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.

Mohammed Morsi looks likely to go on to compete in run-off vote as Amr Moussa asks Mubarak's ex-PM to withdraw

Egypt's historic presidential election was on a knife edge early on Friday as first results pointed to a commanding performance by the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi, who is now likely to go on to compete in a runoff vote next month.

Morsi's apparent lead was trumpeted by the well-organised Islamist movement soon after the polls closed on the second day of the two-day vote – the first time Egyptians have ever had a genuine choice of leader.

With fewer than 10% of the results declared, the overall outcome was still far too close to call. But the two leading contenders will fight a tense French-style second round on 16-17 June. If Morsi's position is confirmed, he will face either a rival independent Islamist or one of three other frontrunners.

Earlier, in a dramatic development, the former Arab League chief Amr Moussa moved to dominate the centre ground by calling on Ahmed Shafiq, Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister and his chief rival for the "stability" vote, to pull out.

"We need to build on the revolution and not go back to the days before it," Moussa told al-Arabiya TV. "I am calling on Shafiq to withdraw from the presidential race. I want to put a stop to his campaign if he wants to return to the past."

Shafiq, derided by critics as a discredited fuloul (remnant) of the Mubarak era, insisted he would not withdraw. Both candidates have been targeting millions of Egyptians who want an experienced politician regardless of their role under Mubarak.

Daytime temperatures soared into the mid-30s as Egyptians voted in the most important election of the Arab spring. Excitement was palpable as state media provided blanket coverage of a largely peaceful process and urged citizens to do their duty.

"The People regains its free will" and "Egyptians in the queue for democracy" were among newspaper headlines as the country's 51m-strong electorate enjoyed the extraordinary novelty of choosing a new leader without knowing the result in advance. Former US president Jimmy Carter, leading a monitoring mission, praised the conduct of the vote.

State TV broadcast pictures of General Sami Enan, the armed forces chief of staff, visiting polling stations and repeating the military's pledge to hand over power to a civilian president by the end of June.

"We are confident that Egypt's next president will be Mohammed Morsi," said Essam al-Arian, a senior Brotherhood official. "These elections are being followed not only by Egyptians and Arabs, but the entire world is waiting with bated breath for the results." Moussa's campaign office also put Morsi in the lead.

Analysts say one likely permutation is a runoff between Morsi and Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, the Brotherhood renegade and independent Islamist. In the past few days, there has also been a surge of support for Hamdeen Sabbahi, the independent Nasserist candidate.

"The runoff will be very intense whatever the permutation is," said Hani Shukrallah, the veteran commentator on al-Ahram newspaper. "And whoever gets elected will be walking into a minefield."

Only isolated incidents of low-level violence were reported. But the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights recorded violations in the form of bribes being offered on behalf of Morsi, Shafiq, and Abul Fotouh. There were claims of votes being sold and, according to election monitors, a Morsi supporter distributed meat, sugar beans, lentils and oil to voters in Qena governorate.

Polling stations stayed open for an extra hour to boost turnout, apparently below the 60% mark achieved in parliamentary elections earlier this year. Counting was conducted at the stations in the presence of candidates' representatives, the media and NGOs to avoid the risk of fraud.

The result is only due to be announced officially next Tuesday, but Egyptian media was expecting to be able to report the outcome overnight based on computer data and statements by campaign representatives.

Voters admitted they faced tough choices. Hamada, a Cairo hairdresser, told al-Ahram he would vote for the "corrupt" Shafiq to protect his livelihood.

"We don't want an Islamic state, although we believe in the revolution. We need a force to counteract the Islamist-dominated parliament … we need someone to secure our jobs, to allow our wives to walk in the streets and help us raise our children safely.

"I know he's a thief, corrupt and a liar but who isn't? The two Brotherhood candidates [Morsi and Abul Fotouh]? Of course not! And Sabbahi won't reach the second round. I'll lose my job if an Islamist becomes president because my job will be forbidden. Our revolution has been stolen."

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".

Senate committee votes to slash Pakistan's aid by $1m for each of the years Shakil Afridi, who ran fake CIA vaccine, is in prison

A US senate committee has voted to cut Pakistan's aid by $1m for each of the 33 years of a prison sentence given to a doctor for helping the CIA to track down Osama bin Laden.

The appropriations committee unanimously approved the $33m reduction as outrage grows in Washington over the conviction of Shakil Afridi for treason . The physician ran a fake vaccination programme in an attempt to collect Bin Laden's DNA in order to verify he was living in the Abbottabad compound where he was eventually killed a year ago.

The aid cut will not be immediately implemented as it comes out of next year's budget, but it will increase the pressure on the Pakistan government as Washington seeks to have Afridi's conviction quashed or his sentence substantially reduced.

The appropriations committee debate reflected the frustration at what many in Washington see as Pakistan's duplicity that has bubbled away for many years over the links between its intelligence service and the Taliban, and was accentuated when it was revealed that Bin Laden was living untouched in a garrison town.

"We need Pakistan. Pakistan needs us," said Senator Lindsey Graham, who helped write the legislation cutting aid. "But we don't need a Pakistan that is just double dealing."

Senator Dianne Feinstein voiced a repeatedly-heard sentiment on Capitol Hill since Afridi's conviction that it was outrageous to convict him of treason when he was helping not harming Pakistan by contributing to Bin Laden's demise.

"It was not a crime against Pakistan," she said. "It was an effort to locate and help bring to justice the world's No 1 terrorist."

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher demanded stronger action from the Obama administration. "Secretary Clinton will have to do more than voice protests over the Afridi case. Both the departments of state and defence need to take punitive actions against Pakistan.

"Carrots are not enough when dealing with an adversary. Sticks are needed to prove we are serious," he said.

Congressman Pete King, chairman of the House homeland security committee, has also blamed the Obama administration saying that it put Afridi "out there" by leaking details of his role in the raid to the media.

Administration officials say that information about the fake vaccination scheme, which was first reported in the Guardian, clearly came from the Pakistani authorities.

However, after Afridi's role was made public, US officials openly acknowledged it including the defence secretary, Leon Panetta – who was CIA director when Bin Laden was killed– who described the doctor as having been "very helpful" in gathering intelligence on the al-Qaida leader.

The Senate appropriations committee has already slashed foreign aid to Pakistan from the $2bn proposed by Barack Obama to just $800m from October 1, in part because of across-the-board budget cuts, but also because of frustration with Pakistan. The additional $33m reduction will come from military aid. But it is likely to be restored if Afridi is released. The US has given Pakistan more than $18bn in aid since the 9/11 attacks.

Pakistan has pushed back, saying that the US should respect its courts. A foreign office spokesman, Moazzam Ahmad Khan, said that the case would be decided not by pressure from Washington but in accordance with the country's laws. "We need to respect each other's legal process," he said.

