "squirming" on the BBC and saying we need investment to "keep the lights on". Keep the lights on? Maybe 50 years ago this was the primary use of electricity but now most goes on powering masses of superfluous appliances and gadgets. So we should ask ourselves how we might distinguish between essential (keeping the lights on) and luxury (frothing coffee) electricity? One way would be to install a supplementary DC circuit in every home. Here batteries would be charged at cheap night-time rates or from solar panels, with them supplying a limited amount of essential electricity. The cost for daytime AC power could then be increased significantly so we all start to feel a real level of "financial pain" when we run the tumble-drier, switch on air-conditioning or leave the TV running when we are not really watching it.
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany

• It ill behoves those of us who have lived long lives of profligate energy consumption to wring our hands as if nothing can be done to rationalise UK energy policy. 0ur best efforts make little impression on the global problem and may not impress India or China, but to do nothing sends a message about the greed of arrogant developed nations which they and others will seize with both hands. And we don't need to wait for Jenkins's wise mathematician to deliver answers. We should begin now by taking aggressive measures to cut energy use; not a glamorous step but effective, and cost-effective too.
Phil Booth
Bristol

• Simon Jenkins is right that energy policy can be confusing. Technologies hailed as the sustainable solutions to all of our energy problems often prove nothing of the sort. But his view of biomass as either a new dawn for energy or a technology that threatens half the world's forests is no longer true. The biomass power plant we have developed at Aston University overcomes many hurdles that have held back this technology. By using residues and waste instead of energy crops, the plant does not require the destruction of rainforests or agricultural land for palm oil production.

In fact, its by-product – biochar – can be used to increase crop yields. And by using heat instead of incineration, it produces no emissions. In short, there are no downsides. The first industrial-scale plant is working. If the government wants a clear conclusion for its energy policy, it need look no further.
Tim Miller
Project manager, European Bioenergy Research Institute, Aston University

• No public subsidy for nuclear power, says the energy secretary. Subsidies to the nuclear industry are illegal, according to EU regulations. So the government seeks to create a market structure which ensures the lights stay on. Consumers will have to pay for the infrastructure for new nuclear power stations, meaning prices will rise (Energy market shakeup raises fears of higher bills, 23 May). The insurance industry has become more reluctant to insure nuclear power stations after Fukushima, meaning we, the consumers, would have to pick up any bill in case of an accident.

The issue of storing used nuclear material has also not been settled. Will the nuclear industry pay for a depository deep underground, and for safe transport of the material? The used fuel rods are likely to remain at Sellafield, and will need guarding from terrorists and rising sea levels for centuries to come. Again, the government, ie we, will have to foot the bill. That is not called a subsidy, but it amounts to one by any other name. Legal wrangling will also cause super delays. Why does nobody mention the building of the high-voltage, direct current European supergrid, which will allow import of electricity from the Sahara, hydro-power from Norway, and geothermal from Iceland at times when we cannot generate solar or wind power, and export electricity when we generate more than we need? Several undersea links are there: to France and Ireland. Last year a cable was laid to the Netherlands. The next link to Norway has already been planned. Why does the energy secretary not mention this project, which won't expose us to the risk of a nuclear future?
Aart and Wiebina Heesterman
Birmingham

• Is this a Simon Jenkins first? "Do not read on if you want a conclusion on this subject" says Simon to introduce his second paragraph. As he is never normally under-opinionated, perhaps he is starting to realise, as the government already has, that there is no easy answer to Britain's energy future. Governments for years have read all the reports about the deleterious effects of burning fossil fuels and the future cost of the almost certainly increasing reliance on importing them, and tried to nudge energy policy towards other options, but immediately bang up against voters who are against whatever else is offered – nuclear (safety and cost), and renewables (cost and impacts on what I would call amenity and ambience rather than environment). The only logical response to my mind is to charge the cost to the taxpayer and ignore the amenity, but recent governments, especially this one, won't increase taxes for that, and are also terrified of campaigns against large-scale and/or highly visible options, as they are mostly in or proposed for Conservative areas.

A further consideration that Jenkins does not mention is that renewables would immediately become more attractive if a way could be found to store  the intermittent power generated from solar and wind, to keep the grid going at night and between weather depressions. I've not heard of any work being done in this regard. Anyway, come on Simon, give us a clue, how would you navigate through the "dark underworld" as you put it?
David Mills
York

• Simon Jenkins is looking for mathematical formulae that will help him understand the complexities of climate change, renewables and nuclear. Let me oblige with three suggestions from a recent conference on climate change organised by Help Rescue the Planet.

First RC + MJ = GG where RC stands for Reduced Carbon, MJ for More Jobs and GG for Green Growth. Secondly, EC + R > NO where EC stands for Energy Conservation, R for Renewables and NO for Nuclear Option (In maths > indicates greater than). In other words if the government is planning to spend £100bn to meet our energy requirements, should it spend it on conservation and renewables or on getting Russia or China to build a new generation of nuclear reactors. In political as well as purely economic terms this is a "no brainer".

The third formula was devised by our conference organiser and is the Russell-Jones variant of Einstein's famous 1905 formula MC2 = E where M stands for multitude (as in world population), C = carbon per capita (ie emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases per head of population per year) and E stands for extinction of species or, for those politicians who calculate that plants and animals don't vote, it stands for the END of human civilisation as we know it.
Michael Clink
Chairman, Help Rescue the Planet, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

• If Simon Jenkins is unable to discriminate between James Lovelock and Nigel Lawson on the matter of global climate change, he should cease writing about this topic at all, with immediate effect.
Pam Lunn
Kenilworth, Warwickshire

You are absolutely right that the introduction of degree-level apprenticeships will raise the prestige of vocational education (A plan for apprenticeship success, 15 May). Which is why I will ensure that by 2015 at least 20,000 young people a year will embark upon degree-equivalent higher apprenticeships in sectors like aerospace and the creative industries (there were just 180 when I became the minister responsible). Not only will this create one of the best gateways to university-level study but it will change the perception of vocational education to being a highway, not a cul-de-sac.

In government I have made my belief clear that, as the cornerstone of our mission to reshape the character of learning and workforce skills, practical competence must be as valued as academic prowess. Already we are succeeding with record numbers of high-quality apprenticeships. Because quantity must be matched by quality, I've insisted all apprenticeships will be for a minimum of 12 months and that all 16-year-olds work towards English and maths at GCSE.

