Jamie Fahey: Now you know your popular orange vegetables from your war-torn republics, can you work out what these phrases refer to?

John Yates, the assistant Metropolitan police commissioner, tells MPs that police are likely to interview the prime minister's director of communications

David Cameron's PR chief faces police questioning over the phone tapping affair, MPs were told today.

John Yates, the assistant Metropolitan police commissioner, told the home affairs select committee that police were likely to interview Andy Coulson, the prime minister's director of communications and former editor of News of the World, and "take stock after that".

During his evidence session, Yates gave the first sign of a concession that the Met's original phone hacking inquiry four years ago could have been more thorough. He said it may have been better if the officers had interviewed "the Neville person" – Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World's chief reporter, who was named on correspondence relating to phone hacking.

He told MPs police were considering new material following the "very serious allegations" made last week by Sean Hoare, a former reporter at the News of the World.

Yates was giving evidence the day after Labour MP Tom Watson warned that British democracy risked becoming a "laughing stock" around the world unless allegations about phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World were fully investigated.

But he refused to be drawn on whether the criminal investigation was being reopened, telling MPs that the suggestion of an ongoing live investigation was "a matter of semantics".

The Met has come under renewed pressure over its handling of the original case amid fresh claims that the force's 2006 investigation into phone tapping by the Sunday tabloid had lacked rigour and missed the scale of intrusion into people's privacy.

The hacking scandal blew up again last week after the New York Times published a lengthy article including the claim that Coulson freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques during his time as editor of the tabloid.

Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World after its royal reporter and a private investigator were jailed. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge of phone hacking.

But Hoare, a former reporter who used to be a close friend of Coulson, told the NYT that when he worked with Coulson at the Sun, he personally played recordings of hacked voicemail messages for him and that later, when he worked for Coulson at the News of the World, he "continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits". Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it", Hoare said.

Yates said Hoare's claims represented new material and said police would see him "at some stage in the near future and consider what he has to say".

The police would then consider the necessity of seeing Coulson, he said.

"But at some stage I imagine we will be interviewing Mr Coulson," Yates told MPs.

Yates said Scotland Yard's attempts to seek help from the New York Times had been rebuffed. The US title had already indicated they were not prepared to help the police, citing journalistic privilege, he said.

Yates told MPs that colleagues had written to the NYT again to urge them to waive that privilege because of the "quite exceptional circumstances" surrounding the case, though he admitted he was "not hopeful".

He refused to say who was on the list of people who may have had their phones hacked, but confirmed that Lord Prescott was not on the list.

MPs were told that being on a list did not mean someone's phone had been hacked. Yates told them that the police only found evidence of crimes being committed in about 12 cases.

Committee chair Keith Vaz suggested that the committee might open a full inquiry into the affair.

Watson, the Labour backbencher, who in the Commons yesterday issued a point-by-point rebuttal of arguments by ministers and News International dismissing calls for a judicial inquiry, today urged Yates to look further than just Hoare's claims.

"John Yates has said that he'll investigate the new allegations made by Sean Hoare but has steadfastly refused to investigate his strongest lead – the existence of an illegally hacked phone message provided by Glenn Mulcaire and transcribed by News of the World reporter Ross Hall," he said.

"If anything in this case is a smoking gun – establishing that Clive Goodman was not just a rogue reporter – it is this. The Met police continues its disdainful disinclination to actually investigate this case. The public and parliament expect answers. He should interview Ross Hall."

Yates had earlier indicated to the committee he felt interviewing Hall would make no difference to the inquiry.

• Andy Coulson
• News of the World phone-hacking scandal
• Newspapers & magazines
• Newspapers
• News of the World
• National newspapers
• David Cameron

Presenter hits out at racing driver Ben Collins, AKA the Stig, and says Top Gear is 'damaged but not out'

Top Gear co-host Jeremy Clarkson has said that the man who plays the Stig is "sacked" and admitted he was "hurt" that Ben Collins decided to unmask himself as the show's anonymous white-suited driver.

Clarkson said that "Top Gear is damaged but not out", adding that he has spent the last three weeks "doing nothing but work out what to do instead", after it emerged that Collins was planning to out himself as the Stig in his autobiography.

The BBC failed last week to have an injunction granted to stop Collins, the racing driver who has played the Stig since 2003, from publishing his book.

Clarkson said he felt "a bit hurt really". "It was such a shock. It was horrible actually because I liked him and he came round to my house and had drinks and all that time he was writing a book," he added, in a video interview published online today by Oxfordshire-based community news service WitneyTV.

"He's just decided he'd rather be ... put it this way he's history as far as we are concerned. He's sacked," said Clarkson, who was interviewed at a charity auction at Chipping Norton Lido.

"I've spent the last three weeks doing nothing but trying work out what out what an earth to do instead. You may remember a film called Wall Street in which Gordon Gekko said greed was good and greed works. It doesn't, if you're watching this children, greed is bad," he added.

Clarkson hinted that the Stig as a character may no longer continue on Top Gear, saying: "Trust me, we have many, many thousands of people queueing up to be whatever it is we create."

Collins is the second person to play the Stig who has revealed his identity. Previously another racing driver, Perry McCarthy, played a black-suited Stig but was replaced by Collins as the white Stig in 2003 after McCarthy also revealed his identity in a book.

When asked who might replace Collins, Clarkson said: "Richard can't drive and James is too slow. We'll get somebody, don't you worry. Top Gear is damaged but not out. I'd love to have [David] Cameron do it."

The prime minister is the local MP for Witney.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• Jeremy Clarkson
• Top Gear
• Factual TV
• Television
• BBC

Metropolitan police assistant commissioner tells home affairs select committee ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson will face police questions

Why should sex, alone among all forms of human interaction, be thought to spawn malignant magic when money changes hands?

Power corrupts. Even the high ethical standards of prostitutes would probably plunge down to near-politician levels if they wielded legal authority over their fellow citizens. Since politicos actually do, they turn the mighty power of the state not just on legitimate threats to the commonweal, but anything they find annoying or distasteful.

Which is why, if you visit the Craigslist website, you'll find the links to their "adult services" section gone, replaced by the word "censored". You can't blame Craigslist for caving under pressure, not when the attorneys general of 18 different states all threatened legal action at once. Craigslist might win if it countersued on free-speech grounds, but they can't afford the long, costly legal battles such victory would require.

"Adult" services, of course, is a euphemism for "sexual" services. Lawmakers hated Craigslist from the get-go because sex workers used it to advertise their services. Yet if you listen to politicians praise themselves now that the ads are gone, you won't hear much talk about banning activity between consenting adults. No, politicos prefer to invoke The Children. In a statement her office released Saturday, California congresswoman Jackie Speier blamed websites such as Craigslist for child prostitution. "We can't forget the victims, we can't rest easy. Child sex trafficking continues and lawmakers need to fight future machinations of internet-driven sites that peddle children."

No argument there: forcing children into prostitution is an utterly abhorrent crime. Forcing anybody into prostitution is, and when callous sociopaths turn innocent victims into sexual slaves for their own profit, it's undeniably good when police shut down these loathsome enterprises.

Yet when attorneys general started crusading against Craigslist, it wasn't kidnapping rapists they worried about, but adults who made money selling consensual services. In my own state of Connecticut, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (now a Senate candidate) has been on the Craigslist warpath since at least 2008. That March, his office put out a press release saying: "As a small step in response to my concerns, Craigslist now requires anyone posting a listing in the erotic services section to provide a phone number. This step, however, will hardly deter the prostitution problem on the site, and may indeed make it worse. Many of the most graphic solicitations already include a telephone number to enable prospective patrons of their services to contact them."

But now it's about the children. Why do so many politicos cling to the fiction that the best way to stop coerced sex acts is to criminalise consensual ones? Maybe that's an unfair question; it's not just lawmakers who claim this. Anytime you suggest legalised prostitution might be better than the dangerous, illegal status quo, opponents always raise the spectre of sexual slavery.

And it's not only prostitutes whose opponents blur the line between coercion and consent; any sex-themed work inspires such dishonesty. I've faced it personally: in my university days I worked as a stripper and now, years later, occasionally wax nostalgic about it on websites like this. Without fail, whenever I write on the theme "Ich bin ein ex-go go dancer," a subset of the commentariat insists I was exploited, whether I knew it or not. Contributed to the oppression of others. And what about enslaved women forced to become strippers, huh?