There is evidence that Afridi may not have realised he was being used to hunt Bin Laden. A retired Pakistani army brigadier, Shaukat Qadir, who obtained access to intelligence reports about Afridi's interrogation said that he may not have known he was helping track down Bin Laden.

"Shakil [Afridi] had no idea of whom or what he was looking for. He was merely paid to follow instructions," Qadir wrote in a report. It is not clear if Afridi knew he was working for the CIA. Qadir's report may explain why Afridi did not immediately leave Pakistan after Bin Laden was killed.

Afridi, who was convicted by a tribal court in northwest Pakistan, is being held at the Central Prison in Peshawar where he is said by Pakistani officials to be "weak and depressed".

Last-ditch agreement reached in Baghdad to make another attempt at a compromise deal in Moscow next month

International talks over Iran's nuclear programme were salvaged from collapse in Baghdad with a last-ditch agreement to make another attempt at a compromise deal in Moscow next month.

After two days of intense talks in the Iraqi capital, Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said: "It is clear that we both want to make progress, and that there is some common ground. However, significant differences remain. Nonetheless, we do agree on the need for further discussion to expand that common ground."

The common ground seems limited, beyond the desire to keep talks going to forestall the threat of Israeli military action. Ashton pointed to Iran's "readiness to address the issue of 20% enrichment" – a particular concern for the international community as 20%-enriched uranium is easier to convert into weapons-grade material. But diplomats at the talks said Iran's lead negotiator, Saeed Jalili, did not explicitly offer to curb 20% enrichment.

"It wasn't easy," one diplomat said. "Jalili said he was prepared to talk about 20% enrichment but then he came up with a bunch of peripheral issues like relations with Bahrain, and events in Syria."

After the talks, Jalili told CNN that progress at Moscow would require that "measures that damage the confidence of Iranians should be avoided", an apparent reference to punitive measures such as sanctions.

Responding to the mixed outcome of the talks, the foreign secretary, William Hague, said Iran needed to take "urgent, concrete steps". He added: "If Iran fails to respond in a serious manner, they should be in no doubt that we will intensify the pressure from sanctions, including the embargo on oil imports already agreed, and will urge other nations to do the same."

The UK remained fully committed to a diplomatic solution to the nuclear impasse, he said, but added "we must see significant progress from Iran" in Moscow.

At the outset of the talks, a six-nation group of senior diplomats presented what they termed a confidence-building package, calling on Iran to stop 20% enrichment, ship all its 20% uranium out of the country and stop operations at its underground enrichment plant at Fordow.

In return, the group – the US, UK, Russia, France, Germany and China – offered nuclear fuel plates for a research reactor, help with nuclear safety at Iranian reactors and spare parts for Iran's commercial airliners.

Jalili verbally presented counter-proposals, but they were considerably more vague. First was what he termed "the operationalisation of the fatwa", a reference to supreme leader Ali Khamenei's reported religious edict outlawing the development of nuclear weapons, although it was not clear how this would be put into effect.

His second point was international recognition of Iran's right to enrich uranium, and the third point dealt with regional issues like Bahrain and Syria.

Western diplomats argued that Iran's right to enrich uranium as part of a complete nuclear fuel cycle had been suspended until Tehran could convince the international community it had entirely peaceful intentions for its programme. The six-nation group argued that such issues would ultimately be addressed in a comprehensive settlement of the Iranian nuclear stand-off, but that the two sides should first carry out smaller, confidence-building steps.

Iranian state media reports criticised the package offered to Tehran on the grounds it did not include immediate relief from sanctions, but European diplomats claimed Jalili hardly mentioned sanctions inside the meeting "because he knew he would get no traction".

As evening fell on the second night of talks, Jalili's delegation was threatening to end the negotiations without agreement on a time and venue for a further round, which would have signalled a breach in the tenuous diplomatic process begun in Istanbul last month, and a ratcheting up in tensions in the Gulf once more.

Ashton, and the Russian and Chinese delegations held separate meetings with the Iranian negotiator in the late afternoon to persuade him to agree to a further round in Moscow on June 18. His agreement was only evident in the dying minutes of the last plenary meeting.

Western diplomats conceded that less had been achieved than had been hoped, but claimed that the Baghdad meeting had met the minimum goal set by the six-nation group, of marking the start of the first serious and detailed negotiations about Iran's nuclear programme since January 2011.

A US negotiator said: "We are getting to the things that matter … this is at least the beginning of a negotiation."

European diplomats said that the threshold for the Moscow talks would be substantially higher and that failure to reach a compromise there would have to be counted as a failure. "This cannot continue like this," one diplomat said. "The pace will get faster and the benchmark will get higher."

£4m paid to Jewish foundation in Turkey, which will distribute the money to the victims and their families

The Israeli government has offered £4m in compensation to the families of Turkish activists killed by Israeli commandos who stormed a ship taking part in an aid flotilla in May 2010, according to a lawyer representing the victims.

Ramzan Ariturk said the money would have been paid to a Jewish foundation in Turkey for distribution and would be followed by a statement of "regret" for the raid by the Israeli government on the Mavi Marmara, which was bound for the Gaza Strip.

The lawyer, one of several representing 465 victims and relatives of the dead and injured on board the Mavi Marmara, said that the Israeli government had made a proposal to him through an intermediary foreign ambassador in Ankara.

Turkey cooled diplomatic relations with Israel after nine of its citizens were shot dead by Israeli commandos who landed on the Mavi Marmara to prevent its passage to Gaza. Protesters on the ship repelled the first wave of lightly armed commandos, but then the Israeli soldiers used lethal force against the unarmed passengers to end their resistance.

Ariturk said he told the ambassador a month ago that he did not think the offer was appropriate or moral. "I also discussed the issue with the victims and their friends and they also stated that they could not accept this," he said.

He declined to disclose the nationality of the intermediary or the name of the Jewish organisation that would distribute the compensation but said the Turkish foreign ministry agreed with his decision, saying Israel should have contacted it directly.

According to sources in the Turkish foreign ministry who spoke to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Israel had not presented the offer to them directly. The source said that the principle of damages was accepted by Turkey but the obstacle was Israel's admission of guilt which Turkey insists upon.

"Israel is opposed to declaring publicly that it apologises and Turkey is not prepared to accept a wording of regret that does not include taking responsibility, that is required in an expression of apology," the sources said.

Mark Regev, the spokesman for Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, declined to comment.

On Wednesday an Istanbul prosecutor submitted an indictment seeking life sentences for four former Israeli military commanders in connection with the raid, including the chief of general staff at the time.

The United Nations report on the raid last September concluded that Israel had used unreasonable force but that its blockade of Gaza was legal.

Pre-diamond jubilee surge in royalism hides bad news for Prince Charles, with almost half wanting succession to jump to William

As the Queen prepares to celebrate her diamond jubilee, the royal family is enjoying record popularity, but things could get a good deal more complicated after she leaves the scene, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll.