Lord Leitch's report on skills told us that to match our competitors we must radically reform the way we train young people. We are doing what the Labour government that commissioned his work failed to. This government understands that a skilled workforce is necessary to power economic growth and fuels social mobility.
John Hayes MP
Skills minister

• University education hasn't worked – one size doesn't fit all (Ed Miliband demands end to 'snobbery' over vocational courses, 21 May). High-value vocational learning and apprenticeships offer young people alternative pathways into professions. We have proof that rigorous and demanding vocational qualifications and apprenticeships contribute significantly to social mobility and widen the path for young people to get into the workplace.
Jane Scott Paul
Chief executive, Association of Accounting Technicians

Our political elites find the issue of social mobility to be both irresistible and intractable (Suzanne Moore, G2, 24 May). Irresistible because even rightwing politicians cannot ignore the fact that our unfair education system, through which parental wealth has a far more significant impact on life chances than ability, is neither fair nor meritocratic, and ensures that structures of power remain ossified throughout society. And intractable because in order to significantly increase social mobility, educational opportunities for less well-off children must be significantly boosted, which will necessarily lead to a diminution of the access presently enjoyed by privately educated children to the best universities and careers.

Michael Gove's speech on the "morally indefensible" dominance by privately educated people in British society, and Nick Clegg's 17 annual "trackers", are nothing more than fig leaves to cover the government's growing embarrassment at the huge chasm between the status quo of private school dominance and the equality of opportunity which any intelligent person must conclude is essential for a country like ours to be able to describe itself as "great".

I doubt this government of privately educated millionaires is up to the task.
John Slinger
Chair, Pragmatic Radicalism

• I applaud Nick Clegg's commitment to the cause of social mobility. I suspect, however, that a much braver and more radical approach will be required. For example, private schools should only be allowed to keep their charitable status if they agree to take into their schools a significant proportion of appropriately assessed children from the state sector who are entitled to free school meals. It would not be perfect but it would be consistent in that, to an extent, selection would still be based on parental income. If they refuse they should lose their charitable status and submit to the market forces so beloved of recent governments.
Gordon Morris
Sherborne, Dorset

• No major political parties are sincere about promoting social mobility because they will not tackle the privileges and powers of Oxbridge and private schools (Social mobility still leaves some living in the gutter, 24 May). But we can do something as individuals. Do not send our children to private schools or the elitist state ones. We can decline to be students at Oxbridge. We can refuse the high salaries and the connections which make us a part of the establishment and instead identify with and agitate with those who are victims of an unequal Britain.
Bob Holman
Glasgow

• Your thesis about "the slow return of rage" (Leader, 22 May) is surprising, as a lead of 5% is a disastrous showing for an opposition party in mid-term. In fact, the low turnout for the local elections shows that the public mood is one of indifference. Part of the reason may be found in a photo you recently ran in which the three leaders plus George Osborne stood side by side. They appeared virtual clones, all being about the same age and wearing the same uniform (dark suit, monochrome tie, middle-of-the road haircut) and the same sleek metropolitan look. It is not surprising that their policies are hard to distinguish, especially as Miliband refuses to tell us what his policy is.
Christopher Wrigley
Chorleywood, Hertfordshire

Heathland, West Sussex: Male insects raise and rub their forewings on warm, early summer evenings to produce a soothing love song

Finally, it is a still, warm evening. I follow the footpath across the soft, grey sand of the heathland. Scattered trees glisten and a square of rape on the South Downs glows bright yellow in the sun. This is just one of a number of patches of heath in the shadow of the downs and for one insect the most important. The air all around is thick – almost oppressive – with the high-pitched chirruping of the field cricket.

By 1988 it was believed that just 100 of these insects remained in Britain, and they were on this one small area of heathland. The decline had been caused by the fragmentation and disappearance of light chalky or sandy heaths with the short, grazed grass preferred by the field crickets. Today, through breeding and translocation programmes, this colony is providing crickets for reintroductions at suitable habitats elsewhere in Sussex and Surrey. Looking closely at the ground, among the uncurling ferns and low, cropped heather, I find the round entrances to the crickets' burrows in the sandy soil.

The pioneering nature writer Gilbert White described the field cricket in one of his letters of 1779, remarking on its shy and retiring nature. Sure enough, finding one proves difficult. As I home in carefully on the source of one chirrup, the cricket senses the vibrations of my approaching footsteps and scurries down into its burrow. Then I find one, a male, sitting still, sunbathing in the grass. It is about 20mm long and black, with a large, round head. The small forewings – the field cricket has only vestigial hind wings and cannot fly – have a golden-brown band at their base. The wings and abdomen are intricately patterned, resembling tiny beaten bronze panels. The male insect raises and rubs these wings on warm, early summer evenings, to produce its soothing love song. I leave the crickets to their trilling., thinking of Gilbert White's description: 'Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer ideas of every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous."

No 10's director of communications dined with News Corp lobbyist at height of hacking scandal, submissions show

Craig Oliver, No 10's director of communications, had a "discreet" dinner with News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel at the height of the phone-hacking scandal.

It took place on 6 July 2011, two days after the Guardian had published the story about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone that unleashed a wave of national revulsion and led to the closure of the News of the World.

Oliver was named as one of eight Downing Street advisers with whom Michel had contact, and it appears from submissions to the Leveson inquiry that Oliver specifically asked that they find a discreet location.

Although the special adviser's code requires that hospitality received by special advisers is disclosed on government registers, the meal was not declared by Oliver. Downing Street explained on Thursday night that Oliver and Michel shared the cost of the bill, and so no hospitality was extended and nothing need be declared. It is only ministers, rather than special advisers, who are required to declare meetings with senior newspaper executives, Downing Street said. Michel is likely to have been regarded as a senior newspaper executive by the Cabinet Office.

Oliver has taken the role of No 10 communications director in succession to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, and would have been seen as an important target to cultivate by News International.

The original purpose of the meeting was for Oliver to be introduced to Will Lewis, the former Daily Telegraph editor appointed by News International to oversee its handling of the hacking scandal. Michel said the meeting was originally going to include wives, but this did not occur and the eventual location of the meeting "was not discrete discreet at all".

The lobbyist said the meeting was social and the pair had not discussed business issues.

The Leveson inquiry also heard that Michel wrote to Oliver's deputy, Gabby Bertin, on 6 July 2011 thanking her for sending messages to Rebekah Brooks. Michel said he was not aware what was in the messages.

