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15 June 2012
Last updated at 11:51 GMT

Paul Potts (left) will be played by Gavin and Stacey star and Tony award-winner James Corden

Actor James Corden is to play Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts in a new film, it has been confirmed.

Gavin and Stacey star Corden has signed a deal with producer Harvey Weinstein to portray opera singer Potts, of Port Talbot, in One Chance.

Former Carphone Warehouse salesman Potts, 41, won the first series of the ITV show in 2007.

A spokesman for Corden said: “James will be working on an upcoming film with Harvey Weinstein.”

She told BBC Wales more details would be released soon.

One Chance, named after Bristol-born Potts’ debut album, will reportedly be directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) and will tell the story of Potts’ rise to fame.

He won Britain’s Got Talent in 2007 with his performance of Nessun Dorma and the tenor is now reputed to be worth £6m.

Corden, 33, rose to fame as Smithy in BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey, which he also co-wrote with Ruth Jones.

Earlier this week he beat a shortlist of US stars to the prestigious best actor Tony award for his performance in the National Theatre’s production of One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway.

It has been reported filming will start after Corden’s wedding to Julia Carey in September.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-18454627#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

15 June 2012
Last updated at 10:44 GMT

Radcliffe returns to the London stage following a successful stint on Broadway

Dame Judi Dench, Jude Law and Daniel Radcliffe will join director Michael Grandage for the first season of his new West End theatre company.

Based at the 950-seat Noel Coward Theatre, the 15-month season features five plays, including two Shakespeares and a new play from John Logan.

More than 200 tickets will be available for every performance at £10 each.

The season kicks off with Simon Russell Beale in the Peter Nichols’ classic Privates On Parade, in December.

The award-winning comedy is set against the backdrop of the Malaysian campaign at the end of World War II.

It will be followed by Martin McDonagh’s savage comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, starring Daniel Radcliffe in the title role.

Grandage stepped down as the artistic director at London’s Donmar Warehouse in late 2011, after nine years.

His work for the Donmar included Frost/Nixon, King Lear, and Red – from award-winning playwright John Logan.

Logan’s latest play, Peter and Alice, stars Dame Judi and Ben Whishaw as the real-life inspirations for Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, and follows a chance meeting between the pair.

Dame Judi previously worked wtih Grandage on Madame De Sade – but it will mark Wishaw’s first collaboration with the director.

David Walliams will play Bottom opposite Sheridan Smith’s Titania

No theatre season would be complete without Shakespeare, and Grandage has promised a “really, absolutely sexual production” of Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring Sheridan Smith and David Walliams – as Bottom.

The season will end – in February 2014 – with Jude Law playing Henry V. The pair came up with the idea following Law’s critically acclaimed performance in Hamlet at the Donmar.

Grandage set up The Michael Grandage Company along with former Donmar Warehouse collaborator James Bierman.

In a bid to reach out to as wide an audience as possible, 200 tickets will be available for each performance at just £10 – setting a precedent for commercial theatre in the West End.

The cheap tickets will be available for seats throughout the auditorium and will be bookable in advance, with 24 held for purchasing on the day.

Other tickets for the season will be priced at £27.50 and £57.50.

Grandage and Bierman said they want to enable theatre-goers to have access to every production throughout the run.

“We aim to appeal to new theatre-goers and help build audiences for the future,” they commented.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18454997#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 13:37 GMT

Mary Portas visited Margate in September as part of a review of high streets for the government

A high street rejuvenation project will go ahead in Margate whether or not traders take part in a Mary Portas reality TV show, an MP has promised.

The Kent resort is among 12 towns chosen by Ms Portas to share £1.2m of government cash and her expertise.

However, she told hundreds at a meeting on Tuesday: “You either let the cameras in with me or I go back on the train and some other town gets it.”

Thanet MP Sir Roger Gale said there was no question of money being withdrawn.

“It is entirely up to individual companies and tradespeople in the town whether or not they take part in the programme,” the Conservative MP said.

“The Margate Town Team Regeneration Project, backed with £100,000 of government money, will go ahead whatever.”

‘Warts and all’

Margate is the first of three towns to be chosen by TV production company Optomen Television to feature in a Channel 4 programme, Mary Queen of the High Street, about the regeneration process.

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Sir Roger Gale

Ms Portas received applause as she addressed the meeting, but acknowledged some people saw the documentary as a “downside”.

“If we put this on prime TV people will come,” she said. “That is a decision you have got to make.