Britain would be worse off without the monarchy say 69% of respondents, while of 22% say the country would be better off. This 47-point royalist margin is the largest chalked up on any of the 12 occasions since 1997 on which ICM has previously asked the question.

Pro-royal feeling is spread remarkably equally among the social classes, and across the regions of England and Wales. It is less marked in Scotland – where 36% say the country would be better off without the Windsors – but even there a solid 50% feel the opposite way. Support is stronger among the older, and especially among Conservative voters, in whose ranks it reaches 82%. But across every age group and among Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters alike, the monarchy is enjoying solid support.

But if "long to reign over us" is the diamond jubilee sentiment, that could be partly out of nervousness about what is coming next. When voters were asked what should happen when the Queen dies or if she abdicates, they remain resolutely anti-republican, with just 10% saying Britain should elect a head of state instead of having a new monarch. But if there is support for the hereditary principle, there is much less for what it means in practice. Only 39% want the crown to pass to Prince Charles in line with the succession; 48% who want it to skip a generation and pass straight to Prince William.

There is no sign whatsoever of the son setting himself up as a young pretender against the father but, should he be tempted, the poll suggests he could count on solid support among younger voters, Labour supporters and the C2DE social grades which sit at the bottom of the National Statistics pyramid. An outright majority of 50% of each of these groups indicate a preference for a premature coronation of William V.

The Queen continues to retain her popularity. According to Ipsos Mori data from the 1980s and 90s, the person who most often rivalled her ratings was Diana, a finding that may excite the wilder conspiracy theorists. But in this, as in all matters concerning the length of a reign which stretches back to the very infancy of British polling, we are dependent on occasional attitudinal snapshots rather than the sort of month-in-month-out series available on voting intention.

American admiration

The earliest data which the Guardian could track down was not about British attitudes but American ones, just three months after the coronation in February 1953. The vast majority of respondents volunteered descriptions such as "charming" and "wonderful". A mere 6% made negative remarks about monarchs in general, and just 1% ventured anything negative about the woman herself. A few years later in a 1957 Gallup poll, 83% of Americans rated her to some degree favourably, against just 7% who leant the other way. Her stateside standing has rarely diminished, and she is by some margin the woman who has most often ranked on Gallup's annual top 10 of people Americans admire.

Closer to home, there is little data from before the 1960s. One nugget we do have from before the Elizabethan age is from Gallup in 1946. Asked whom they most admired, 24% of voters volunteered Winston Churchill, while reigning monarch George VI and his Queen languished behind on 3%. That put them on the same level as Joseph Stalin and below Clement Attlee, Field Marshal Montgomery, George Bernard Shaw.

The questions are irregular and often inconsistently framed, but when set against this sepia snapshot about the old king, the data we have strongly suggests the Queen has consistently been more popular than her father.

The oldest substantial information the Guardian could find about British attitudes was from the British Election Study, which got going a decade into the Queen's reign, just before the 1964 election which brought Labour's Harold Wilson to power.

It asked about whether people felt the monarchy was very, quite or not at all important. Support for the Queen was remarkably resilient throughout the 1960s, with about 60% rating the monarchy as very important and about 15% who said it was of no importance. Only in 1969 did the anti-royal number briefly rise, to a still underwhelming 27%.

A slightly more personal test of the Queen's popularity, perhaps, is the public's take on whether or not she deserved a pay rise. In 1969, Gallup found 46% felt she deserved a pay rise. By 1971, the same company found 57% were ready to double her allowance to an annual £1m, which was a good deal more then than today.

Around the same time, we get the first tests of the idea of abolishing the crown entirely and making the UK a republic. In 1969, Gallup found that 18% preferred that option. The silver jubilee, the Sex Pistols, Diana and the golden jubilee all came and went without permanently altering that figure. In the week of the Queen's 50th anniversary on the throne, in June 2002, an Ipsos Mori poll found 19% would prefer a republic. It asked the same question more than 20 times in the 1990s and 2000s and each time found the republican minority within three points of that 19% figure. Only in its most recent survey, conducted amid a mood of respect for the octogenarian woman and a sexagenarian monarch, does it dip to 13%.

Swing to indifference

We can track rather more of the reign if we switch to a better off/worse off without the royals question, of the sort used in our surveyon Thursday. Ipsos Mori asked that question throughout the 1980s and 1990s and, as fairytale weddings gave way to the divorces of Charles and Andrew, there was a steady swing away from the steadfast royalist "worse off" vote to a position of indifference. The "indifferents" fleetingly overtook the "worse offs" in the Queen's "annus horribilis" of 1992 (when flames at Windsor Castle followed rows about her tax-exempt status) and then again just before Diana's death. But in neither case did the hardline "better off without them" vote get enough traction to get beyond a fifth. In both cases, the royalists soon bounced back to a modest lead, even if they never quite got back to the scores of about 70% they had enjoyed in the mid-1980s.

From the late 1990s onwards, the ICM's own tracker, which forces a straight choice, has oscillated wildly, but never quite wildly enough to put the anti-royalists in the lead or even to get the margin down to single figures.

There was a bit of a monarchist moment in 1998 as the royals regained public affection after the traumas of Diana's death, with the "worse off without them" lead surging to 44% before then falling back to about 20%.

There was a brief boost from the golden jubilee in 2002, a brief dip (as on several polling indicators) in early 2005, before Charles's marriage to Camilla, a prospect which stirred some old demons but which the polling suggests also laid them to rest, because the royal position immediately strengthened after the event. The monarchy surged further after William's wedding last year, and now the gap has widened again.

The Queen's personal rating, measured as the difference between the proportion satisfied and the proportion dissatisfied with the way she is doing her job, has not been measured since 2006, but the established trend at that point was running strongly in her favour – the score was +78 percentage points.

To put that into context, our Guardian/ICM poll this week gave scores to David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg of -11, -12 and -27 respectively.

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults aged 18 plus from 18 to 20 May 2012. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

Pedro Hernandez reportedly told police that he strangled Etan Patz and stuffed him in a box, which he discarded in New York

One of America's most notable missing child cases, the disappearance in 1979 of six-year-old New Yorker Etan Patz, appears to have reached a breakthrough after police arrested a suspect.

Patz went missing just blocks from his parent's home in downtown Manhattan in 1979 as he made his first ever unaccompanied walk to the school bus. His case became a national cause célèbre, and his face was one of the first to appear on milk cartons in an effort to find out what happened to him.

Now a New Jersey man, Pedro Hernandez, has been arrested after apparently implicating himself in the child's killing. "An individual now in custody has made statements to NYPD detectives implicating himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz 33 years ago," New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement.

The break in the case came one month after the FBI and NYPD officers conducted a four-day excavation of a basement in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood, near where Patz lived and was last seen. At the time, police said no obvious human remains were found and it remained a missing person case.

Hernandez, who is believed to be in his mid-60s, worked at a shop near to where Patz lived, authorities said.