It was apparent Michel had one further weapon in his arsenal: be French. He had been 'melodramatising'

Until 24 April, when as a result of James Murdoch's evidence to the Leveson inquiry he was frogmarched towards the nearest cliff face and invited to fling himself forth, Adam Smith was extremely close to his boss, Jeremy Hunt. He was "under the wing" of the culture secretary, he said on Thursday, his "eyes and ears", his "early warning system", his "buffer". They would speak two, three, four times a day, fostering an intimacy so great that even when the minister wasn't present, in Hunt's own assessment, "[Smith] knows exactly what I would want to happen".

Which is just another reason – along with all the other ones – to wonder just what and how much Hunt knew about Smith's bit on the side. For however much attentive buffering the Spad performed to and for the minister, his attentions between the summer of 2010 and the following year were being claimed by another, a seduction to which the young special adviser was more than willing to submit.

How else were we to interpret the evidence that emerged when the two former intimates – the ministerial adviser tasked with handling the "interested parties" in News Corp's bid to take full control of BSkyB, and Frédéric Michel, the company's chief lobbyist – were reunited once more?

In the 13 months from June 2010, it emerged, when News Corp announced its intention to buy the remainder of the company, Michel made 191 phone calls, wrote 158 emails and sent 799 texts to Hunt's office, the overwhelming majority of them to Smith. He, in turn, texted Michel 257 times between November of the same year and July 2011.

On one night alone, on the eve of Hunt's announcement that he intended to accept News Corp's undertakings in lieu for the bid, the two men were still exchanging texts and calls at 1.09am, 2.59am, 3.05am. "This is in the middle of the night!" noted Lord Leveson, not incorrectly. There are lovers who have less contact.

Such a shame these things don't last. When Murdoch decided to release to the inquiry 163 pages of emails detailing News Corp's contact with Jeremy Hunt's office, their proxies found themselves forced to turn on each other. Although he resigned, Smith insisted he didn't recognise much of Michel's account of their contact.

The reputation of each now depends to an extent on how persuasively they can portray the other to the inquiry as a liar.

Though Michel was first to take the stand, Smith was in court 73, accompanied by his lawyer and a formidable stash of folders, almost from the moment the hearing opened. They sat at the back, side by side, on each of their laps a small yellow Post-It pad, ready to scribble discreet notes throughout the Frenchman's testimony.

Smith, who is 30 but blessed with such a youthful complexion that Leveson couldn't resist asking his age when he later took the stand himself, was impassive as the Frenchman gave evidence, only his eyes flicking between witness and interrogator.

Would Michel deliver the fatal blow to Hunt? Offer corroboration of some of the more apparently damning claims in his emails? Damn his former friend to shore up his own job at News Corp, which he still holds, apparently with the Murdochs' full confidence?

What he offered instead, as Robert Jay QC led him through selected highlights from his cache of emails, was a masterclass in the arts of advocacy.

There are, it transpires, a number of key attributes to being a successful director of public affairs for a major media behemoth. Chutzpah, for instance, is handy. The court had access not only to the original cache of his emails but to texts from Smith and Hunt among other records.

More than once, as Jay pointed out, his exuberant accounts to his News Corp team demonstrably bore little resemblance to the correspondence on which they were based. Was he exaggerating? "No." Perhaps to "puff himself up" in the eyes of his colleagues? "No, I don't think I need to puff myself up." (A healthy vanity also helps.)

Flattery is useful. "You were very impressive yesterday," he had texted Hunt after a meeting at the department in January 2011. "You were great at the Commons today," read another on 3 March; "Very good on Marr" on 13 March. "Is this an example of, to use the vernacular, of schmoozing, Mr Michel?" asked Jay. Michel gave a smile and a sad little shake of his head. "No. It's a friendly text." "Humph," grunted Jay.

If all else failed, it was apparent, Michel had one further weapon in his arsenal: be French. Yes, perhaps his account on that occasion had been overblown – he had obviously been "melodramatising". He was French, you see.

OK, so maybe the last sentence of that email was overblown – "you could probably put that on my sort of … way of writing English".

And his description to his bosses of a "one hour" conversation with Smith that the phone records showed had in fact been 34 minutes? "French time." Oh, and while we're at it, je ne regrette rien.

His evidence done, he stepped down from the stand to give way to Smith, a manoeuvre that forced them to shuffle around each other.

As they passed, the two former intimates exchanged the briefest ghost of a smile.

David Cameron's idea for lifting Britain harks back to 1930s Bank of England dogma. What we need is a cash injection

David Cameron is right. The government must tackle the deficit while securing growth. The G8 in Washington agrees with him, so do Europe's finance ministers, so does the IMF's Christine Lagarde, so intermittently does the Labour party. If so many people agree, what is the problem?

In reality Britain, and much of Europe, is chasing deficit reduction so hard that growth eludes it. Europe is in the grip of a demand famine that is the economic equivalent of the Black Death. A plague is feeding on itself. Today Britain was confirmed to be in persisting recession, precisely what the prime minister and his chancellor, George Osborne, said would not happen. Two years ago they derided those pleading for plan B as cynics and pessimists. I hear no apology.

In the Commons on Wednesday, Cameron described his attempt at a shotgun marriage of austerity and growth. He listed four components, combining "deficit reduction … an active monetary policy, structural reform to make us competitive, and innovative ways of using our hard-won credibility". He did not elaborate on modalities. Yet when rhetoric and reality appear in such glaring conflict as now, even a man as self-confident as the PM must sense he is up a stormy creek without a paddle.

Britain's deficit reduction has not been very austere, not like Greece or Spain. It is aimed at reverting public spending to its level of roughly five years ago, hardly straitened times. It has been effective in sustaining Britain's foreign credit. But it cannot be denied that it has stifled growth. Chided on Wednesday to reconcile his conflicting ambitions by the MP Dennis Skinner, Cameron said lamely that the purpose of his austerity was "to deliver low interest rates which are essential for growth".

As this seems to be the intellectual prop of the policy, it merits analysis. Low interest rates are not "essential" to growth, as Cameron says. They may help, but what is essential is higher demand, rising sales and profits. These are vital not just to growth but to government revenues and deficit reduction.

Cameron has pursued the lowest interest rates in modern British history, yet the economy has not grown but lurched into prolonged recession. How can he link the two? His cart is before his horse.

Throughout these troubles Britain has suffered from the worst economic bugbear: ingénue politicians in thrall to the Bank of England. The Bank's amiable governor, Sir Mervyn King, mesmerises Cameron and Osborne as he did Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. The Bank's conduct of monetary policy for the past three years has been as disastrous as was its conduct of financial regulation in the preceding two. But no heads have rolled.