The protests are exponentially more heated when ex-prostitutes write to defend their trade. Too many otherwise sensible people believe sex, alone among all forms of human interaction, spawns some malignant magic whenever money changes hands. It's still perfectly legal to search for sex on Craigslist; you just can't exchange cash for it.

In other news from last week, prosecutors in Maricopa County, Arizona, decided there is insufficient evidence to charge prison guards over the May 2009 death of inmate Marcia Powell, who was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution when officials locked her in an outdoor cage under the 107-degree desert sun for four hours. She died in hospital later that evening. Guards deny allegations they refused her requests for water; witnesses say otherwise, and the autopsy shows Powell died of complications from heat exposure, and had no signs of hydration. Her corpse had a core temperature of 108 degrees, plus burns and blisters all over her body, which is not to say her captors did anything criminal. At least she wasn't selling herself on some filthy street corner or sleazy website, right? Ask anyone who supports the Craigslist crackdown: they'll tell you laws against prostitution are needed to protect women like Powell from dangerous and degrading circumstances.

How would America be different if consensual prostitution were legal? On the plus side, Marcia Powell probably wouldn't have broiled to death. As a minus, she would have continued exchanging sex for money, and the Craigslist brouhaha is merely the latest anecdote showing how lawmakers utterly abhor people who do that. America is determined to knock out prostitution, and our legal system never pulls its punches.

• Craigslist
• Internet
• Advertising
• Prostitution
• United States

TV's toughest quiz is back (sorry, University Challenge). And my questions helped to make it so fiendish. So how do we go about writing them - and can you solve this one?

It's a great icebreaker at parties. "So, what do you do?"

"I'm a question-setter."

"You're a what?"

"Have you seen Only Connect, the quiz show on BBC4?"

"Oh, the one that makes me feel stupid."

"Never mind."

Perhaps it's disingenuous to say it's what I do; there isn't quite enough question-setting work to keep me in full-time employment. But every few months, I put my regular tasks to one side and spend two weeks huddled over my computer doing my darnedest to stump people.

I can see how some, in this hyperconnected era, might scoff at my trade. Surely any idiot with a bottle of wine and the "random article" feature of Wikipedia can knock out a few quiz questions? Well, yes, but for one thing: Wikipedia is banned. You're allowed to browse it for ideas, but each question has to be supplied with two authoritative sources, and Wikipedia, susceptible as it is to mischief-makers, is not on the approved list.

So if you're providing a question such as [picture of cat's paw] [picture of Tom Cruise] [picture of tin can] [picture of the letter G] (answer: things that make a new word when you repeat them), the sourcing is easy – Collins, OED. But to which infallible authority do you turn, for example, for types of cake, or Monopoly pieces?

Coming up with weird connections and unusual sequences can be tremendous fun. But the most lucrative – and most challenging – part of the Only Connect gig is coming up with those fiendish Connecting Walls.

Sixteen elements; four categories of four. Some elements must fit into more than one category. Not too many surnames. No more than one category per wall of the form "[blank] Harry, Gordon, flood, photography" (The answer here is "flash"). Four semantically discrete categories. At least one highbrow (arts, literature, history); no more than one lowbrow (TV, slang phrases). Ideally, one "phantom" category (some of the words suggest a category that is not there). And on top of all that, there must only be one possible solution. I generally leave the walls until last.

David Bodycombe, the show's question editor since it started two years ago, sets about half the questions himself, and gets the rest from a pool of around 25 setters. "We look for people who have a polymath approach," he says. "One of the most fun things about Only Connect is that you can ask questions ranging from the odes of John Keats to the women on Sex and the City."

So what's the perfect Only Connect question? "Peter [Jamieson, series producer] and I work hard on making sure the questions have a good 'journey' – that is, your perception of the possible answer changes as each new clue is revealed. My favourite questions involve things that you think are rare but happen more often than you think, such as companies that are sold for £1, things that are made from melted-down guns, or films with weathermen as the lead character."

To help with decisions as to which questions are too difficult and which are too easy, questions are graded from 1 (guessable early by most teams) to 5 (expert insight required). "At the heat levels, levels 1-2 are used. By the grand final, they're mostly 5s," Bodycombe says. "In each board of six questions, we try to ensure there's a good mix of subject-matter as well as ensuring there are some with a lateral twist, a word or number puzzle, and that both high and pop culture are catered for."

And finally, why didn't they use more of my blood-, sweat- and tear-drenched questions this series? All right, I didn't ask him that. But Bodycombe reckons that of all the questions that are submitted for each series, only about 10% make it into the show.

So here's an example of a round 2 question – a sequence – that didn't make the grade:

Clue 1: Wolf 359

Clue 2: Barnard's Star

Clue 3: Alpha Centauri

Clue 4: ??

How quickly did you get it (before you went to Wikipedia)? And for a bonus point, why was it deemed unusable? [A warning: you might want to avoid the comment field until you've solved it, to avoid spoilers].

• Series 4 of Only Connect started on BBC4 last night and continues until Christmas.

• Television
• BBC4

Google logo celebrates search engine's 12th birthday and shows off programmers' skills with interactive 'bouncing balls'

For its 12th birthday, the Google logo shows off what programmers can do with a few lines of code, in the latest of its long line of attention-getting "doodles". The logo on Google's homepage is made out of a set of bouncing "balls" that swirl around the page in modern browsers such as its own Chrome, Firefox, Apple's Safari and some versions of Opera – but not in older versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (though the most recent version, IE8, does).

Google officially opened its doors – or rather door – 12 years ago in Menlo Park California. As the company history explains:

"On September 7, 1998, Google Inc. opened its door in Menlo Park, California. The door came with a remote control, as it was attached to the garage of a friend who sublet space to the new corporation's staff of three. The office offered several big advantages, including a washer and dryer and a hot tub. It also provided a parking space for the first employee hired by the new company: Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.

"Already Google.com, still in beta, was answering 10,000 search queries each day. The press began to take notice of the upstart website with the relevant search results, and articles extolling Google appeared in USA TODAY and Le Monde. That December, PC Magazine named Google one of its Top 100 Web Sites and Search Engines for 1998. Google was moving up in the world"

But rather than looking back, Google's doodle today looks ahead to the next version of the computer code that delineates the web. The doodle actually consists of lots of pieces of a web page, each using a modern form of web coding called CSS3 – "Cascading Style Sheet" elements. Each circle is actually an element called a "div" – an element into which the page is divided – which contains an instruction in its associated piece of CSS3 to make it circular rather than square or rectangular. The code also contains instructions so that if the cursor is moved near to any of the "bubbles", they try to move away.

Programmers around the web quickly reverse-engineered the code, and posted it online.

In the past Google's doodles have celebrated the anniversaries of the Wizard of Oz and of Popeye, not to mention Queen Elizabeth II.

The aim of the logo seems to be to draw attention to the importance of CSS3, an emerging standard which is being developed as the next version of the web language HTML, called HTML5, is being ratified by the World Wide Web Consortium,

Google has been eager to push HTML5 and CSS3, and its Chrome browser, because it offers many more possibilities in the design of web pages, which could be more interactive with less effort by designers. It has produced HTML5 versions of its video site YouTube so that they will be more mobile-friendly for people whose smartphones cannot cope with Adobe Flash content, usually used for video content on desktop computers.

HTML5 and CSS3 have the capability to do many of the fiunctions presently carried out by Adobe Flash, which has led Steve Jobs at Apple to champion HTML5 as an open standard rather than a proprietary one owned and controlled by Adobe; that in turn has led to angry divisions in the technology world over the benefits of Flash.

Much of the reaction to the new doodle was positive: rather like the occasion when it created a fully functional copy of the arcade game Pac-Man (which is still functional, people have found the bubbles an entertainment rather than an annoyance.

The doodle wasn't loved by all. Louise Bolotin commented on Twitter: "I hate today's Google doodle. Those balls are a nightmare for those with visual problems" – a point not always borne in mind when designing sites which have a lot of what you might call moving parts.

Browsershots.org has screenshots of the site taken today on a wide range of browsers – indicating which ones do and do not display the "bubbles".

• Google doodle
• Google
• HTML5
• Digital media

ITV1's new breakfast show begins with healthy figures, but still trails to BBC1's Breakfast

Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley attracted just over 1 million viewers for their ITV1 debut on new breakfast show Daybreak yesterday, Monday 6 September.