He told investigators that he suffocated the boy, then put the body in a box, walked down a Manhattan street and dumped the box in an alley, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorised to discuss the investigation and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Although this is the first arrest in the case investigators cautioned they are still trying to confirm Hernandez's account and have little to go on other than his word. No body has been found.

"Let me caution you that there's still a lot of investigating to do," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Hernandez, who moved to New Jersey shortly after the boy vanished, was picked up there late Wednesday and was being questioned Thursday at the Manhattan district attorney's office.

The New York Post said Hernandez had told family members, and a "spiritual adviser", about once killing a child and one relative eventually contacted police in April after hearing about the new Soho dig.

Although Etan was formally declared dead in 2001, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance re-opened the case in 2010 and investigators tore apart the basement in April looking for clothing and human remains after a cadaver-sniffing dog sensed something at the site.

The floor was in a basement once used as a workshop by a handyman, Othniel Miller, now 75, who had paid the boy to help him with chores. Miller was questioned by police but was not charged with a crime. Police later said the search found "no obvious human remains."

Long targeted as a suspect in the case was Jose Antonio Ramos, a friend of Patz's babysitter who was later convicted of child molestation in a separate case in Pennsylvania. He is due to be released from prison in November.

Ramos, whose girlfriend babysat Etan, was declared responsible for Etan's death in 2004 in a New York civil case brought by the Patz family.

Etan's parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, became outspoken advocates for missing children, bringing the issue to major national attention. Four years after their child went missing President Ronald Reagan declared 25 May – the day on which Etan disappeared – as national missing children's day.

Data shows US president vastly outspending Romney in internet advertising, with GOP rival preferring more traditional approach

Barack Obama is vastly outspending his challenger for the White House Mitt Romney on internet advertising, pouring millions of dollars into attempting to sway online voters in a move that his campaign strategists hope will give him an edge in November.

New data compiled by the internet marketing research firm comScore shared with the Guardian shows that in April the Obama for America campaign placed more than 30 times as many digital ads as Romney's equivalent operation. Though Romney's digital team has promised to up its game as the presidential election approaches, their presence in the online political battlefield remains negligible.

ComScore records that Obama paid for 865m online display ads across the web last month. By contrast, the Mitt Romney for President campaign mustered barely 26m ads.

Romney's online presence is running at a level that the Obama campaign surpassed a year ago. By May 2011 Obama was already placing 70m online ads, and this January it vamped up its digital investment to almost 800m ads where it has remained ever since.

The new figures are surprising because April was the first month in which Romney was clearly the presumptive Republican candidate for the presidential election. Observers had expected to see a more aggressive attempt on Romney's part to play catch up now that the nomination was in the bag, but it has failed to materialise.

"We expected that Romney's activity would have ratcheted up at this point, but we are not seeing that. The early indication is that there isn't any major closing of the gap," said Andrew Lipsman, a comScore analyst specialising in political and digital advertising.

While the Romney campaign is managing to make serious inroads into Obama's overall fundraising advantage, most of the extra firepower it is accumulating appears to be going towards traditional campaigning techniques. In particular, Romney's team, flanked by several well-funded partisan Super Pacs led by Karl Rove and the Koch brothers, are gearing themselves up to unleash a blitzkreig of negative TV ads on the American electorate.

Obama is also expected to devote most of his warchest to traditional TV advertising. But he has also set aside a substantial portion of the 2012 coffers for more innovative attempts to involve and engage online voters.

Already in the 2012 election cycle, the Obama For America team, headquartered in Chicago, has spent $19m on online advertising – more than the entire amount spent by Obama in this area in 2008. The interactive marketing news site ClickZ calculates that at current rates OFA will spend $35m on digital advertising by November, though that could prove to be an underestimate.

Obama's online advertising strategy is being masterminded by Andrew Bleeker and Nathaniel Lubin, who are veterans of Obama's first run on the White House four years ago. After 2008, Bleeker set up his own private consultancy, Bully Pulpit Interactive, where he was joined by Lubin who has now circled back to lead the on-the-ground work on online marketing in the Obama re-election HQ in Chicago.

Bleeker and Lubin have set out how they see the challenge for digital media in the 2012 presidential election in a new book of essays that explores the way that political campaigns are changing in the face of technological innovation. They predict in Margin of Victory , edited by Nathaniel Pearlman, that 2012 will "blow prior campaigns out of the water".

As more money and staff are devoted to online marketing, they say, the 2012 cycle will finally achieve the aspirations of previous campaigns. The authors identify three ways in which online advertising has the power to transform the battle.

First, messages can be targeted much more tightly than TV ads to core gropus of voters, reaching down they say to the level of the "zip code or even, in some cases, the individual level, bringing custom solutions to the table that will match the distinct messages to specific audiences."

Second, campaigns will this year move their online marketing away from desktop computers and on to cell phones. That will be particularly important in reaching certain demographics, such as Hispanic voters, who spend a disproportionate amount of their online time on mobile devices.

Third, online video advertising is going to be huge this year. Unlike TV advertising, which can only be targeted to a city or region, an online video can be served to a voter with his or her precise geolocation and behavioural interests, greatly enhancing the relevance and the impact of the message.

"The 2012 election is very likely to be incredibly tight. Winning messages are going to be the ones that cut through the clutter – not just with memorable creative work but alos by being tailored to key segments," Bleeker and Lubin write.

Social media is also going to be an important part of the jigsaw. Obama again has a massive headstart in this area, having already amassed more than 26.7m Facebook fans to Romney's 1.8m followers.

A comScore study of the uses of social media by the presidential campaigns highlights the value of social media as a way of amplifying the candidate's message. In January, for instance, Obama bought 800m online display ads at a cost of more than $4m.

In addition, though, comScore calculates, Obama leveraged an extra 66m display ad impressions as a result of Obama followers passing on messages to their friends.

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."

More than 500 people were arrested in Montreal on Wednesday night as protestors defied controversial new law Bill 78

• Collected commentary on the protests from around the web

Protests that began in opposition to tuition fees in Canada have exploded into a political crisis with the mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators amid a backlash against draconian emergency laws.

More than 500 people were arrested in a demonstration in Montreal on Wednesday night as protesters defied a controversial new law – Bill 78 – that places restrictions on the right to demonstrate. In Quebec City, police arrested 176 people under the provisions of the new law.

Demonstrators have been gathering in Montreal for just over 100 days to oppose tuition increases by the Quebec provincial government. On Tuesday, about 100 people were arrested after organisers say 300,000 people took the streets.

But what began as a protest against university fee increases has expanded to a wider movement to oppose Bill 78, which was rushed through by legislators in Quebec in response to the demonstrations. The bill imposes severe restrictions on protests, making it illegal for protesters to gather without having given police eight hours' notice and securing a permit.