Cameron's second growth prescription is of an "active" monetarism. This has consisted of King filling bank vaults with £325bn of credit notes. It has helped banks back to profitability but there is no sign that the policy has had any impact on credit to businesses, let alone on domestic money supply. It must be the costliest fiasco in regulatory history. Yet all King could say to a supine Commons committee in March was: "If there is one word I think we need to hang on to … it is patience. We've done the things that are necessary." Cameron's own banker admits that his monetary policy is not active but inert.

The message that Keynes drew from the inter-war depression was that there was no get-out-of-jail card. A choice had to be made between deflation and recession on the one hand, and recovery with possible inflation on the other. In essence governments should postpone deficit reduction in hard times, and build surpluses in good ones. Even if surpluses were not built, as in the last boom, deflating economies in a recession merely prolongs that recession.

Cameron's belief that austerity holds the key to growth through low interest rates and bank bailouts is Bank of England dogma of the 1930s. He may as well don a black jacket and striped trousers and declare unemployment the medicine for human sin. Economics students used to be reassured that such ideas would never again be heard because governments were no longer that stupid. Really?

Across Europe democracy is telling politicians this game is up. People want recovery stimulated, as much as governments want a return to buoyant revenue. The age of the bankers is ending. But what form should stimulus take? Cameron's two remaining prescriptions are opaque. Structural reform "to raise competitiveness" is noble in theory, but does nothing for growth in the short term. Deregulation has yet to reveal itself in practice and will hardly send consumers rushing out to buy.

As for "innovative ways of using our hard-won credibility", this was left unspecified, but does at least offer a glimmer of hope. Current Whitehall talk is of public spending "off balance sheet" – in theory hidden from the bond markets – which usually means privatised building projects such as Michael Gove's revived schools programme. They are seldom "shovel-ready" and yield little or nothing in the short term. N,or are they really off balance sheet, though they obsess prestige-hungry ministers. They are more likely to fuel the next boom and the next deficit crisis.

More intriguing is if Cameron is at last ready to draw on the coalition's much-vaunted credit balance and throw a little caution to the wind. Retailers, small businesses, large corporations, city councils and the exchequer are all skint. They desperately need goods moving from shelves, shops restocking, banks lending against renewed cash flow, employment growing and taxes being paid.

There is no shortage of ideas for this, long rehearsed in this column. They range from boosting social benefits for a year to temporary tax reliefs, scrappage schemes and time-limited spending vouchers. Given present unemployment and spare capacity it is inconceivable that such an injection would be inflationary. The Bank of England could print £500 per head in notes and dump them in every private bank account in the land for less than it has given its banking friends. It would be the quickest way of injecting cash into the veins of the economy "off balance sheet".

Such short-term boosts to demand would hardly endanger Cameron's "hard-won credibility". As a Tory he should know that the fastest growth in jobs comes from private spending; from money circulating in cash machines and purses through shops and services. The economy has been sated with state growth. To borrow a phrase from Cameron's favourite politician, Tony Blair, it needs people's growth.

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Culture secretary told parliament he had no unofficial contact with News Corp lobbyist while considering the BSkyB bid

Jeremy Hunt exchanged texts with Frédéric Michel at least four times despite telling parliament he had no unofficial contact with the News Corp lobbyist while he was considering the company's bid for BSkyB.

The culture secretary told MPs on 25 April that all of his contact with Michel while he had quasi-judicial oversight of the bid was minuted and in the company of government officials.

"Throughout the bid process, when I got responsibility for it, the contact that I had with Fred Michel was only at official meetings that were minuted with other people present," he told the Commons on the day after emails released by the Leveson inquiry appeared to reveal inappropriate communication between his department and News Corp.

However, text messages shown to the inquiry suggest Hunt had undisclosed conversations with Michel as recently as July last year. Michel told the inquiry that he exchanged "one text every three months" with Hunt over the period.

The texts

Michel to Hunt:

20 January 2011, 20.54

Great to see you today. We should get little [children's names redacted] together in the future to socialise. Nearly born the same day at the same place! Warm regards, Fred

Hunt to Michel:

20 January 2011, 23.45

Good to see you too. hope u understand why we have to have the long process. Let's meet up when things are resolved. J.

Michel to Hunt:

3 March 2011

You were great at the Commons today. Hope all well. Warm regards, Fred.

Hunt to Michel:

3 March 2011

Merci. Large drink tonight.

Michel to Hunt:

13 March 2011 Very good on Marr as always.

Hunt to Michel:

13 March 2011 Merci. Hopefully when consultation over we can have a coffee like the old days.

The pair also exchanged text messages in July 2011 after Michel spotted Hunt on TV at a Wimbledon tennis match between Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, the inquiry heard.

Leveson inquiry hears culture secretary had urged PM to support BSkyB takeover before he was appointed to oversee bid

Downing Street has been drawn further into the argument over News Corporation's bid to take over BSkyB after it emerged that David Cameron appointed the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to oversee the bid even though Hunt had directly lobbied him to resist the Murdoch company's rivals, including the BBC and the Guardian.

Hunt undertook his lobbying in November 2010, two months before Cameron appointed him to succeed the business secretary, Vince Cable, who had been revealed to have "declared war" on the Murdoch empire. Hunt claimed broadcasting would suffer for years if the bid did not go ahead.

Labour was pointing out on Thursday night that in late December 2010 it had written to the cabinet secretary, Lord O'Donnell, asking him not to appoint Hunt to oversee the bid, owing to his perceived bias.

O'Donnell replied to the then shadow business secretary, John Denham: "The prime minister specifically asked me whether there was any legal impediment to moving it to Mr Hunt. I took advice from lawyers, and in providing advice that there was no such impediment I was of course aware of the former statements from Mr Hunt which you cite. I am satisfied that those statements do not amount to a pre-judgment of the case in question."

He added in evidence to the Leveson inquiry: "I think the legal question as it was put to me was: do those ministers' comments amount to a pre-judgment of the issue? And that's where the lawyers were clear that it didn't."

It is now likely that Cameron, when he gives evidence to the inquiry next month, will be asked why he did not disclose the Hunt memo to O'Donnell, and whether he thinks he should have.

No 10 will argue that he "did not sit on the memo with knowledge", and that O'Donnell was only looking at Hunt's public statements. It was also being suggested that O'Donnell was anyway not making his ruling primarily on the basis of Hunt's previous statements, but how he would behave in the future, and whether he had the capacity to be neutral.