Daybreak was watched by 1.015 million viewers and attracted a 24.9% audience share from 6am on ITV1 and ITV1 HD.

BBC1's rival show Breakfast maintained the healthy ratings lead it had over Daybreak's predecessor, GMTV, with 1.405 million (32.4%).

Lorraine Kelly's revamped and extended show, Lorraine, also returned between 8.30am and 9.25am with 1.098 million (21.2%) on ITV1 and ITV1 HD.

GMTV averaged 689,000 (18.3%) over its last four Mondays on air, while Breakfast averaged 1.188 (33%) over the same period.

In the same week last year, commencing Monday 7 September, GMTV averaged 660,000 viewers (17.9%), while Lorraine averaged 898,000 (20.5%).

Yesterday evening saw the launch of the remake of steamy 1970s drama Bouquet of Barbed Wire on ITV1 and ITV1 HD, starring Trever Eve, Hermione Norris and Imogen Poots. It won the 9pm hour, attracting 5.195 million (20.8%) across the two channels.

Competition on the main channels came from BBC1's Who Do You Think You Are? (4.912 million/19.7%), BBC2's Dragons' Den (2.7 million/10.8%, BBC HD 86,000/0.3%), Channel 4's new series My Family's Crazy Gap Year (1.131 million/4.5%, C4+1 199,000/1.1%) and Channel 5's movie repeat The Last of the Mohicans (1.131 million/5.6%).

Elsewhere last night new comedy Him & Her, starring Russell Tovey and Sarah Solemani, launched on BBC3 with 567,000 (3.6%, BBC HD 54,000/0.3%). This was the channel's best ever ratings for a new sitcom's launch episode.

BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel Five (available in all UK homes with TV, except Channel 5, which reaches about 95%)

BBC1

8pm: EastEnders – 9.102 million/36.1%

BBC2

10pm: Grandma's House – 991,000/4.9%, BBC HD 43,000/0.2%

ITV1/ITV1 HD

10.35pm: Surgery School – 1.245 million/10.1%

Channel 4

8pm: Come Dine with Me: Big Brother Winners – 1.977 million/7.9%, 701,000/2.8%

Channel 5

7.30pm: How Do They Do It? - 733,000/3.2%

Available in 23.4m UK homes – 91.4% of total – as of 31/12/09. Source: Ofcom digital progress report, Q4 2009

ITV2

9pm: Hell's Kitchen USA (new series) – 299,000/1.2%

10pm: Hell's Kitchen USA – 340,000/1.9%

E4

9pm: One Tree Hill – 322,000/1.3%

BBC3

8.30pm: Doctor Who at the Proms 2010 – 521,000/2.1%

BBC4

8.30pm: Only Connect (new series) – 457,000/1.8%

9pm: People's Palaces: the Golden Age of Civic Architecture (new series) – 188,000/0.8%

10pm: Storyville: Marriage Chinese Style – When My Child Is Born – 133,000/0.8%

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• TV ratings
• Television industry
• Daybreak
• Television
• Adrian Chiles

Well-known Afghan journalist Sayed Hamid Noori died on Sunday after being found with stab wounds outside his Kabul home.

President Hamid Karzai issued a statement ordering authorities to spare no effort in bringing the killers to justice.

Noori, a former state television presenter and newspaper editor, was vice president of Afghanistan's Association of Independent Journalists (AIJ) and a teacher of young journalists.

AIJ president Abdul Hameed Mubarez said Noori had left home after receiving a series of phone calls, suggesting that he either knew his assailants or had been set up.

Source: AP/ABC

• Journalist safety
• Afghanistan
• Press freedom
• Greenslade on Asia

I promised yesterday to write about the News of the World's exposure of Wayne Rooney's (alleged) "romps with a £1,200-a-time hooker." [see Keith Waterhouse's republished Waterhouse On Newspaper Style for the absurd use of "romp" by tabloids].

The story has had an even greater impact - in media terms - than the paper's Pakistan cricket revelations. Today's newspapers are full of it.

There's The Sun with 'I don't need you anymore' and an intro stating: "Cheating Wayne Rooney's marriage looked over last night - after wife Coleen told him: 'I don't need you anymore.'"

The Daily Mail goes with Divorce? I don't care, Wayne Rooney tells friends. Intro: "Wayne Rooney has told friends he will make no attempt to rescue his marriage if his wife decides to leave him."

The Daily Express is not so sure (or simply behind the news) because it claims that Coleen is "agonising over her marriage."

The Daily Mirror splashes on ROO'S GIRL No2: Wayne Rooney facing new sex romp claims.

The paper also quotes a "source" as saying: "Coleen will be distraught that there are more women preparing to make claims about their grubby ­liaisons with her husband." [Sounds like we're getting into Tiger Woods territory].

And the Daily Star quotes the "fame-hungry" woman who made the original allegations, Jenny Thompson, as boasting that she has bedded 13 more football stars.

So, to use the tabloid jargon, the News of the World story has certainly had legs. But was there a genuine public interest in paying a prostitute to tell of her sexual liaisons with Rooney?

The paper's public interest defence - the one it always advances in such situations - is that of exposing hypocrisy by a high-profile public figure trading on a clean image.

Rooney, said the paper, "has crafted a brand of happy family life that's helped win big-money sponsorships and endorsements." [That's the Tiger tale again].

According to clause 1(iii) of the public interest definition in the editors' code of practice (as administered by the Press Complaints Commission) a paper has a right to prevent "the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation."

This is, as you can see, anything but a strict rule. But how could it be otherwise without being overly restrictive on press freedom?

In truth, much as I dislike the whole kiss-and-tell malarkey, it's hard to see what can be done to prevent it while people go on consuming the stuff with such enthusiasm (and don't tell me that they haven't done so this time).

But there is also no doubt about it being a sordid business in which Rooney, Thompson and the paper emerge with little credit.

Incidentally, the Rooney story has not been confined to the tabloids. There is plenty in the serious papers - though mostly in the sports pages - and it has been covered endlessly on loop tape news (aka Radio 5 Live and Sky News).

At one (rather low) level I suppose it is amusing - that's Richard Littlejohn's take, of course - and, at another, I guess it tells us something about overpaid footballers (as if we didn't know already) and modern morality.

Mostly though, it is vulgar entertainment for the masses. I doubt that Locke, Hobbes, Milton and Mill would have foreseen where their campaigns for freedom of the press would lead.

• Wayne Rooney
• News of the World
• The Sun
• Daily Mail
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Star
• Daily Express
• National newspapers
• Newspapers
• Tiger Woods

Director of children's Nick Wilson and senior programme controller Chris Shaw are among long-serving staff leaving

Some of Channel 5's longest-serving staff are taking voluntary redundancy from the broadcaster, including Nick Wilson, Chris Shaw and Robert Charles, as part of new owner Richard Desmond's cost-cutting drive.

Staff were told late yesterday that Wilson, director of children's programming; Shaw, senior programme controller; and controller of sport Robert Charles are leaving after all staff were invited to apply for voluntary redundancy last month.

Wilson, once described as the "Simon Cowell of children's television", has worked for the children's department since 1996, before Channel 5 launched, and set up the popular long-running preschool strand, Milkshake!.

Former ITN executive and News at Ten editor Shaw was the launch editor of the ground-breaking Five News in 1997, overseeing a more informal approach copied by other broadcasters, including Kirsty Young perching on her desk to read the news. 

He was later promoted to controller of news, current affairs and documentaries at Channel 5, before becoming senior programme controller.

Charles, a former controller of sport at Yorkshire Television, joined Channel 5 in 1997 and made live football a key feature of the channel's output, in addition to picking up Test match cricket highlights in 2006.

Others understood to be in line to be granted voluntary redundancy include entertainment head Donna Taberer and head of production Nan Whittingham – who both joined Five last year from Sky. Those taking voluntary will be leaving over the next few weeks.

Dawn Airey, the Channel 5 chairman and chief executive, is due to leave Five at the end of the week.

Airey is understood to have been asked to stay with Channel 5, but has chosen to move to the broadcaster's former owner RTL, the pan-European broadcaster that owns Talkback Thames, the London-based producer of The Apprentice and Britain's Got Talent. She is expected to be in her new role within RTL by the end of the year.

Channel 5 staff are currently in a consultation period about voluntary redundancies and more departures are expected. It is understood that the trawl for voluntary redundancy offered to staff last month was over-subscribed.

The offer is in line with the terms given last year, with four weeks' pay for every year served and payment in lieu of notice period.