On Wednesday night, police in Montreal used kettling techniques – officers surrounding groups of protesters and not allowing them in or out of the resulting circle – before conducting a mass arrest.

Police immediately declared Wednesday's protest illegal, but allowed it to continue for about four hours before surrounding protesters and making arrests.

Martine Desjardins, who represents more than 125,000 students in her role as president of the federation of university students in Quebec, said protesters had been "peaceful" on Wednesday's march.

"It makes a lot of people angry," she said. "We fear that tonight, because there will be more demonstrations going on, people will become a bit more violent, because as you saw yesterday, when you are peaceful, you get arrested."

Police arrested 518 people at the demonstration, the largest number detained in a single night so far. Montreal police constable Daniel Fortier, who told reporters rocks were thrown at police, said most of those arrested would face municipal bylaw infractions for being at an illegal assembly.

"I was so so scared," said Magdalena, one of those arrested, who asked that her last name not be given. She told the Guardian that she had been taking part in the protests since February, and that Wednesday night's action had actually seemed particularly peaceful.

"This was one of the most jovial I've taken part in," she said. "We were commenting how in good spirits we were, how everyone seemed in such great energy. There were families, children, women with strollers, which you don't necessarily see at the night protests as much," she said.

Protesters were allowed to walk freely and briskly through Montreal, she added, but that changed when they came to certain intersection, the pace of the march slowing dramatically. "We didn't think anything of it," Magdalena said. "All of a sudden you just smelled tear gas and could see smoke, and people were running."

Magdalena said people from the front of the march came running back past her and her friend, who had been strolling with their bicycles. "We turned around and there was already a line of cops behind us. We tried to go on the other side but then there was cops there too.

Police officers then tightened their ring around the "hundreds" of protesters, she said, not allowing anyone in or out. Magdalena said this situation continued for an hour, before everyone in the group was read their rights. After that, it was another "hour or two" before she was detained with plastic handcuffs and led to a city bus. She said they were then kept on the bus for "hours and hours" and were not allowed to go to the toilet. "I have some medical problems, and I wasn't feeling well. I really needed some water and I needed some sugar, and they were really awful, they said they didn't care," she said.

Magdalena said she was eventually charged with being part of an unlawful assembly, and given a ticket for $634, which she said she planned to contest.

Protesters have vowed to continue the nightly protests that began on 14 February when Quebec's liberal provincial government announced it would introduce tuition fee increases over a five-year period. The Quebec government's department of education, leisure and sport says fees would go up by $325 (£200) per year for five years from autumn 2012, a total increase of $1,625.

The protests have resulted in a backlash against the Quebec prime minister, Jean Charest, who has refused to back down over the tuition fee increase, and the new law.

Students have been boycotting classes over the past three months, arguing that the increases would lead to an increased dropout rate and more debt.

In response to the protests, the provincial government rushed through Bill 78 on 18 May. As well as the restrictions on protests, it suspends the current academic term and provides for when and how classes are to resume.

Some student organisers said that the introduction of the bill, far from cowing the demonstrations, had actually brought more support for their cause.

'This draconian law has revolted me'

Mathieu Murphy-Perron, who has been helping to organise demonstrations against tuition fees since last year, said: "I would say that I've seen more individuals come out and say: 'You know what? I was neutral on the question of tuition fees, but to bring this draconian law has revolted me and I will take to the streets with you.

"There have been more and more people who recognise that Bill 78 is a breach of the right of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and they're not going to have it."

Some legal experts argue that the bill contravenes Canada's charter of rights and freedoms. Montreal constitutional lawyer Julius Grey told the Vancouver Sun that Bill 78 was "flagrantly unconstitutional". Opposition has come from the Quebec Bar Association and the Quebec human rights commission.

In an appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live in the US on Saturday night, the Grammy award-winning band Arcade Fire, who come from Montreal, wore symbolic red squares of cloth on their chests during their performance, in support of the protests.

Murphy-Perron said the red-hued, four sided shapes were visible "everywhere you go" in Montreal, adding that they show the "inter-generational aspect of this struggle".

"You see red squares on buildings, on homes, on children, on teenagers, on students, on bluehairs, you see them everywhere."

Desjardins said that she and other student representatives will meet with the government next week in Montreal or Quebec City to discuss tuition fees – the fourth meeting since strikes began.

In the meantime the daily marches would continue, she said, adding that protesters were also planning a protest in Ottawa, around 150 miles west of Montreal, on 29 May. Ottawa is in a different province from Montreal, and so safe from the clutches of Bill 78 – introduced only in Quebec.

"It's something to ridicule the bill," she said. "If we are restricted to have a demonstration in Montreal, or in the province, we are going to go outside the province, to Ontario, and have a big demonstration there."

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.

Chris Huhne's partner loses privacy and harassment case as judge says her 'expectation of privacy was limited'

Carina Trimingham, the partner of former energy secretary Chris Huhne, has been ordered to pay more than £400,000 after she lost her high court claim for damages for alleged breach of privacy and harassment against the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

Trimingham was seeking compensation and an injunction over 65 "highly unpleasant and hurtful" articles. These included references to the "life and very different loves of the PR girl in Doc Martens" and a piece by Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn which described her as a "comedy lesbian from central casting" in a 24 June 2010 article.

But Mr Justice Tugendhat said in a written judgment: "Ms Trimingham was not the purely private figure she claims to be. Her reasonable expectation of privacy has become limited.

"This is mainly by reason of her involvement with Mr Huhne, both professionally as his press agent and personally as his secret mistress, in circumstances where he campaigned with a leaflet to the electorate of Eastleigh about how much he valued his family."

He dismissed her claim, refused her permission to appeal and ordered her to pay Associated Newspapers' legal costs.

Tugendhat said £250,000, which is covered by her insurance, must be paid within 14 days, but she can find the balance of the £410,000 total later.

Trimingham was Huhne's press officer during the 2010 general election, when he was seeking re-election as Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh in Hampshire. She was at the time in a civil partnership with partner Julie Bennett.

In January last year Huhne was divorced by his wife, Vicky Price, because of his admitted adultery with Trimingham.

Huhne's trial with his ex-wife for allegedly perverting the course of justice over a driving offence is due to be heard in October.

Daily Mail journalist Andrew Pierce gave a robust statement outside the high court, saying that the judgment was a "vindication of our journalists and our journalism".

He said that Trimingham had been working in public relations for a number of years and "when she left her wife to move in with a cabinet minister she knew this would be part of the story and the judgment accepted that". He described it as "an important day for our journalism".

Asked if he regretted any of the Mail's coverage or felt sympathy for Trimingham, Pierce replied that the paper had been "utterly vindicated by that judgment", adding: "She says in court she's in love with Chris Huhne and I wish her all the happiness with that."

Trimingham, also speaking outside court, said: "I'm extremely disappointed by this judgment. There is a ray of light however. Thankfully the court has accepted today that repeated mocking of a person by a national newspaper by reference to their sexual orientation would be so oppressive as to amount to harassment.