But it is also likely that O'Donnell will himself be asked by Leveson whether, in coming to a judgment on Hunt's suitability to judge the bid, he should have been informed of Hunt's lobbying of No 10, and whether it would have changed his view.

O'Donnell has already given wide ranging evidence to the Leveson inquiry once, but was only superficially pressed on this issue.

Hunt's officials argued on Thursday that the memo does not show a bias or a prejudgment, as Hunt explicitly says the bid should only go ahead subject to competition considerations, and this was a legitimate position to adopt.

Hunt's allies added that, in a prior Financial Times interview on 16 June, Hunt had been much more explicit in his view that plurality issues did not arise because News Corp already owned 39.1% of BSkyB. He told the FT: "It does seem to me that News Corp do control Sky already so it is not clear to me that in terms of media plurality there is a substantive change, but I do not want to second guess what regulators might decide."

Downing Street sources claim the memo released at Leveson was far more caveated than these previous public media remarks. It was also suggested that the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, also takes this view. Downing Street said the memo makes clear that "it would be totally wrong for the government to get involved in a competition issue which has to be decided at arm's length".

Labour pointed out that Hunt had told parliament he had "made absolutely no interventions seeking to influence a quasi-judicial decision that was at the time the responsibility of the secretary of state for business".

Hunt and his permanent secretary, Jonathan Stephens, are facing questions over the extent to which they briefed Adam Smith, Hunt's special adviser, on how to handle contacts with News Corp when handling a decision of a quasi-judicial nature.

O'Donnell told the inquiry this month that the minister or the permanent secretary should specify this was a different quality of decision and in particular "you should make sure that the same information is passed on all parties in a case. This is not least to protect against a future judicial review". Smith admitted he spoke far more regularly to News Corp, and there is no parallel traffic with those opposed to the bid.

The News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel washed his hands of Hunt's behaviour, saying of his contacts: "If anyone from Hunt's office thought this inappropriate they would have told me. It's not for me to say how Hunt's office should work."

Culture department sources claimed the contacts were tilted in one direction as News Corp was the organisation fighting to keep the bid on track, and trying to persuade the government that its assurances of editorial independence for BSkyB were genuine. There was no need to talk as much to those opposed to the bid.

If Stephens declares it was the responsibility of Hunt to control the contacts of his special adviser, and that he did not, then Hunt may prima facie be in breach of the ministerial code. Cameron has been resisting referring any such breaches of the code to the independent adviser on the code, Sir Alex Allan, at least until this wave of hearings has ended.

Culture secretary tried to persuade David Cameron to lean on Vince Cable over News Corp's BSkyB bid

Jeremy Hunt's memo for David Cameron appears to reveal what many suspected all along. The culture secretary's words show he was desperate to please a "pretty furious" James Murdoch – so desperate in fact that he tried to persuade the prime minister in the middle of November 2010 to lean on Vince Cable, the minister with sole legal responsibility for taking the decision over News Corp's desire to take over the whole of BSkyB.

Hunt's memo to the prime minister also betrays more inside information about the frustrated mogul's thinking. Hunt says James Murdoch wants to "create the world's first multi-platform media operator available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad". Or, to put it another way, Murdoch wanted to bundle together Sky with the Sun and the Times – from Sky football matches to Sun match reports, or rolling TV news integrated with Times journalism – all wrapped together for a single price.

It was precisely this scenario that terrified everybody else in Fleet Street, from the Telegraph to the Guardian, from the Mail to the Mirror, because it would have fused together the nation's biggest broadcaster with the country's largest newspaper group, boasting content that rival titles could not match.

Hunt was so taken with the prospect he describes it as akin to a second Wapping revolution. But this was precisely the scenario that News Corp refused to discuss in public; the company consistently said it saw the purchase of BSkyB as essentially financial. For example, in a phone interview with the Guardian earlier that month, James Murdoch explicitly played down the possibilities of bundling Sky with his company's newspapers. He almost laughed when the question was put, knowing it was the basis of the objections of his Fleet Street rivals to the £8bn bid for BSkyB.

It isn't clear where Hunt's information came from. There is no documentary evidence to explain it – at least not yet. But the memo to Cameron was dated 19 November 2010. Four days earlier, Hunt was due to meet James Murdoch, but he was told he could not by his permanent secretary. It was too sensitive. Instead, the pair spoke on the phone – and whatever was said was probably fresh in the minister's mind.

Cable was prevented from adjudicating on the Sky bid because of unguarded comments given to Daily Telegraph reporters – his declaration of "war on Murdoch" – who covertly recorded him.

Hunt, meanwhile, seems to have been James Murdoch's biggest advocate. He may have been handed a quasi-judicial responsibility but, it seems, he had already made up his mind.

We need a fundamental re-casting of the economy so that Britain can once again pay its way in the world

Two years have passed since George Osborne was preparing his first budget, and much has changed since the heady first days of the coalition.

In June 2010, the chancellor was expecting growth of 2.3% in 2011. In the event, it was 0.7%. Activity was supposed to accelerate to 2.8% in 2012, but the current consensus is for growth of 0.5%. This is a woeful performance, and it is the real message from the revised GDP figures.

To be sure, the data looks curious. The idea that the economy contracted by 0.3% in the first three months of the year hardly squares with business surveys or the unemployment figures. The report from the ONS shows that government spending added to growth, which fits oddly with the toughest austerity programme since Jim Callaghan called in the IMF in 1976.

But there's a danger here of failing to see the wood for the trees. Whether the UK grew a bit or contracted a bit in early 2012, the big picture is of an economy that has moved sideways (at best) for 18 months when it should have been eating up the ground lost during 2008 and 2009.

Three questions arise from this under-performance: what caused it, what happens next, and what can be done about it? The answer to the first is that the UK is a deeply dysfunctional economy that has allowed its productive base to shrivel, is deficient in skills and infrastructure, and has papered over the cracks for decades by squandering North Sea revenues and borrowing excessively.

The immediate future looks grim. Europe's death spiral, the squeeze on real incomes, the unwillingness of companies to invest and the likelihood that spending cuts will soon start to show up in the GDP figures means that there may be a further two quarters of negative growth this year punctuated by a transitory period of rapid expansion during the Olympics.

As to what can be done, in the short term policy is likely to be eased by the Bank of England. In the medium term there may be higher (and much needed) infrastructure spending. In the long term, though, there is no escaping the need for a fundamental re-casting of the economy so that Britain can once again pay its way in the world.