Last month Desmond, the Daily Express and OK! proprietor, took a firm grip on Channel 5, with a brutal management cull that saw almost the entire executive board departing.

He wants to implement £20m in cuts that will lead to between 60 and 80 job losses – more than a quarter of about 300 employees.

In July Desmond paid £103.5m to buy the loss-making broadcaster from RTL.

A spokesman for Desmond's company Northern & Shell declined to comment.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• Channel 5
• Richard Desmond
• Media business
• RTL
• Television industry

Win tickets to hear Stephen read from The Fry Chronicles, the latest volume of his autobiography

Moab is my Washpot, Stephen Fry's autobiography of his early years, was was a huge bestseller when it was published 13 years ago. Since then, Fry has become one of the most influential cultural forces in the country and is much loved by the public and his peers.

To celebrate the release of his latest volume of autobiography, The Fry Chronicles, Stephen is performing and reading from his new book at the Royal Festival Hall on Monday 13 September.

The event is sold out but Extra members have the chance to win a pair of tickets to the show plus a signed limited edition of the book.

Even if you aren't the lucky winner you can still catch this event live, thanks to new satellite digital technology, which will broadcast the performance to over 60 cinemas throughout the country.

To find the cinema nearest to you go to www.frylive.com

The competition closes just before midnight this Thursday,
9 September

You can buy The Fry Chronicles for £14.00 from the Guardian Bookshop.

Click here to enter this competition

- You need to have joined Extra in order to redeem offers and enter competitions. You can sign up here
- You will need to be signed in at the top of the screen to be able to take up any offer or book tickets

• Stephen Fry

BT Fon app allows Total Broadband customers with an iPhone or Android phone to connect to the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot for free

BT has launched a mobile app for broadband customers that automatically connects their iPhone and Android mobiles to free, unlimited Wi-Fi.

The BT FON app, which is only available to BT Total Broadband customers, notifies users of the nearest Wi-Fi hot spots. Users then enter their BT internet email username and password, and can choose to be automatically logged in whenever they are in a BT Wi-Fi area.

Because access is unlimited and free for BT Total Broadband customers, this prevents them racking up extra costs on their mobile phone bill. BT FON and BT Openzone currently has 1.6m Wi-Fi hot spots worldwide.

Mike Wilson, manager of mobiles and broadband at moneysupermarket.com, said: "There are a lot of users who don't know that they can use their bundle minutes away from home. The application even has a map that shows users exactly where their closest hot spots are. It's a real asset to bundle users."

Apple's iPhone already offers a non-app-based search option for Wi-Fi connections, as does Android. Both are a standard free function of the handset, but search options often direct users to password protected hot spots as well as unlocked Wi-Fi providers, and access to them is not always free.

John Petter, managing director for BT Retail Consumer, said: "This represents real value to our customers at a time when more and more people are using their mobile phone to access the internet."

iPhone users can download the application from the app store (search for BT Fon) or by typing http://bit.ly/iPhoneBTFon into the iPhone's browser. Android users can download the application from the Android Market (search for BT Fon) or by typing http://bit.ly/AndroidBTFon into their browser. BBC's Children in Need appeal will receive 50p for each of the first 20,000 times the application is downloaded.

• Internet, phones & broadband
• Consumer affairs
• Broadband
• Internet
• Wi-Fi
• Telecoms
• Android
• Mobile phones
• Digital media
• iPhone

The Croydon Advertiser is to go free from this week. Sales of the south London weekly, priced at 60p, have fallen below 15,000 (compared to 21,500 five years ago).

The move, announced to readers in last week's issue, means that 70,000 copies will be distributed to households, though the paper will still be available to buy at newsagents.

Editor Andy Worden was quoted as saying that "advertisers have... been telling us they want the paper to reach more people". [When did advertisers say anything else?]

The Advertiser is owned by Northcliffe Media, the regional newspaper division of the Daily Mail & General Trust. Its recent history is a classic example of the decline of local papers.

Launched as broadsheet in 1869, it was converted into a tabloid in March 2006. That didn't stop the sales rot, so it went in for a redesign earlier this year. That had little or no effect. Now comes a freesheet (with, supposedly, more pages).

Its major rival, the Croydon Guardian (prop: Newsquest/Gannett), is also a free.

According to its Wikipedia entry, the Advertiser's alumni include David Randall, an executive on the Independent on Sunday and author of the excellent book The Universal Journalist, and Malcolm Starbrook, now the energetic editor of the East London Advertiser.

PS: I wrote recently about the Advertiser carrying an advert for a massage parlour that the paper then exposed as a brothel. According to the online news outlet, Inside Croydon, it has repeatedly published the ad in spite of a Northcliffe executive telling me it was an accident and that it would be pulled. See Steve Dyson's sensible thoughts on this issue.

• Media downturn
• Regional & local newspapers
• Freesheets
• Northcliffe Media
• Daily Mail & General Trust
• Newsquest
• Gannett
• Advertising
• Independent on Sunday

If you are viewing this on the web and would prefer to get it as an email every morning, please click here

Phone-hacking inquiry halted to spare police
Leaked memo warned police would 'deeply resent' independent inquiry into News of the World phone-hacking

BBC executive board must cut their pay now
Maggie Brown: Mark Thompson promised 'significant movement' on executive pay – I'll believe it when I see it

The Times newsroom shake-up includes new deputy home editor
Mike Smith takes deputy home editor role, and there are new appointments on foreign and Times2 desks

Oxford University Press - Assistant Marketing Managers
Oxford/permanent/full time

Haymarket - Project Editor
London/permanent/full time

Medaxial - Medical/Economic Writer
London/permanent/full time

For more jobs, career advice and workplace news visit guardianjobs.co.uk

The Guardian

Phone-hack inquiry was abandoned to avoid upsetting Met Police. P1
Review of ITV1's new breakfast show, Daybreak. P5
Home secretary under fire over phone-hack claims. P6
Phone-hack investigation may be reopened as police face pressure on
several fronts. P6
The phone-hack affair - who said what. P6
Michael White's sketch: Theresa May sticks to autocue as Labour looks
for revenge. P7
Diary: will Gary Lineker be leaving the News of the World? P33
Aditya Chakrabortty on BBC cuts. G2, P5
TV review: ITV1's Bouquet of Barbed Wire. G2, P25
Lucy Mangan on MTV's The Hard Times of RJ Berger. G2, P27

The Independent

Andy Coulson faces new Commons inquiry into phone-hacking. P1,5
Facebook threats force French minister to cancel wedding. P3
"Culture of fear" inside News of the World. P6
Sketch: if this isn't fresh phone-hacking evidence, what is? P5
ITV1's Daybreak reviewed. P11
Tesco director takes up non-exec post at ITV. P36
New series of BBC2's business programme, The Bottom Line. P41
Leader: phone-hacking - Labour's sleepers awake. Viewspaper, P1
Questions that Andy Coulson must answer. Viewspaper, P3
Obituary: pioneering TV executive and architect of S4C, Owen Edwards.
Viewspaper, P8
How US TV is learning to have it large. Viewspaper, P16

Daily Telegraph

Andy Coulson unlikely to face new hacking inquiry. P10
Letters: Sarah Kennedy's departure bad news for Radio 2. P21
Review of ITV1's Daybreak. P30
Is BBC programmed to screen out non-exec salary details? B4
Group marketer warns of dangers of social media discounts. B6

The Times

Phone-tapping inquiry pressure grows as ex-editor faces attack. P10
Phone-hacking: controversy with no end in sight. P10
Review: ITV1's Daybreak. P21
Johnston Press names Henry Fauer Walker as digital and business
development director. P38
Kristian Segerstrale to join board of LoveFilm. P38
ITV completes board overhaul with Lucy Neville-Rolfe appointment. P42
Rivals loosen BT's grip on broadband. P44
Review: ITV1's Daybreak. P58

Financial Times

Tories rally behind Andy Coulson over phone hacking claims. P1
Egypt authorities turn to primetime TV drama in fight against Muslim
Brotherhood. P6
Philip Stephens: intercepted calls Cameron cannot ignore. P13
When Sao Paulo mayor banned outdoor ads, marketers went underground. P14
Lucy Neville-Rolfe joins ITV board. P18