"However, the court did not appreciate that when national newspapers make repeated irrelevant references to my sexuality – particularly in the context of pejorative and stereotypical reference to appearance – it amounts to the same kind of mocking which the court has confirmed is unacceptable. This is confused, and I think wrong. I am very concerned that this judgment may become a blueprint for bullies and bigots. I intend to appeal."

In his written judgment, Tugendhat said that although the Mail referred to Trimingham's sexuality in 65 articles over a period of 15 months it "only did so (a) when writing about matters of public interest, mainly in developments in Mr Huhne's personal life which were relevant to his public life and (b) when Ms Trimingham and her conduct (and other information about her) were within the range of what an editor could in good faith regard as relevant to the story".

The judge added: "The distress that she has undoubtedly suffered since 19 June 2010 is the result of the publication by the defendant [Associated Newspapers] of the defamatory and true information concerning her, about which she has not made a claim in defamation, and the actions of journalists and publishers for whom the defendant is not responsible.

"To the extent that the words complained of include insults and other offensive matter, insulting and offensive speech is protected by the right of freedom of expression."

Despite finding in Associated Newspapers' favour, Tugendhat also warned that his judgment was not a licence "to repeat the words complained of indefinitely or in any circumstances", as it was not a libel action in which a defence of truth had been proved.

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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".

Coalition says WikiLeaks suspect's trial is being conducted amid far more secrecy than the alleged 9/11 plotters in Guantanamo

The military trial of the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning is being conducted amid far more secrecy than even the prosecution of the alleged 9/11 plotters in Guantanamo, a coalition of lawyers and media outlets protest.

Led by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, the coalition has petitioned the Army court of criminal appeals calling for the court-martial against Manning to be opened up to the press and public. The group complains that the way the trial is being handled by the trial judge Colonel Denise Lind is a violation of the First Amendment of the constitution that requires public access unless the government can specifically demonstrate the need for secrecy.

The petition lists the many ways in which the public are being kept in the dark over the prosecution of Bradley Manning, who faces 22 charges related to the leaking of a vast trove of US state secrets to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. He was arrested in May 2010 at a military base outside Baghdad where he was working as an intelligence analyst on suspicion of passing hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables as well as warlogs from Iraq and Afghanistan to the site.

The army has allowed the publication of not one single motion submitted by the prosecution to the court-martial, nor any prosecution replies to defence motions, not even in redacted form. None of the orders issued by the court have been made public, and no transcripts have been provided of any of the proceedings – not even those that were fully open to the press.

The petitioners include Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, as well as news outlets and individuals such as the Nation, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald. They say that the lack of openness is all the more serious given the gravity of the charges and the high-profile nature of the court martial which they liken to the trial of Lt William Calley for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the legal tussle over the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

Members of the Bradley Manning support network who have attended each of his pre-trial hearings have castigated the "outrageous obfuscations" of the Obama administration over the trial. "Why has the administration spent two years trying to hide basic facts from the defense, the press and the American people?" said Jeff Paterson, a co-founder of the network.

The only documents that have emerged from the proceedings so far are those that have been published by Manning's defence lawyer, David Coombs, on his blog. Coombs has consistently protested about the lack of transparency in the conduct of the court-martial.

In a new post to his blog, Coombs has published the latest set of defence motions ahead of a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland scheduled for 6 June. In one of the motions, Coombs complains that over the past two years Manning has been denied the opportunity to take part in his own defence in any meaningful way. He has had no chance to review some 7,000 documents handed to the defence team by the army because no arrangement has been made to allow him secure access to the files from his location in custody.

The only accessible documents are stored in Rhode Island and Maryland, far from where he is being held in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Another motion that will be put to the June hearing calls on the judge to dismiss many of the most serious charges against Manning on the grounds that the language used in them is unconstitutionally vague. The defence objects to phrases such as "to the injury of the US or to the advantage of any foreign nation" which it says are problematically broad in scope.

Home secretary becomes most senior politician to take part in Out4Marriage campaign

Theresa May, the Conservative home secretary, has pledged her personal support for gay marriage, becoming the most senior politician yet to take part in a cross-party video campaign supporting a change to the law.

The video, in which May says she believes that "marriage should be for everyone", was released on the day it emerged that David Cameron has decided to give his MPs a free vote on the government's plans to legalise gay marriage, thereby avoiding a showdown with Conservative colleagues, including some ministers, strongly opposed to the idea.

A free vote will allow MPs and ministers to vote according to their conscience rather than being directed by party whips. The shadow Commons leader, Angela Eagle, criticised the move, saying it now meant Cameron's "flagship policy on equal rights" would have to rely on Labour backing to become law.

The Home Office began a formal consultation on how civil marriage will be reformed in England and Wales earlier this year, but the proposals have proved controversial for some within Cameron's government, with the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, being the first cabinet minister to state his opposition.

In a video for the Out4Marriage campaign, released on Thursday, May said she recognised the "strong views on both sides of this argument", and intended to listen to them in consultation. But the home secretary, who also serves as minister for women and equalities, went on: "I believe in marriage. I believe marriage is a really important institution; it's one of the most important institutions we have.

"Marriage binds us together, it brings stability, I think marriage makes us stronger. But I believe also in commitment and in fidelity in marriage, I think these are good things and we should enable them to flourish.

"That's why I believe if two people care for each other, if they love each other, if they want to commit to each other and spend the rest of their lives together then they should be able to get married and marriage should be for everyone and that's why I'm coming Out4Marriage."

The Out4Marriage campaign records YouTube videos with politicians, celebrities, religious leaders and members of the public explaining why they support changing the law. The campaign says it has so far secured the support of 10 Conservatives, including ministers Nick Herbert and Quentin Blunt, who are expected to take part in videos next week.

A spokesperson said it also has "a few more cabinet ministers" – both Liberal Democrat and Conservative – lined up for filming.

Mike Buonaiuto of Out4Marriage said the organisation was grateful May had given her "very significant backing" to the campaign.

Other supporters so far include Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, and the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, as well as Sir Richard Branson and girl group The Saturdays.

Cameron is personally supportive. A vote is unlikely to arise in the next year since a bill for the reform of civil marriage was not included in the Queen's speech earlier this month, but Downing Street stressed again this week the government's determination to get it onto the statute book before the end of the parliament.

The Commons leader, Sir George Young, confirmed on Thursday that a vote on this issue would be treated as a matter of conscience and would not be whipped.

Paterson became the first cabinet minister to air his opposition. In a letter to a constituent, recently published on the PoliticsHome website, he wrote: "Having considered this matter carefully, I am afraid that I have come to the decision not to support gay marriage."

Opposition to the plans within government has also been aired by Tim Loughton, the children's minister, who last week made the case for the issue of gay marriage to be a matter of personal conscience "rather than of party political line or institutionalised agenda".