Oscar winner draws on direct family experience to put civil rights movement at centre of adaptation of Pete Dexter novel

Directors draw on many sources to draw truthful performances from their actors. But in depicting a prisoner on death row, not everyone has a brother serving a jail sentence for murder to tap for research.

But Lee Daniels, speaking before the Cannes premiere of his latest film, said he had personal experience of every one of the characters in his 1960s-set, Florida-noir story.

In The Paperboy, an adaptation of Pete Dexter's novel, two investigative reporters, played by David Oyelowo and Matthew McConaughey, are enlisted by Charlotte (Nicole Kidman) to investigate the conviction of a murderer, played by John Cusack, with whom she has fallen in love by letter.

"I know John's character because my brother's in jail for murder. And he has women that write [to] him. Whenever John gave me something that wasn't true, I knew," said Daniels.

Of McConaughey's character, who is secretly gay, he said, "I can't tell you how many men I've been with in the 1980s, 1990s, that were white men I could be intimate with but would publicly shun me, that would not be seen with a black man in public. And they hated themselves for it."

Of Kidman's character, he said: "I know this woman too: the woman that plays [the non-speaking role of Nicole's] best friend in the movie is my sister. She wrote to many men in prison."

Singer Macy Gray plays Anita, the home help of the Jansen brothers Ward and Jack – played by McConaughey and Zac Efron. Gray's character "was my family," said the director.

Daniels is something of a Cannes favourite: when his film Precious premiered here in 2009, before winning two Oscars, he was greeted with a standing ovation for his unblinking portrayal of an African American girl's struggles to find her own path amid a tough Harlem background.

For his next film – his first to play in competition for the Palme d'Or – he has also tackled race politics. His adaptation takes the civil rights movement of the 1960s – a struggle that lurks deep in the background of the original novel – and brings it centre stage.

It was partly, he said, because the issue of race relations had been "festering in me". And it was partly because "there aren't enough roles for black actors in the world". Daniels had planned to make a film called Selma, about the civil liberties march in 1965, but that project fell through at the last moment.

"That is part of the reason why I brought the race relations into this piece right here because it was festering in me. I kept going back to race because I couldn't shake Selma," said Daniels, who made his name as a producer of such titles as the Oscar-winning Monster's Ball before moving towards directing.

He made the radical decision to make one of the lead characters – Oyelowo's Yardley Acheman – black. He also expanded the role played by Gray, transforming the shadowy figure of the novel into a crucial narrating voice.

"I watched a movie called The Help," said Daniels. "Though I liked it, all my family was help, 90% of them. They … told me stories about working with very wealthy or rich white people.

"They loved the people they worked for, and there was a truth to Anita that I wanted to portray. And that's why I expanded [Gray's] role."

Gray added: "There are a lot less roles around for African Americans. But it's not always about race for [Daniels]. He's just so out of the box and so ready to try anything – to take a white character and make him black and see what happens, or vice versa."

Daniels' next project is The Butler, about long-serving White House butler Eugene Allen. Speaking at Cannes, he confirmed that Cusack would play Richard Nixon and McConaughey John F Kennedy.

Brown Argus, once rare and declining, depended on one plant species but warmer temperatures have helped it expand range

A modest but resilient British butterfly has bucked the trend of worried predictions about the species' health, with scientists reporting it appears to have benefited rather than lost out from climate change.

The Brown Argus, Aricia agestis, named after a 100-eyed giant in Greek mythology because of the multiple eye-like dots on its underwing, has long been dependent in the UK on a single plant species, the rockrose Helianthemum nummularium. It appears this is probably because the plant tends to grow on south-facing slopes and absorbs the warmth and sun which the butterfly's caterpillars need.

But hundreds of records kept by amateur butterfly enthusiasts since 1990 show that Brown Arguses have expanded their range by 40 miles in the past two decades, moving north at more than 2.3 times the average pace of other flourishing insect species.

Research published on Thursday in the journal Science by five experts led by Rachel Pateman of York university shows that the butterfly is now within a few miles of her labs on the Heslington campus. Its startling advance is credited to warmer temperatures encouraging the caterpillars to try other foodplants, notably geranium species, especially dove's-foot cranesbill.

The group, which includes members from the Natural Environment Research Council's base in Oxfordshire and Butterfly Conservation in Dorset, says that the butterflies appear to have adapted very quickly to new foodplants, for egg-laying as well as caterpillar diet. On the continent, where the Brown Argus ranges from the Pyrenees to Iran, geranium species are commonly used, and a closely-related butterfly, not yet found in the UK, is called the Geranium Argus.

"Ecological and evolutionary adjustments by the butterfly, interacting with alternative host plants that differ in their niches and life-history traits, have resulted in rapid range expansion of this previously rare and declining butterfly," says the study. "We suggest that altered interactions among species do not necessarily constrain distribution changes but can facilitate expansions."

Research on global warming's effect on the natural world acknowledges that there can be benefits as well as actual and potential disasters, and also recognises the ability of species to adapt. The United States Environmental Protection Agency notes a marked northward movement by invertebrates and insects, which form 97% of all animal species. The Brown Argus phenomenon conforms to the pattern, at the fastest end of the process.

An even more dramatic range-leap by a butterfly – albeit involving a hitch on a plane – involves the Geranium Bronze, a little smaller than the Brown Argus but equally tough. It first arrived in Europe in 1987 in ornamental pelargoniums sent from South Africa to Majorca, reached the UK in 1997 and, although seldom seen since, is being monitored as a potential pest to the horticultural trade.

David Cameron announces detectives will fly to Libya in pursuit of information about the policewoman's 1984 killing

British detectives will travel to Libya to renew their investigation into the shooting of the police officer Yvonne Fletcher, David Cameron has announced.

Fletcher was shot from the Libyan embassy as she oversaw an anti-Muammar Gaddafi protest in St James's Square, London, in 1984. The embassy was besieged by British police but the culprits were not surrendered.

Cameron announced the renewal of the investigation after meeting Abdurrahim el-Keib, Libya's interim prime minister, in London. Cameron said the visit by detectives to Tripoli would be a "really positive step forward".

Investigations into, and speculation about, the killing of Fletcher have continued since 1984. In 1999, Libya accepted responsibility and paid compensation to her family which preceded the resumption of diplomatic relations between Tripoli and London.

Detectives visited Libya and interviewed suspects on several occasions after 1999. It is understood that they have focused on two men who became senior figures in Gaddafi's regime but it is not clear if they survived the war that led to his overthrow.

Commander Richard Walton, head of the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism command, said the news was significant. "We have never lost our resolve to solve this murder and achieve justice for Yvonne's family," he said.