Wall Street Journal Europe

UK mulls re-opening phone-hacking inquiry. P4

Daily Mail

Using Facebook can lower exam results by up to 20%. P3
Tony Blair dragged into phone-hacking row. P6
Quentin Letts: would Prezza make sense to any snooper? P6
Jan Moir on ITV1's Daybreak. P13
Ephraim Hardcastle on the phone-hacking scandal. P19
Tesco director joins ITV board. P69
Clare Balding in Twitter spat. P77

Daily Express

Andy Coulson offers to meet police over phone-hacking claims. P5
Vanessa Feltz on why she went back into the Big Brother house. P13

The Sun

Martin Freeman turns down Hobbit role to stick with BBC1's Sherlock. P3
Simon Cowell to quit ITV1's The X Factor to concentrate on US version
of the show. P5
ITV's Daybreak hits screens. P9
Ally Ross on Daybreak. P13
Stephen Fry on "incredibly bland" TV. TVBiz, P1
X Factor and Ultiamte Big Brother latest. TVBiz, P3
TVChoice awards. TVBiz, P3
Channel 4's The 5 O'Clock Show axed. TVBiz, P3
Animated Murray Walker on Channel 5 kids show. TVBiz, P4

Daily Mirror

Stephen Fry says BBC being held back by culture of "fear". P11
Simon Cowell threatens to cancel next year's X Factor and Britain's
Got Talent. P15
ITV1's Daybreak is just like BBC1's The One Show, say viewers. P19
Review of Daybreak. P19
Andy Coulson offers to meet police over phone-hacking claims. P20
Daily Mirror photographer John Varley dies. P20

Daily Star

Simon Cowell to axe X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. P1,10
ITV1's Daybreak leaves viewers cold. P1,7
Ultimate Big Brother latest. P22
The Inbetweeners is back - and heading to big screen. P32
Emmerdale hat-trick at TV Choice awards. P32

And finally ...

Strictly Come Dancing's Brendan Cole has been
practising his "not too disappointed" face if he ends up with a
partner he is not too keen on when the BBC1 celebrity talent show
returns on Saturday. "They don't usually put unattractive people in
the show and obviously it is nice to have someone who is gorgeous
looking to go to work with every day," says the smooth-moving charmer.
"I've practised by 'I'm not too disappointed face'." Let's hope his
partner to be has been practising as well. Dancing, that is. DAILY
EXPRESS P17

Jimmy Carr commissioned for Channel 4 show
The comedian will feature with Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell and Lauren Laverne in a topical comedy series

Why was the BBC discussing its coverage of spending cuts with No 10?
Aditya Chakrabortty: The BBC is helping convince viewers that spending cuts are inevitable. It's a large-scale version of peer pressure

The BBC and Eta's deceitful games
International media coverage is a propaganda coup for Eta who, contrary to claims, have no intention of ending their violence

Cable girl: The Hard Times of RJ Berger
Lucy Mangan: There are only two things wrong with The Hard Times of RJ Berger – it's central premise and everything else

Phone hacking scandal: Theresa May comes under fire in parliament
Labour MP Tom Watson says Britain risks becoming 'laughing stock' in world unless allegations in NY Times are investigated

The meaning of Victoria Beckham's Twitter signoff
The celebrity fashion designer closes her tweets with the phrase: 'In love and light'

The News of the World's special relationship with the police
Chester Stern: The phone-hacking scandal shows how the NoW is in a unique position to push the boundaries of legality in pursuing a scoop

London Evening Standard job moves
Justin Davenport is promoted to crime editor as part of a shake-up of newsroom roles

Adam Ledezma, director of a news programme for Mundo Villa TV, a cable channel in a large slum in the centre of Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, was stabbed to death on Saturday.

Ledezma, a 33-year-old Bolivian, was also a correspondent for the newspaper Mundo Villa. He had received threats, said his wife, Ruth.

Sources: Knight Centre In Spanish: Perfil/La Nación

• Journalist safety
• Argentina
• Press freedom
• Greenslade on Latin America

Cuban blogger Yoani Maria Sánchez Cordero has been named by the International Press Institute as its 60th World Press Freedom Hero.

Sánchez's blog, Generation Y, is an acerbic critique of life in Cuba, and a telling reminder to the world of the restraints on free speech and expression on the island.

Launched in 2007, the site was rendered unavailable in April 2008 by the Cuban authorities. Since then, Sánchez has managed to keep the blog alive through a series of ingenious measures and is thought to have a regular readership of more than one million.

She has been refused permission to travel outside of Cuba at least six times in the past two years. In 2008, Time magazine named her one of the world's 100 most influential people, noting that "under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practised what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech."

In her own country, however, Sánchez has repeatedly faced harassment by authorities. In November 2009, the Daily Telegraph reported that she was beaten by a group of men while on her way to a peaceful protest.

However, Sánchez refuses to be silenced. "If you are insulted by the mediocre, the opportunists, if you are slandered by the employees of the powerful but dying machinery, take it as a compliment," she says on her blog.

"Sánchez's tremendously important work provides a glimpse into what is otherwise a closed world," said IPI's interim director Alison Bethel McKenzie.

Sánchez responded to the news by saying that the award would be a "protective shield" that will help her break "the wall of censorship."

Sources: IPI/AFP

• Press freedom
• Cuba
• Blogging
• Greenslade on Latin America
• Daily Telegraph

• Yates will see Coulson
• NoW reporter to be interviewed
• Police inquiry was 'success'
• Read a lunchtime summary

3.57pm: Tony Blair doesn't write about God much in his autobiography. Der Spiegel has asked him about this in an interview. This exchange was particularly good.

SPIEGEL: So God never spoke to you directly?

Blair: Your faith gives you strength to do what you think is right and obviously it gives you values. But that's it. You can't go into the corner and ask God what the minimum wage should be next year.

3.56pm: My colleague Afua Hirsch, the Guardian's legal affairs correspondent, says that exerts have challenged what John Yates said about the law on phone hacking. She's filed this.

Addressing the home affairs select committee, John Yates, the assistant Metropolitan police commissioner, repeated earlier claims by police that cases of hacking into voicemails could only be prosecuted if the victim had not yet listened to their messages.

"That is nonsense, and a recurring problem with this police position in this case," said Simon Mackay, author of Covert Policing Law & Practice.

"The police are getting confused about a number of things relating to the evidential status of a voicemail. The law is that in the nano-second between someone's voice being converted into an electromagnetic system and being transmitted to the recipient who listens to the voicemail, that's the course of transmission. At some point between these two points the hacker has been diverting a copy for his own use, and that is an offence."

3.43pm: Here's an afternoon reading list.

• Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome on why the appointment of Stephen Green as a trade minister is a bad idea.

It sends a message to each backbench Conservative MP, namely, that the prime minister thinks that he's not up to the job, and that none of his colleagues are, either. David Cameron is sending his MPs the opposite of the famous old L'Oreal slogan. His message is: "Because you're not worth it." This is, as the whips would put it, "unwise".

• Paul Waugh on his blog says today's Daily Politics poll of Labour councillors (see 12.14pm) challenges the notion that Ed Miliband will always get more second preference votes than David.

• Iain Dale on his blog says that Michael McManus is writing a book about homosexuality in the Conservative party and that he would like to hear from people with a relevant story to tell. Dale also wants to know whether he can get away with Queer Blue Water as a title.

3.16pm: The Cabinet Office has rejected Malcolm Jack's comments about the fixed-term parliaments bill. (See 11.15am.) A spokesman said Jack was wrong to worry about legislation being vulnerble to legal challenge because "it is not realistic to expect that the courts would start trespassing on such highly-politicised issues and matters related to the internal workings of parliament". He said the Bill of Rights specifies that the courts should not interfer with "proceedings in parliament".

The spokesman also pointed out that the bill says decisions taken by the Speaker relating to dissolution would be "conclusive for all purposes", meaning that they would be non-justifiable. He also said that if the government tried to introduce fixed terms using Commons standing orders, those orders could be suspended by a simple majority vote in the Commons.

3.05pm: Ed Miliband has issued a statement responding to the Times story about Lord Browne ruling out a graduate tax. (See 10.25am.) Miliband says that if he becomes Labour leader and the coalition tries to implement the proposals floated in the Times, he will work with the Lib Dems to try to defeat them. (Under the coalition agreement, the Lib Dems have the right not to back the Browne proposals - whatever they are.) This is what Miliband said:

Higher and variable tuition fees would create an unwanted market in higher education and limit the opportunities and aspirations of thousands of young people. If the coalition government come forward with plans for higher and variable tuition fees, I will work with those Liberal Democrat MPs who stand by their manifesto commitment, and I will work to defeat those plans in parliament.