He wrote on his website: "The prime minister has clearly set out his reasons for being in favour of gay marriage and I respect his right to do so. But, I particularly respect his acknowledgement that this should be a matter of personal beliefs and that Conservative MPs at least will be free to make up their own minds.

"As such, I have to say that my instinct is not to support these proposals and, as it stands, I intend to vote against measures to legalise gay marriage".

Ban Ki-moon and other United Nations officials think Rio+20 is unlikely to replicate breakthroughs of 1992 global summit

The United Nations chief, Ban Ki-moon, held out little hope on Thursday of an historic outcome at the Rio global development summit, now less than a month away, admitting negotiations had been "painfully slow".

The warning was the latest from United Nations officials and others involved in preparations that the summit, known as Rio+20, is unlikely to replicate the breakthrough achievements of the original environmental gathering in the city in 1992.

Ban, who has made sustainable development and climate change his signature issues as secretary-general, was candid about the difficulties of having world leaders engage with Rio.

"The negotiations have been painfully slow," he told a group of journalists at the United Nations foundation on Thursday.

The pace was so sluggish, in fact, that Ban prevailed on the international community to agree to an extra five days of talks, from 29 May to 2 June. The last-minute talks were aimed at getting at producing a face-saving outcome for a summit, which so far has failed to engage world leaders.

With Barack Obama focused on his re-election, and European leaders focused on the financial crisis, the advance work for Rio has been left to bureaucrats who do not have the political clout to make the kind of bold decisions that would allow a breakthrough.

Negotiations were bogged down on minor details and narrow national interests which, Ban said, had overwhelmed far more important issue of setting the world on the right track for sustainable growth.

At one point, the negotiating text ballooned to an impossibly unwieldy 6,000 pages Ban said. It was currently about 80 pages.

Other UN officials involved in Rio preparations have also rued the failure of world leaders to fully engage with the summit. But Ban added urgency to their concerns on Thursday.

"My message is that this is not the time to argue against any small, small items. Please do not lose (sight of the) bigger picture," Ban said. "This is not the end. Rio+20 is just the beginning of many processes so they should be flexible. They should rise above national interests or specific group interests."

He admitted the lack of urgency in the negotiations had drastically lowered expectations for Rio. "There is some scepticism about whether this conference will be a success," Ban said. But he added that he remained optimistic.

Ban's remarks mark the second time since mid-April in which he has tried to get world leaders to focus on the Rio+20 summit. For Obama, attendance at the summit would be politically toxic in an election year.

Nancy Sutley, a White House environmental advisor, on Wednesday said the administration had yet to decide which officials to send to Rio.

In his remarks, Ban said the summit had identified five main areas of concern including developing a global strategy for developing a green economy to putting in place the institutions that would encourage social development, such as improvements in health and education, along with economic growth.

But he indicated that the most progress could happen outside the government negotiations, with ten of thousands of business leaders, activists, and environmentalists descending on Rio to make their case for a greener and more equitable model of development.

Bobby Womack is so proud of his magnificent new album, The Bravest Man in the Universe, that nothing will stop him talking about it. Alexis Petridis gets an audience at the soul legend's hospital bedside

The nurse attending Bobby Womack wears an expression for which the phrase "long-suffering" was invented. "Can I give you your meds?" she asks, proffering a handful of tablets. "Potassium, magnesium, something for blood sugar," she explains. Seated in his hospital bed, naked from the waist up save for a pair of immense bejewelled sunglasses, monitors attached to his chest, his thinning hair dyed yellow and what seems to be a tattoo of himself in full song on his right bicep, the singer makes a grunting noise that could well indicate assent but could equally herald the start of what would clearly be the umpteenth argument of the day. "Potassium, magnesium, something for blood sugar," she repeats firmly. "Take them. Be a good boy," she adds, before hurriedly exiting the room.

You get the feeling that dealing with the man some people call The Greatest Soul Singer In The World constitutes the short straw for the staff of Encino Medical Centre in Los Angeles. Already suffering from a tumour on his colon – it is later removed and found to be non-cancerous – he was admitted this morning with breathing difficulties, apparently much against his will. Apparently much against the medical staff's will, he has insisted our interview go ahead regardless: for the first time in 12 years, Bobby Womack has a new album, The Bravest Man In The Universe, recorded in London last year. It was co-produced by his former collaborator in Gorillaz, Damon Albarn, and Richard Russell, head of Womack's new label XL and, following his work on Gil Scott Heron's triumphant final album I'm New Here, something of a past master at encouraging errant soul legends back to the studio.

The album, which sets Womack's careworn voice and acoustic guitar against clattering electronics, and mixes old gospel songs with guest appearances by Lana Del Rey, is a triumph. It may even be as magnificent as all the other magnificent albums Womack has released: his peerless soundtrack to Across 110th Street; 1968's Fly Me To The Moon and 1972's Understanding; The Poet and The Poet 2, where his voice chafed beautifully against the slick 80s production. Womack proclaims The Bravest Man in the Universe "the best thing I've ever done" and he clearly isn't minded to let a trifling matter like being rushed to hospital get in the way of promoting it.

"The doctor said I've got pneumonia," he growls. "It's bad enough to take my life. I said: 'I'm gettin' out of here.' I was raising a big fight in there." Chief among his weapons was his threat to simply leave the hospital and die, which on the one hand seems a little dramatic, but on the other feels entirely in keeping with 68 years already so filled with drama as to beggar belief. "I know one thing, I can walk out of this hospital any time I want to. If I chose to leave, and die, it's my life. You can't stop it. Mentally, spiritually, if I don't feel like I wanna live no more, I don't wanna live no more. Ain't nothing you can do about that." He chuckles. "I'm mad at everything. Damn, man, I'm supposed to be doing an interview. They tricked me into being here."

Being rushed to hospital because you're suffering from potential fatal pneumonia doesn't seem much like being tricked, but then the interview doesn't seem much like an interview either. Indeed, it resembles one only in so far as I'm an interviewer and I'm in the same room as Womack. I haven't said anything to him yet, beyond hello, at which point he embarks upon a monologue that continues unabated for an hour. It leaps without warning from topic to topic: during one particularly head-spinning section we go from Muhammad Ali's unerring ability to find racist undercurrents in innocuous adverts, to Aretha Franklin's love of soap operas to Martin Luther King in the space of about two minutes. It takes in both gruff homespun wisdom ("I don't wanna be a star because stars fall from the sky, and when they hit the ground they turn into a rock and a rock ain't no good unless you bust someone in the head with it") and, at one juncture, the impossibly winning phrase "your mama only got one titty and that's full of wine".

"I'm skipping subjects, but that's what I do," he offers. "If there's any questions you wanna ask, just ask me," he says, with a laugh that seems to carry a parenthetical "best of luck with that". "But I'll talk myself and I'll tell you the real deal."