Keib was appointed interim prime minister before elections later this year, but Libya remains divided with a weak central government.

The international criminal court ruled last month that Libya could not try Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former leader, fairly and ordered that he be sent to The Hague.

Gaddafi is in the custody of a regional militia which has refused to release him to the Keib government.

Keib spent much of his life working abroad as an academic and businessman in the United States and UAE, and played no part in Gaddafi's administration.

He told Cameron: "The Fletcher case is a case that is close to my heart personally. I had friends who were demonstrating that day next to the embassy. It is a sad story. It is very unfortunate that it has anything to do with the Libyan people."

The Libyan prime minister's visit to Downing Street comes days after the death of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted over the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. Police in the US and Britain remain keen to continue their investigation into the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded above the Scottish town.

Downing Street later revealed that Keib met Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, the Scottish government's senior legal officer, during his visit to discuss the investigation into the bombing of the Pan Am flight. Cameron also raised the issue of Gadaffi's support for the IRA during his talks with the Libyan prime minister.

A new boss, Harriet Green, with no experience of the travel business is just what the ailing company needs

Just what Thomas Cook needs: a new chief executive with no experience of the travel business. That's not sarcasm. The reign of Manny Fontenla-Novoa, a tour operator all his career, proved disastrous for Thomas Cook. There were too many share buy-backs and acquisitions and the company was too slow to react to holidaymakers' increased willingness to book online.

Harriet Green, from electronics distributor Premier Farnell, which can fairly claim to be an e-commerce specialist, sounds a more promising prospect. In share price terms, Green's record at Farnell is not stellar (the price is roughly where it was when she arrived in 2006) but an outsiders' appraisal of the troublesome UK operation could work best.

Thomas Cook's shares rose 16% on the appointment. After three refinancings in a year, there is a relief that a credible outsider thinks the company is still worth risking a reputation.

We are yet to discover the potential rewards that have tempted Green but chairman Frank Meysman says she'll have a six-month notice period, rather than the standard 12 months, and strict performance criteria and clawback conditions will apply. In other words, there'll be no repeat of the farcical £1.17m pay-off for Fontenla-Novoa. One should hope so too.

Introduction of a 50p minimum price for alcohol could happen by April 2013 after Scottish National party wins Holyrood vote

Cut-price wine, beer and vodka will be outlawed in Scotland from as early as April next year after the Scottish parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill to introduce a 50p minimum price for alcohol.

The new measures setting the first legally-binding minimum price within the European Union are expected to get royal assent later next month after the Tories, Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats voted alongside the Scottish National party at Holyrood.

The legislation– which could be followed by similar price controls for England and Wales – will mean that whisky will cost a minimum of £14 a bottle, average strength wine will cost £4.69, four cans of own brand supermarket lager £3.52 and standard strength vodka £13.13 a bottle.

It will also finally stop supermarkets, shops and pubs, which are already legally prevented in Scotland from selling alcohol at bulk discounts or two for one offers, from offering single bottle cut-price promotions which push the cost of the drink under the 50p a unit level.

Labour, which had earlier signalled it could finally support the bill, became the only party to abstain after failing to win the Scottish government's support for new measures to claw back extra profits the supermarkets will now earn from higher prices.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, is now braced for possible legal challenges from the drinks industry or overseas producers which could prevent the law coming into force from 1 April next year as planned.

The Scottish government must notify the European commission about the new legislation and the legal basis for the policy within weeks. The commission will begin a three-month consultation on the measures which is expected to quickly trigger legal action by its opponents.

Sturgeon's advisers believe the commissioners will accept the price control is legal under EU law because it is a proportionate measure which will have a significant positive impact on Scotland's health and crime levels.

She said the new measures would help Scotland achieve a "cultural shift" in its unhealthy attitudes to alcohol.

"This policy will save lives – it's as simple as that. It is time to turn the tide of alcohol misuse that for too long has been crippling our country," she said. "Minimum pricing will kickstart a change by addressing a fundamental part of our alcohol culture – the availability of high-strength, low-cost alcohol."

However, individual drinks companies or overseas suppliers whose sales are based on cheap prices are now expected to challenge the measures in the Scottish courts and the UK supreme court, potentially delaying the new measures until 2014 or later.

Critics insist the legislation has an unjustified impact on responsible and less well-off drinkers, is illegal under EU and global competition laws and would also ruin the Scottish whisky industry's efforts to counter price controls and high tariffs in overseas markets. The drinks industry in the rest of the UK is threatening similar action if David Cameron presses ahead with similar measures for England and Wales.

Whisky is Scotland's single largest and most valuable export, worth £4.2bn last year, and the Scotch Whisky Association has insisted that minimum pricing is likely to be illegal, breaching European and global rules on free trade and competition.

Gavin Hewitt, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said minimum unit pricing (MUP) "has consistently been found to be illegal in Europe. It was first ruled to be a barrier to trade by the European court of justice more than 30 years ago. No doubt those opposed to MUP across Europe will draw on this case law in the coming months.

"We expect legal challenges to emerge once the Scottish government notifies its proposals to the European commission. We hope the UK government will take due note and drop its own proposals for minimum pricing of alcohol."

With alcohol abuse and alcohol related crime estimated to cost several thousand early deaths a year in Scotland, a study by health experts at Sheffield university estimated that a 50p minimum price would save about 60 lives in the first year and 300 within a decade. The cumulative social and economic benefits would see a "harm reduction" worth £942m within 10 years.

North-east of England has highest proportion of mothers who smoked, while London has the lowest rates in the UK

One in eight women in England are smokers when they give birth, according to new NHS data. The disclosure that 87,700 women who had a baby in 2011-12 – 13% of the total – identified themselves as smokers prompted warnings that their babies were potentially suffering serious harm in utero as a result. However, the proportion has fallen steadily since the 15% recorded in 2006-07. "I am pleased to see the rates of smoking in pregnancy falling but the levels are still worryingly high. Smoking in pregnancy can have serious and long-term effects on the developing baby", said Dr Janine Stockdale, research fellow at the Royal College of Midwives.The north-east of England had the highest proportion of mothers who smoked (20.6%), while London had the lowest (6%), according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Republicanism is a minority interest as the Queen reaches her jubilee – yet many challenge the rules of hereditary monarchy

It is a troubling irony of contemporary Britain that the surest way to lose popularity is to court it at the ballot box. In our Guardian/ICM poll this week, the voters revealed they believe our three chief party leaders to be doing a bad as opposed to a good job, by respective margins of 11, 12 and 27 percentage points. What any of them would give to swap their standing with that of the Queen, who goes into her diamond jubilee at the head of a royal family enjoying record-breaking popularity, according to the same poll.