2.57pm: In the comments (at 9.29am) yahyah posted this:

Would you please ask Lib Dem HQ whether Clegg thinks that having a Murdochite inside No 1O is the real threat to our civil liberties not speed cameras and CCTV? Clegg is getting an easy ride over this and usually he is rent a gob for perceived civil liberty abuses.

I thought it was a fair point and I sent an email to Lib Dem HQ. No reply. I tried another Lib Dem press adviser. No reply. But I finally found another Lib Dem aide at large in the press gallery. So what did he have to say about Nick Clegg's views on the Andy Coulson affair. "I don't really want to get into this," he replied.

2.19pm: Downing Street has confirmed that Stephen Green, the HSBC chairman, has been appointed as trade minister.

He will report jointly to the business secretary and the foreign secretary when he starts his job at the beginning of next year, and will also take a seat in the Lords.

In a statement, David Cameron said: "Working across the department for business and the Foreign Office, this role reflects the enormous importance this government places on forging strong international relationships to open new trade links, promote British business overseas and maximise inward investment to the UK."

2.07pm: Here are some of Yates's quotes from the hearing.

On interviewing Andy Coulson:

I imagine that we will be meeting with Mr Coulson at some point.

On Lord Prescott:

Lord Prescott has discussed the fact that he may have been on a list [of targets for phone hacking]. He is not on that list. And he has never been hacked, to my knowledge.

On the number of cases where a crime was committed:

We can only prove a crime against a very few number of people. That number is in the low tens, about 10 to 12 people.

On flaws in the original investigation:

It may have been better if we did interview the Neville person then [Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World's chief reporter], but we didn't.

1.41pm: The hearing is now over. Back to the office.

1.28pm: John Yates wasn't particularly forthcoming with the home affairs committee. He was reluctant to discuss any individual phone-hacking cases, and at various points he told MPs these offences were difficult to prove and may have happened a long time ago. But we did glean a few things:

• Yates said that he expected to speak to Andy Coulson about the affair. Yesterday, Coulson said he would be happy to be interviewed by the police in relation to phone hacking (Coulson has repeatedly denied any knowledge of phone hacking by his staff when he was editor of the News of the World).

• Yates admitted the original investigation could have been more thorough. He said it would have been better if Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World's chief reporter (who is named in one document apparently relating to phone hacking) had been interviewed by the police.

• Yates refused to say who was on the list of people who may have had their phones hacked, but did say John Prescott was not on the list. Yates also insisted that being on a list did not mean someone's phone had been hacked. The police only found evidence of crimes being committed in about 12 cases, he said.

• Keith Vaz, the committee chairman, suggested the committee was considering holding a full inquiry into the affair.

1.14pm: Stephen McCabe asks about the revelation that the original inquiry found nearly 3,000 people had been targeted. Will Yates clarify the numbers?

Yates says the original charges reflected the "range of criminality" involved. He says he accepts that the numbers mentioned have been "confusing" to members of the public and will consider whether more needs to be done to provide reassurance.

Vaz says the committee will decide what it wants to do further after this session. He is implying that it may hold a full inquiry (as Julian Huppert proposed).

Vaz is now asking about royal protection (and not getting very far – Yates seems to be very reluctant to say anything that could compromise security).

I think we've had all we're going to get on phone hacking. I'll sum up what we learnt in a moment.

1.03pm: Aidan Burley asks whether Yates thinks there should be a new inquiry by an outside body.

Yates says the police investigation should be allowed to take its course. After that, it would be up to the home secretary to decide whether there should be another review of the case.

Alun Michael asks whether there is a "live investigation" taking place now. Yates says it's a matter of semantics. He would say the police were considering new material.

Hoare has made some "very serious allegations", Yates says. The police have to look into them.

12.59pm: Julian Huppert, a Liberal Democrat member of the committee, says he has told Vaz he thinks the committee should investigate this affair in more detail.

Yates says it may have been better if the police had interviewed "the Neville person" (Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World's chief reporter, who was named on correspondence relating to phone hacking) at the time of the original investigation.

Vaz asks about newspapers paying police officers. Yates says this has happened in the past. Officers have been disciplined or fired.

12.54pm: Mary Macleod asks Yates what "all reasonable steps" means, and how many people have been contacted.

Yates says Macleod is assuming crimes have been committed, but it is hard to prove that these offences have been committed. He says this only applies in the case of 10 to 12 individuals.

David Winnick asks Yates if Bryant was notified by the police (Bryant told MPs yesterday that he did not find out his name was on the list until he asked the police himself).

Yates declines to answer. Vaz and Winnick complain about his refusal to respond. Yates says the Met have been in correspondence with Bryant for some time.

Winnick asks Yates if he would be opposed to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary being involved.

Yates says that is a matter for the home secretary. He says he still considers the original investigation a success. Two people were convicted, and a strong deterrent message was sent out.

12.48pm: Yates says phone hacking is "very difficult to prove".

Vaz asks if it is true that the police recovered 91 telephone pin numbers. Yates says the number varies between 91 and 120.

Vaz says Chris Bryant was one of the names on the "91" list. Simon Hughes was another. But Bryant and Hughes are not members of the royal family, and therefore were probably not being targeted by the News of the World's royal correspondent, he suggests. Have the police written to the people on the list to tell them they were on the list?

Yates says he does not want to discuss individuals. But he adds that the police have taken "all reasonable steps" to warn individuals where the police think they have had their phones hacked.

12.45pm: Vaz says he is going to start with phone hacking. He says Andy Coulson has said he is happy to meet the police. When will Yates, or his team, meet him?

Yates says he will take this "stage by stage". The Sean Hoare comments do constitute "new material". The police will see him first. But, "at some stage", he expects to see Coulson.

Vaz asks when the police will interview Hoare. Yates says he has written to the New York Times today asking if it will release the material it collected.

The NYT has said that it will not give the police any information that is not in its article, but Yates says he wants to try one more time. After he gets a response, the police will speak to Hoare.

12.37pm: The immigration session has over-run by a few minutes. Yates will be coming up soon.

12.31pm: John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, will start giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee shortly.

Normally, I listen to these hearings using the parliamentary video feed – but it seems to be on the blink today, so I'll be covering it with my laptop from the committee room.

The committee has been hearing evidence since 11am, starting with a session on immigration. But Yates has been invited to talk about specialist operations. The committee has said that it wants to ask him about about topical aspects of his role, particularly in relation to royal protection and counter-terrorism.

But Keith Vaz, the former Labour minister who chairs the committee, said yesterday he would also allow a few questions about the News of the World phone hacking affair.

What are they going to ask? Well, they could do a lot worse than follow Nick Davies's advice. In the Guardian today, he has been looking at some of the things Yates said about phone hacking in his Today programme interview yesterday and highlighting the flaws. Here's a flavour:

Asked if there would be another investigation: "We have always said that if any new material, new evidence, was produced, we would consider it."

This precisely misses the point, which is that since 2006, Scotland Yard has been sitting on a mass of evidence which it has not investigated and not disclosed. It needs no new evidence to reopen an inquiry which was never completed in the first place.

Asked if the only reporter he talked to at the News of the World about the hacking allegations was the royal correspondent: "No. That is not the case."

This looks misleading. All of the available information confirms that Scotland Yard failed to interview any reporter or editor or manager from the News of the World other than the royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. And that includes failing to interview reporters who were explicitly identified in evidence as having handled intercepted voicemail messages.

Asked if the Met had talked to Sean Hoare, the former News of the World reporter who has said that Andy Coulson was aware of widespread hacking at the tabloid during the original investigation: "This is the first time we have heard of Mr Hoare or anything he's had to say. He wasn't part of the inquiry … We are surprised that the New York Times did not avail us of this information earlier than they did."

Hoare is one of a dozen reporters who spoke to the New York Times about phone hacking under Andy Coulson. A dozen have also spoken to the Guardian. It is not clear why Scotland Yard detectives would need American reporters to introduce them to journalists in London. As stated above, they have chosen not to approach any serving or former reporters other than Clive Goodman.

Select committees aren't always particularly good at forensic questioning, and Yates may find that he gets an easy right. We'll see in a moment.

12.14pm: Here's a lunchtime summary.