But I don't ask any questions. That's partly because, even nearing 70, frail and occasionally struggling for breath, Womack has something about him that precludes interrupting. He still undeniably has the aura of, as Richard Russell puts it, "a badass", who somehow survived a childhood in Cleveland amid poverty so grinding that even the projects seemed like a distant land of plenty ("They didn't have no rats in the projects," reasons Womack. "I thought, boy, they get that for free?"), 30 years of drug addiction and enough personal tragedy to fell the most stoic man. He has outlived virtually all of his peers, something even he seems faintly startled by. "Ain't none of those people living now, and they were all around the same age as me," he frowns. "I made it. They didn't do no drugs and they died anyway. There's got to be a reason."

But the main reason I sit back and let Womack speak is because everything he says is fascinating, an endless stream of anecdotes with an impossibly starry cast drawn from what may be the most remarkable CV in music: he is, as Albarn notes, "like Zelig". He formed his first gospel group with his five brothers before he had reached his teens. A few years later, their father kicked them out when they announced they wanted to play secular music. They were mentored by Sam Cooke, who moved them to LA and whose band Womack joined, touring a segregated America. "Sam used to tell me, whenever you got some money, you go get yourself a good ring and a good watch. Why would I need that? And Sam would say, you might have to get outta town quickly, before you get paid, and you can always hock that ring and that watch."

He played with James Brown and Ray Charles and toured with a young Jimi Hendrix. He wrote The Last Time, which the Rolling Stones turned into a global hit, a state of affairs that did not overly delight Womack. "To be honest with you, I said: 'Let the Rolling Stones get their own fuckin' record and record that.'" He worked with the Stones decades later, on 1986's Dirty Work: he liked Keith Richards and Ron Wood, but "had a problem with Mick Jagger". "Some people never grow up if you give 'em too much," he grimaces. "They gonna be assholes, then they just become a bigger asshole."

He spent time as a session guitarist in Memphis, where he played with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and on Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis. He also played on Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds, which didn't impress him much either. "People say: 'What did you think of Elvis Presley?' I say: 'He wasn't shit. Everything he got he stole.'"

He returned to LA, where he recorded Trust Me and Mercedes Benz with Janis Joplin on the day she died – he was the last person to see the singer alive, save for the drug dealer who sold her the smack that killed her – and moved into the Bel-Air mansion where the coke-addled sessions for Sly And The Family Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On were in full swing: "It was a circus." He was working with Marvin Gaye when the latter was murdered. "The last time I saw him, the day before he died, he said: 'Bobby, what's a nigger got to do to get on the cover of Rolling Stone?' It was all white acts. I said: 'Die.'" He sighs. "It's bullshit, it's really bullshit. One of the greatest singers in the world. Marvin never knew he was gonna be as big as he is. Now you hear him on commercials every day."

Occasionally, he sounds mad at everything. He hates hip-hop. "What the shit is that?" he spits. "No melody. Generations are coming up, if they have to listen to bullshit, they'll grow up bullshitty. People don't respect their mom, say they're gonna knock her out. White kids trying to be black because they're confused. I say to them, you wanna be black? You're gonna have a hard time!"

He's angry at America for criticising the Obama administration – "He got four years to straighten out 50 years of bullshit, shit's been going on a long time, but they gotta put it on the black man" – angry at the music industry for ripping off artists, himself included, and, furthermore, angry he was admitted to the hospital without his sunglasses. The latter situation at least has been rectified by the arrival of the three young women he introduces as his nieces. They are indeed his nieces, daughters of his brother Cecil and Linda Cook, better known as Womack And Womack, the duo behind the 80s hits Love Wars and Teardrops. But thanks to what you might charitably call Bobby Womack's complicated personal life, they're also the grand-daughters of his ex-wife: Bobby married Linda's mother, Sam Cooke's widow Barbara, shortly after the murder of her husband, a move that proved so controversial it scuppered his career for years. And they're also the daughters of his ex-lover: with his marriage to Barbara failing, Womack began an affair with his step-daughter, which ended when his wife discovered them together and expressed her displeasure in no uncertain terms by shooting him.

Incredibly, this was just another incident in a life filled with turmoil. Two of his sons are dead – one, Truth Bobby, suffocated in 1978 aged four months after being left unattended, while Vincent, the little boy pictured on the cover of his 1972 album Understanding, killed himself in 1986. Another son, Bobby Jr, is in jail for second-degree murder. His brother Harry, the subject of his 1972 hit Harry Hippie, was stabbed to death in Womack's home by a jealous girlfriend. In the late 90s, Womack finally kicked a 30-year cocaine addiction, but found himself despondent. "When I walked away from that I lost a lot of so-called friends. I was ready to check out. I knew more people dead than I knew living. Now I say, God, what a fool I've been. Put my music on hold. It was my life. A God-given gift."

He credits Albarn – "a sweetheart" - with re-igniting his interest in music, first by co-opting him into Gorillaz, then by offering to co-produce The Bravest Man In The Universe. He was, he says, equally startled by Russell's appearance in the studio. "I thought it was one of Damon's friends. I didn't know he was president of the record company. Never in my 50 years have I had the president of a record company come in and play with me. Normally, you got to fight them for every goddam song. I didn't understand a lot of things they were doing, to tell you the truth. I'd say: 'Damn, what the fuck is that?' They said: 'That's you! Took your voice, speeded it backwards.' I would never have dreamed of doing stuff like that, but I wanted to related to the people today. Bad as I been, I can sing my ass off, better than I could before. Maybe it's been preserved or something. If I can take control of my life from drugs, divorces, anything, I stand tall." He frowns. "I'm speaking for all those singers who gave up. Marvin, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett: I can keep naming them until you say OK, I got enough. They need more respect than can ever be given to them. And I'm gonna set the record straight."

Albarn calls Womack "a force of nature", which sounds like a knowing understatement. "He's booked himself in to headline Lovebox," he laughs incredulously, "which I find extraordinary. I mean, if he's there, I'm there. I've got great faith that he's going to pull through all the problems he's got at the moment. You wouldn't ordinarily think that, but because it's Bobby Womack I don't really think his time is up in any sense of the word. It's just an instinctive thing. I can't really explain it. Do you know what I mean?"

I do. Another nurse arrives in the room. She too wears a long-suffering expression, but this time it's coupled with a purposeful air, which seems to indicate the interview is over. But Womack waves her away. He has something else to tell me. "I talked for hours and if I find out you only done an article on me this big" – he indicates a tiny space with his thumb and forefinger – "I swear to God, when I throw a punch, I've lost my cool, I can't take no more of this shit and whoever's in front of me is in trouble. I'm serious." The nurse, having finally lost her own cool, starts strapping an oxygen mask to his face, but Womack is still talking. "You better not bullshit me, boy!" he laughs. "Don't think I ain't gonna be back!" I wouldn't doubt it for a minute. And neither should you.