The Wardman Wire

Here is todays roundup of stories.

Update 10:10am: A bit of a glitch with the audio this morning, but we are up and running now. Your comments would be welcome, both technical and if I am covering the right mix of serious and idiosyncratic stories to give good blogging fodder. Technically I am happy with the tone and recording level, but still have some work to do on delivery, pacing and doing the whole podcast in a single take.

News

SIMON PARRY (Daily Mail)

- (Ed: Ahem) WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Dianas Mr Wonderful Hasnat Khan gives his first ever interview

He has never spoken publicly about his love affair with Diana. Today he does so for the first time, in a world exclusive interview for The Mail on Sunday.

Massoud Ansari in Jehlum and Andrew Alderson (Daily Telegraph) - (Ed: See above) Dr Hasnat Khan: Princess Diana and me

His hair is greyer and his features are more rounded but Dr Hasnat Khan’s affection for Diana, Princess of Wales, remains undiminished by the passing of more than a decade.

Jamie Doward (Guardian Unlimited) - Brown’s strategy chief ‘misled media’ on shares

The man appointed to Downing Street by Gordon Brown to improve the running of government and help restore Labour’s flagging fortunes allegedly ‘misled’ the media and ‘issued false statements’ that helped to inflate artificially the share price of a massively indebted telecoms company, according to court documents filed in the United States.

Denis Campbell (Guardian Unlimited) - I wanted to kill myself, says death row Scot

Kenny Richey, the Scot who spent 21 years on death row before being freed last week, became so depressed behind bars that he contemplated committing suicide.

Matthew Campbell (Times Online) - Windsor Castle prepares for Mme Carla Sarkozy

FOREIGN Office officials believe President Nicolas Sarkozy will marry Carla Bruni, the model turned singer, before a state visit to Britain in March.

DAVE MASTERS (The Sun) - Blogging Babes

TENNIS ace Serena Williams has become the latest celebrity to pour her heart out on the web.

DEBORAH SONTAG and LIZETTE ALVAREZ (NYT) - Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

The Economist (The Economist) - Where soft Islam is on the march

Indonesia has some worrying radicals but it seems to be following Turkey, with Islamists moderating as they get closer to power

The Economist (The Economist) - The London mayoral race

The principal candidates are as curious as the population they hope to govern: a left-wing iconoclast who often favours globalisation (the Labour incumbent, Ken Livingstone), a shock-headed Old Etonian eccentric (the Conservative Boris Johnson) and a libertarian gay ex-policeman (the Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick)

BBC (BBC) - US U-turn over Scottish authors

One of the world’s largest libraries has reversed a controversial decision to reclassify Scots authors as English.

Writers, politicians and academics in Scotland reacted angrily when the Library of Congress in the US first made the proposal.

Comment

Matthew d’Ancona (Daily Telegraph)

- Time for Peter Hain to exit the political stage

Here is a politician who failed to declare 17 donations to his campaign for the Labour Deputy Leadership, worth a total of £100,000. How could a Cabinet minister do such a thing, disregard the rules so flagrantly, and believe he could get away with it?

Leader (Comment is Free) - Overhaul our unjust secrecy laws

The failed prosecution of Foreign Office civil servant Derek Pasquill under the 1989 Official Secrets Act for leaking documents to this paper once again raises questions over the government’s troubling use of laws to protect not the state but its own reputation.

Obituary

Larry Elliott and Mark Milner (Guardian Unlimited)

- TV’s popular face of capitalism dies at 83

Britain’s first celebrity businessman, the chemical magnate turned TV troubleshooter Sir John Harvey-Jones, has died in Herefordshire aged 83.