• The TUC has launched a campaign urging the public to join the unions in opposing public service cuts. "The poll tax was defeated when government MPs returned to Westminster to report that their constituencies were in revolt," said Brendan Barber, the TUC's general secretary, speaking ahead of next week's TUC annual conference. "The poll tax offended the British people's basic sense of what's fair. So will the spending cuts. Every coalition MP with a small majority and every coalition MP who fought an election to oppose deep early cuts needs to feel the pressure from their constituents to change course."

• Stephen Green, the HSBC chairman, is poised to join the government as a trade minister. Downing Street said this morning that a formal announcement would be made "shortly".

• Parliament's most senior legislative expert has urged the government to abandon the fixed-term parliaments bill. Malcolm Jack, clerk of the Commons, said the bill would be vulnerable to legal challenge. He said it would be better if the government arranged for Britain to have fixed-term parliaments by changing the standing orders of the House of Commons. (See 11.15am.)

• A survey of Labour councillors has shown that David Miliband is attracting the most support. "Of the 265 Labour councillors in England and Wales contacted by ComRes, David Miliband received the largest level of first preference support, 88 councillors (33%), Ed Miliband came second with 69 (26%), Diane Abbott third with 55 (21%), Andy Burnham fourth with 33 (12%), with Ed Balls coming last with 20 (8%)." The survey was commissioned by the BBC's Daily Politics show.

• Frank Field has said that his poverty review will recommend "intelligent interventions" aimed at the under-fives. He said he wanted to "build up a new framework so that it becomes impossible to predict a life on low income for children coming from the poorest homes". (See 11.39am)

12.02pm: Does David Cameron still think he's Gene Hunt? I wasn't at the lobby briefing this morning, but, according to the PoliticsHome (paywall) readout, Cameron told the cabinet this morning:

This is the period the rubber hits the road.

He was talking about the spending review. He said that there were "signficant challenges ahead" for the government and that there was a "very challenging financial backdrop" to the review of departmental spending.

11.39am: Frank Field will be sending his poverty recommendations to David Cameron next week. And he will be "advocating a range of intelligent interventions that radically alter what would otherwise be the current fate of poorer children".

The Labour former minister said so in a speech to an Institute for Fiscal Studies seminar this morning. Field is conducting a review on poverty and life chances for the government. In his speech, he gave us some pretty good clues as to what it will say.

• Field said he will recommend "a range of intelligent interventions" that will improve the prospects of poor children before they reach the age of five. He cited research showing that, by the time children turn up at school, those from low-income families are already more likely to be at the bottom range of abilities.

We have not fallen into the trap of what some neuroscientists call the 'the baby determinist' syndrome. The review will not be arguing that the only guide to influencing the outcome of a child's life is during the crucial first three years when so much of the early brain network is formed. But neither will we be saying the opposite; that it doesn't matter too much what happens to children at the early stages of life because they can make up for a poor start later. Later interventions do look much less cost-effective, and in general a programme of later interventions – that taxpayers know as schools – seems not to have that much impact on equalising those gross inequalities present as children cross the school threshold for the first time.

• Field said that he wanted to stop poverty being something that was self-perpetuating.

I hope I have conveyed to you why there is a sense of excitement amongst the review team. That excitement comes from seeing if it is possible to build up a new framework so that it becomes impossible to predict a life on low income for children coming from the poorest homes.

• Field said that he and his team were trying to construct an "index of life opportunities". He said this would run alongside the conventional measure of poverty – below 60% of median earnings - because the standard poverty measure "focused too little interest in how we might radically transform the life chances of those children who will otherwise be set on a diet of low pay and unemployment until the end of time".

• He said that he would send a report to Cameron next week containing some of his main recommendations. He wants Cameron to have this before the governement concludes its spending review. Field also said that he sent Cameron an early report about his thinking before the summer recess.

11.15am: The government's fixed-term parliaments bill is in trouble. Malcolm Jack, the clerk of the House of Commons, has been giving evidence about it to a committee of MPs this morning and, essentially, he seems to have said that Nick Clegg's plan to pass a law saying that parliaments should normally last for five years is full of holes.

The bill, which is due to get its second reading in the Commons shortly, says that every parliament should last for five years unless the government loses a vote of confidence and no alternative government is formed within 14 days.

But Jack told the Commons political and constitutional reform committee that the bill would be vulnerable to legal challenge in the courts. "The possible areas of challenge are wide-ranging," Jack said in a written submission. "For example, any interested party (which given the subject of the motion could be widely interpreted) could challenge whether a motion for dissolution had been correctly worded and processed."

Jack raised the prospect of a decision about whether or not there would be a general election having to be decided in the courts.

This is embarrassing for Clegg, who as deputy prime minister is in charge of the governement's constitutional reform programme. Jack is not just constitutional rent-a-quote. He is parliament's most senior legislative expert.

Jack offered a solution. He suggested that the government should give up the bill and try to ensure that Britain has fixed-term parliaments by changing parliamentary standing orders (the House of Commons's in-house rule book). This would "avoid the constitutional innovation of moving such matters into the judicial province and so leave undisturbed the House's mastery of its own proceedings", Jack said in his memo.

I was not at the hearing, but my colleague Patrick Wintour heard it all. He'll be filing a full story later.

10.40am: Boris Johnson has just been on Sky suggesting that he might resign if the government cuts the funding for Crossrail.

I am very, very determined to get my point across to government of whatever stripe that it would be completely mad, nuts, bonkers to cut projects like Crossrail, like the tube upgrades, like Thameslink, things that will deliver benefits for our city, not just in the next five or 10 years, but in 20, 30 years ... We cannot afford to take short-term decisions that would greatly reduce the ability of London to compete and would reduce the quality of life for people living and working in London. I'm not prepared to accept that.

On his London blog, my colleague Dave Hill says that Johnson has been coming up with quite a lot of this talk in the last few days, even though it is fairly clear that Crossrail and the tube upgrades will survive "largely unscathed" from the spending cuts. Dave offers this explanation as to what Johnson is up to.

Boris's public indignation should be interpreted in the context of his re-election hopes and the extent of David Cameron's concern at the prospect of his instead opting out of the tricky business of defending City Hall in 2012 and returning to parliament to make a nuisance of himself. The Tory mayor wants to give the Tory-led government every incentive to look after London, while at the same time seeking to convince Londoners that if the government hacks a great hole in the rest of his transport plans it won't be because Good Old Boris didn't do his darndest to prevent it.

10.25am: All today's Guardian political stories are on the website here. And the stories filed yesterday, which include some in today's paper, are here.

As for the rest of the papers, here's my pick of the highlights.

• The Daily Telegraph says Theresa May, the home secretary, will announce a review of extradition arrangements with the US and the EU.

Under the review, which could be announced as soon as Wednesday, the Home Secretary's hand could be strengthened and foreign authorities could be required to provide more evidence before British courts grant a request. A panel of lawyers and international relations experts, led by a judge, will also examine whether suspects accused of crimes that took place mostly in this country but affected foreign citizens should be tried at home.

• Greg Hurst in the Times (paywall) says that student debt could rise to an average of £25,000 under plans for higher tuition fees expected to be recommended by Lord Browne. Hurst says Browne has rejected the idea of a graduate tax.

His review team, which discussed a draft report yesterday for publication on October 11, was not persuaded by a graduate contribution collected via the tax system, which breaks the link between the student and university.

One option is a new limit on state funding per student, with universities funding the balance on teaching costs themselves. This would allow the cap on fees to be lifted altogether but would act as a disincentive to costly courses.

Another is for banks, not the Treasury, to lend the upfront cost of tuition to universities and recover the money in graduate loan repayments.

• Andrew Grice in the Independent says a ComRes poll shows that almost 40% of people who voted Lib Dem at the general election would not vote for the party now.

• The Daily Mail says 1.4 million Britons are being urged to use a little-known loophole to reject attempts by HM Revenue and Customs to reclaim unpaid tax.

Accountants have revealed that under a technicality, called the 'A19: Extra-Statutory Concession', the law states that HMRC may have to write-off the money. There is no limit to the amount of money which can be written off under this concession. Under the working of the A19 concession, it states HMRC will back down if the victim 'could reasonably have believed that his or her tax affairs were in order'.

• Jason Groves in the Daily Mail says Janusz Lewandowski, the EU's budget commissioner, wants Britain to lose its EU budget rebate.

In an interview with the German business newspaper Handelsblatt, he said Britain was now a much wealthier country than in the 1980s and could afford to pay more.