“It’s going to be warts and all but at the end, from my heart, I want this to be wonderful and I want Margate to be wonderful.”

Robin Vaughn-Lyons, leader of the regeneration bid, said he was unaware anything had been done “to offend Mary”.

“It wasn’t until after the event that someone pointed it out to me what she said,” he said.

“It was bit of a shock of course but we have got an awful lot to do and we are just getting on with it.”

Contract ‘redrawn’

Sir Roger, a former TV producer, said contracts local people had been asked to sign with the production company were “restrictive”.

“I wouldn’t have issued a contract like that and I understand Mary Portas herself has insisted that what she describes as the restrictive parts of the contract will be redrawn.

“I want to see the project succeed and if there is a documentary that shows how and why it has been approached and succeeded that would be very good news for the town.”

Ms Portas tweeted that her remarks were “heat of moment stuff with camera stuck in face”.

Channel 4 said in a statement: “Optomen is in early talks with a number of local shopkeepers and town representatives.

“Some businesses have been given standard TV agreements. As usual, these agreements will evolve once we have received everyone’s initial feedback.

“Mary is passionate about her work to help reinvigorate the high street and the programme will be made in that spirit, so we’re keen to work closely with everyone involved.”

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-18438251#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

13 June 2012
Last updated at 15:29 GMT

Mehdi Hassan was immensely popular in India and Pakistan

Tributes have been paid to Pakistani singing legend Mehdi Hassan who has died of multiple organ failure aged 84.

The singer, hugely popular in India as well, was admitted to the Agha Khan Hospital in the southern port city of Karachi a few days ago.

TV channels broadcast live from the hospital and hundreds of fans gathered there on learning of his death.

Hassan’s career spanned 50 years. He came to be known as “king of ghazals”, traditional laments for lost love.

Ghazal, a genre of music specific to South Asia and parts of the Middle East, has been around for more than 400 years.

Hassan – whose funeral will be on Friday – also achieved huge commercial success, providing music for many South Asian films.

Legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar once likened his songs to the “voice of god”.

On learning of his death, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called Hassan “an icon who mesmerised music lovers” in Pakistan and the sub-continent for decades, AFP news agency reports.

‘End of an era’

Hassan was born into a family of traditional musicians in 1927 at Luna village in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

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At the scene

Mehdi Hassan’s small and shabby looking house in the Karachi neighbourhood of Ancholi is crowded with women inside and men outside.

Most mourners are from the same area and some know him and his family personally. Everyone recognises him as a great ghazal singer.

Female members of the family are receiving condolences inside the house, where men are not allowed.

One of Mr Hassan’s nine sons, Arif Mehdi, told me that family members are flying in from the US to pay their final homage to the singing legend.

Overall the house reflects the financial modesty of those who live here.

Paint is peeling off the walls, it has broken door steps and its cracked window panes all suggest the house badly needs renovation.

Neighbours sheltering in a tent told me that the family has always had serious financial problems.

However they say that since Mehdi Hassan fell ill, the family has received financial help from the government and philanthropists.

His family migrated to Pakistan in 1947 at the time of partition.

He started out as a bicycle and auto mechanic before entering the music industry. His big break came several years later, in 1957, when he got his first opportunity on Radio Pakistan as a classical “thumri” singer.

During the next three decades, he sang hundreds of songs for the Pakistani movies, scoring dozens of hits that were popular in Pakistan and across South Asia.

Subsequently, music circles in Pakistan were to discover his talent for ghazal singing.

Hassan was interviewed in 1989 by the BBC Hindi service. He told them about the history of ghazal singing in his family.

“We belong to the traditional Kalamt family and mine is the 16th generation which is into ghazal,” he said.

“My ancestors use to regale the Royals of Jaipur, Rajasthan in India. We still have remains of our home around the Amber Fort. And my earlier generations were gifted by the princely state of Jaipur to another royal household called Jhunjhunu in the faraway desert.

“But be it then or now, India or Pakistan, our music is the same, full of devotion.”

Hassan became a Pakistani cultural ambassador who visited India.

He cut back on his performances in the late 1980s due to illness, which included a serious lung condition. The severity of his illness forced him to give up all singing by the late-1990s.

In 2010, however, he recorded a duet with Lata Mangeshkar, a long-time admirer, for an album called Sarhadein (Borders), which was released in 2011.