After 60 Elizabethan years, the one public figure whom the public cannot get enough of is the one who has never deigned to ask for their approval. Respect for an elderly lady approaching a big day is understandable, even appropriate. But for the withered ranks of principled republicans – among whom the Guardian is proud to stand – the really troubling finding is that a mere one in 10 voters currently favours moving to an elected head of state, even once her reign is done. The crown is, lest we forget, is an institution that embodies deference, inherited privilege and superstition. It pulls a royal robe over the terrific power which Britain's half-written constitution concentrates in executive hands. A half-hearted overhaul of the bigoted royal rules codified in the Act of Settlement – which would allow future monarchs to marry Catholics while continuing to mandate their personal Anglicanism – only underlines how inherently inimical to the ideal of equal opportunities the whole thing is.

There is, however, just a glimmer of republican opportunity when the question turns to the succession. Voters say they want a hereditary monarch in theory, but they flinch from what that will logically mean in practice – plonking a crown upon the pate of Prince Charles. It is not that they are in any sort of a mood to do to him what they did to the last King Charles but one. The plurality of voters don't want him to give up his head, only his throne – and even then only to his son. That hardly sounds revolutionary, until you consider that skipping a generation on the basis that the younger man would do things better is to bring suitability for the job into the selection process. And as soon as you do that, of course, you shake the very foundations.

Our trawl of the patchy polling archives on the Queen's long reign reveals, voters have long had a favourable view of the way this particular woman accomplishes her peculiar job. Most republicans would probably have to concede that much. This colours attitudes to the constitutional question because, in a monarchy, one cannot separate the office form the body of the Queen. Elizabeth has pulled off her popularity, principally, through a rare ability to keep her mouth shut – rightly sensing that in her line of work the priority is not venting your opinions, but avoiding treading on toes. It is a talent of a sort and one which we know the heir apparent does not have. From alternative medicine to architecture, he brims with opinions which divide instead of unite.

Today's poll shows that Britain is as far away from being a republic as ever – indeed, probably further away than it has been for some time. Shrewd anti-monarchists should not fight their war right yet, because it is not winnable now. They should instead plot and scheme for what happens after Elizabeth, and encourage the treasonous chatter about whether the next man in line is in fact the right man for the job.

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Welcome to our first Olympic roundup, complete with sinister mascots, Eric the Eel's return and more exposure for Will.i.am

Crank up the Olympic anthem, order a McDonald's Coca-Cola so big you could host the single sculls event on it, and pull up one of the cheap seats for the London Olympics. Yes, yes – I know what you're thinking, and you're right: with a mere 64 days to go, we ARE starting this far too late, and are unlikely to ever catch up with it all, a bit like that Moroccan skier who got lapped on the giant slalom course in 1992, or the Equatorial Guinean swimmer Eric "the Eel" Moussambani, who was a breakout star of the Sydney Games. (Incidentally, fans of recherché Olympic heroes may know that Eric will be in London for the Games – having recently been seconded as coach of his country's swimming team. "He will have to reconcile his work in the oil world with his new responsibility as national coach," according to an Equatorial Guinea government spokesperson.)

Clearly, this column's first task must be to secure itself the sine qua non of modern Olympics: a sponsor. Looked at dispassionately, the opportunity would suit a transfat retailer or a mid-range Middle Eastern dictatorship, but we're open to all bids, as long as they're offered with the usual inducements.

And so to perplexing retail trends on the official London 2012 website. If you are one of those who continue to deny the tractor beam pull of Olympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville, then I can only assume you have yet to clap eyes on the below. The cuddly games mascots were designed with a single, unblinking eye to "record everything", according to the official 2012 literature, which makes the decision to draft one of them into the Metropolitan police so intriguing.

Behold, an official special edition Wenlock, whose menacing stare and failure to display his badge number suggest he'll fit right in on secondment to the force, especially if he goes on the sick halfway thorough the Games fortnight.

Officer Wenlock's statutory powers and obligations are unclear – he may be required to terminate rogue mascots with extreme prejudice – but the remarkable fact is that this particular model has completely sold out at the official London 2012 shop. Is this the work of ironists or a finally subjugated populace?

Who knows, but it certainly grants us the first instalment of The Way They See Us, an occasional feature showcasing foreign views of London's Games. The Olympics briefly allow the host nation to see itself as the rest of the world sees it – and hilarity does not always ensue. Is the overseas reaction to Officer Wenlock quite the look the London organisers were going for?

Describing London as "the premier panopticon city", a Forbes writer this week described the mascot as the (presumably) unintentional embodiment of the sort of nightmarish surveillance dystopia even Orwell couldn't imagine, adding: "It seems that those in the UK are already living in that world." Or as the official 2012 slogan has it: "Inspire a generation."

In the weeks ahead, this column plans to get to know our sponsors so well that their press officers will simulate going into a tunnel when we call. For now, let's send the warmest of greetings to torch relay "presenting partner" Coca-Cola, who this week staked an early claim for the title of Most Self-Parodic Olympic Sponsor when they indicated dismay that torchbearers selling their "memento" on eBay should have introduced the taint of commerce to the event.

Among those selected to carry the flame by Coca-Cola was Black Eyed Peas star Will.i.am, a man I could never truly despise on account of he seems to have been punctuated specifically to enrage the Queen's English Society. Alas, others seem less enamoured, perhaps because his decision to tweet his 300m procession through Taunton made it look as though he was texting. There also seem to be some niggles about over-exposure, what with his being on BBC1's The Voice on Saturday and Sunday, the torch route on Tuesday, and – somewhere in between – being helicoptered into Oxford University to discourse on climate change.

But please, let us hear no more carping, because resistance seems increasingly futile. The sea change seems to have only taken a few weeks, but Will.i.am is now an inevitability of British life, a sort of pointy-haired Kenneth Widmerpool, a seemingly unstoppable character as likely to be found pronouncing Somerset towns to be dope as he is authoring a government report on medium-term fiscal consolidation.

Finally, this column welcomes all satirical acts by nation states, so is very saddened to learn that Cambodia's wildcard pick for the men's marathon has been finally vetoed by the International Association of Athletics Federations. Phnom Penh will now apparently field a marathon runner, of all things, and not a Japanese-born comedian who dresses as a cat.