Mr Lewandowski, who is also pressing for the EU to be allowed to levy its own taxes, added: 'In my opinion, the discount for Great Britain has lost its original legitimacy. The structure of the EU budget has changed substantially.

'The portion of agricultural spending - and that was the original justification for the discount - has clearly sunk.'

• Andy McSmith in the Independent profiles Ralph Miliband, the father of David and Ed, a D-Day veteran, and the Marxist intellectual who inspired figures like Paul Foot and Tariq Ali.

It is a matter of plain fact that neither David nor Ed Miliband can be called a socialist under any definition of the word that their father would have used. The brothers have both accepted the existence of the capitalist system as an established fact, and interpret socialism as a mission to combat its injustices and protect its potential victims ...

There is a nobility and a drama in the life of Ralph Miliband that is lacking in the steady, pragmatic political careers of his sons. But the brothers are arguing about what can be done now. By contrast, waiting for Ralph Miliband's vision of the future to come to pass could be like waiting for Godot.

• The Independent says that former Tory MP Sir Peter Viggers has sold the duck house which became a symbol of the expenses scandal, with the proceeds going to charity.

10.12am: Tessa Jowell, Labour's Cabinet Office spokeswoman, has issued a statement criticising the government's plans to cut civil service redundancy payments (see 9.38am).

We all believe that the civil service compensation scheme needs to be reformed and that its costs need to be reduced. But reform needs to be fair. The superannuation bill fails to meet this test. It provides inadequate protection for some of the lowest-paid and longest-serving public sector workers.

No protection is offered for the lowest-paid, with a junior official in a job centre receiving no more assistance than a permanent secretary of a government department. We believe that the principles of the February 2010 scheme, introduced by the previous government, provided a basis for a fair way forward.

9.38am: MPs are debating the superannuation bill this afternoon, the measure that will allow the government to limit civil service redundancy payments. For those who are interested, the House of Commons library has produced a 31-page briefing note (pdf) on the civil service compensation scheme, as well as a 35-page explanatory note on the bill itself (pdf).

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, was on the Today programme early this morning defending his plans. According to PoliticsHome (paywall), he said civil service redundancy arrangements were "completely out of kilter" with what happens in other areas of the public sector and the private sector.

Most people, low paid workers in the private sector, get no more than a statutory redundancy scheme ... We want there to be a proper long term agreed settlement here. Particularly one that gives protection to lower paid workers.

9.06am: William Hague has used Twitter to describe the allegations made about his sexuality as "a big lie". This is what he posted last night:

8.31am: David Cameron has suffered his first proper rebellion in the Commons. As Patrick Wintour reports in the Guardian, the alternative vote referendum bill was passed last night at second reading by a majority of 59.

But a glance at the division list shows that 10 Tory MPs voted against the government. For the record, they were: Brian Binley (Northampton South), Peter Bone (Wellingborough), Bill Cash (Stone), Christopher Chope (Christchurch), Philip Davies (Shipley), Philip Hollobone (Kettering), David Nuttall (Bury North), Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills), Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) and Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight).

This probably won't alarm the prime minister too much as he returns to work after his two weeks' paternity leave. Cameron is chairing a meeting of the cabinet at 9am. Other items on the diary for today include:

9.15am: Frank Field, the Labour former minister who is now advising the government on poverty, is speaking at an Institute for Fiscal Studies seminar on child poverty.

12.30pm: John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, is giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee. He is due to speak about counter-terrorism and royal protection, but he is also going to be asked about the News of the World phone hacking investigation.

And we'll probably also hear more about Stephen Green, the HSBC boss. The BBC is reporting that he is about to join the government as a trade minister. Downing Street is refusing to confirm the appointment, but the BBC seems pretty sure of its story.

Cameron has been trying for ages to find a high-profile trade minister. According to the Press Association, Green could be ideal. "HSBC was one of the few major banks to emerge from the recent financial crisis relatively unscathed, and was not forced to seek a government bail-out like some of its rivals," it says.

"An ordained Church of England minister, Green has spoken publicly since the financial crisis about the need for the banking sector to rediscover its ethics and make corporate social responsibility a priority."

• News of the World phone-hacking scandal
• John Yates
• Andy Coulson
• Conservatives

International media coverage is a propaganda coup for Eta who, contrary to claims, have no intention of ending their violence

Had Eta's video not been broadcast by the BBC, giving it international recognition, the terrorists' statement would have gone practically unnoticed, as it deserved.

Contrary to claims, Eta has not decided to end its armed campaign for independence. Gara, a newspaper sympathetic to Eta's cause, was more accurate when presenting the "breaking news" in a more subdued tone: "Eta announces that some months ago it had already decided to avoid armed actions and calls actors to respond to the situation."

Eta has been handed an excellent platform for its self promotion. As it has internally acknowledged, the decision to stop some operations – but not, for example, certain killings and economic extortion – is a result of the crisis that the organisation is going through. The dismantling of numerous cells and weapons sites, as well as the number of members being detained by police, forced Eta last March to halt some of its activities, concerned as it was that the group was on the brink of collapse. Internal Eta documents reveal its fears as well as its refusal to conclusively end its campaign; that's why its latest statement falls well short of the hoped-for ceasefire and the disappearance of the group.

And this is why Eta's statement has been almost unanimously condemned and rejected within Spain. Revealingly, the government hasn't even bothered offering an official reaction, leaving it to the socialist interior minister of the Basque government to reject Eta's propaganda. "Don't let anybody be fooled by Eta's deceit tactics," he said.

Under these circumstances, the international media coverage of Eta's propaganda coup has allowed it again to divert responsibility for resolving the conflict away from the only ones really responsible for it: the perpetrators of violence. In having its statement broadcast without proper critical questioning and the right contextualisation, Eta has wrongly appeared as a group who wants to "put in motion a democratic process and to achieve its aims by peaceful, democratic means", as it stated. In March this year, after taking the decision now made public, Eta killed Jean-Serge Nerin, a French policeman who crossed the organisation's path while its members where planning an operation.

It's noteworthy that the BBC refuses to use the term "terrorist" when reporting on Eta. Such an approach is unacceptable, since it results in a distortion of reality and misinforms the public. On this it may be useful to quote Hannah Arendt, who argued that "to describe the concentration camps sine ira is not to be objective, but to absolve those responsible for them". In other words, to avoid referring to Eta as a terrorist group whose mere existence constitutes a threat to citizens – after having murdered hundreds of them – and which still poses a threat to a democratic society like Spain, is not rigorous journalism but a demonstration of the fact that sometimes terrorist propaganda can be successful.

• Spain
• Eta
• Global terrorism
• BBC

There are only two things wrong with The Hard Times of RJ Berger – it's central premise and everything else

There are only two things wrong with The Hard Times of RJ Berger (MTV, Sunday): its central premise and everything else. The central premise is that geeky high-school student RJ finds a new lease of social life after it is revealed to the entire school, when his pants fall down during a basketball game, that he has a gigantic schlong. The show's creators, David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith, call it a cross between The Wonder Years and Hung.

Aside from the general ick factor of focusing on a near-child's genitalia, the set-up does not ring true. The desirability of a giant penis is an adult preoccupation. To deviate from any norm is the greatest sin in the teenage bible. A donkey dong, especially if attached to a nerd, is more likely to draw further ridicule than new respect.

But if its content is wrongheaded, its tone is appalling. If the boys' references to their (male) enemies as "bitches" doesn't tip you off, from the moment the first female character appears (Lily, the mandatory overweight-girlfriend-with-a-crush-on-our-hero), it's clear what the prevailing sensibility is. "Guess what?" she says, cheerfully. "You're taking a weedwhacker to that moustache?" RJ's best friend Miles responds, with a venomous sneer.

Later, as she attempts to wheedle a date out of RJ, he follows up with: "If he wanted to fuck a dog, he would just go to Amsterdam." Meanwhile, a Japanese student screams in terror whenever she sees RJ. It turns out that she has had a penis preview and nearly choked to death giving him a blowjob. And so on it goes.

When Lily announces that RJ can have her "any time, any place, any orifice", she sounds less like a teenage girl than an exercise in wish-fulfilment for two adult male writers who have almost literally tossed off a script that does only them any good. It doesn't have a fraction of the heart of The Wonder Years, or even the warmth of other ancestors such as American Pie or Superbad. It's just super-bad.

• Television
• Television industry
• MTV
• Comedy
• US television