Mehdi Hassan recorded his part of the song in Karachi, while Lata Mangeshkar’s part was recorded in Mumbai.

The Press Trust of India said an era of ghazal singing had come to an end with his death.

“The demise of the India-born Pakistani ghazal maestro was a huge loss to the world of music and left a void that can never be filled,” it reported.

The BBC’s Arman Sabir in Karachi says that there is a heavy media presence outside the dead singer’s home, with television channels streaming live commentary.

Our correspondent says that police have been deployed in anticipation of a stream of high profile mourners coming to say their last farewells.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18421080#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 14:53 GMT

In 2010, an Austrian museum agreed to pay a Jewish art dealer’s estate $19m for a Schiele painting

Art experts are taking part in a conference in Germany aimed at recovering works looted by the Nazis.

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, there are still millions of lost or stolen items that have yet to be returned to their rightful heirs.

The conference will provide advanced training in cultural plundering.

The Nazis stole an estimated 650,000 religious items and works of art from European Jews during World War II.

“This is an attempt to deal worldwide with the fact that there is no training in this,” said Wesley Fisher – director of research for the Conference on Jewish Claims Against Germany.

“There are people who have some expertise… but they have not been formally trained.”

Auction market

The six-day event in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, has been organised by the European Shoah Legacy and brings together 35 experts from more than a dozen countries.

It marks the first meeting of the new Provenance Research Training Programme, which will later be extended to other countries.

“The press tends to focus on the high end of the art market, the major paintings and so on, but what was taken was far vaster,” said Mr Fisher

“Entire libraries were taken – you’re talking about millions of books,” he added.

Mr Fisher stressed the importance of establishing a network of international experts, as the looted art often travels through several countries.

“Now, over 60 years later, you’re beginning to get a situation where people are passing on and the items then end up in the family estate and are being given up for auction, so many of these things have been coming to the art market,” he said.

Last year, an online database was launched, with the cooperation of the National Archives and the Commission for Looted Art, which lists missing works.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18446793#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 19:12 GMT

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Rebekah Brooks’ text to David Cameron: “We’re definitely in this together”

Ex-News International executive Rebekah Brooks told the PM “professionally we’re definitely in this together”, after the Sun paper switched loyalty to his party, the Leveson Inquiry heard.

Mrs Brooks sent the text to David Cameron on the eve of his speech to the 2009 Conservative Party conference.

But Mr Cameron said ex-PM Gordon Brown’s claims about a Tory deal with the company were “complete nonsense”.

And he said hiring ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson had “haunted” him.

Mr Coulson became Mr Cameron’s communications chief after resigning from the paper when its royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed for phone hacking.

‘Proud friend’

Mr Cameron said Mr Brown’s claim – that the Tories agreed to cut funding for the BBC and media regulator Ofcom in return for political support from News International – had been made because he was “very angry and disappointed” at the Sun’s decision to switch support from Labour ahead of the 2010 general election.

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Questioned about the Murdochs, Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and Jeremy Hunt, he looked “tense, edgy, uncomfortable and again and again said he couldn’t recall events””

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Nick Robinson Political editor

• Read more from Nick
• Hunt appointment ‘not botched’

Mr Cameron said the message from Mrs Brooks, dated October 2009 and submitted as part of his written evidence, was a reflection the Sun had the previous week decided to support the Conservatives.

Mrs Brooks said in the text to the then opposition leader: “I am so rooting for you tomorrow, not just as a proud friend but because professionally we’re definitely in this together.”

The text refers to how they should have a “country supper soon”.

Despite the friendship, Mr Cameron said there had been “no overt deals”, “no covert deals” and “no nods and winks” with the company.

He said he did have some conversations with editors in which he told them “we’d love a bit more support from your paper”, but “not very often”.

Legal advice

Speaking about Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s appointment to handle the bid by News International’s parent company News Corporation to buy BSkyB, Mr Cameron said: “It was not some rushed, botched, political decision. If anyone had told me Jeremy Hunt couldn’t do the job I wouldn’t have given him the job.”

He said he “definitely asked the cabinet secretary’s [Sir Jeremy Heywood] view and my memory is that he sought legal advice.”

The BSkyB bid was eventually abandoned in July 2011 amid outrage over the phone-hacking scandal.

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Rebekah Brooks’s message to David Cameron on eve of conference speech

“But seriously I do understand the issue with the Times. Let’s discuss over country supper soon.

“On the party it was because I had asked a number of NI (News International) people to Manchester post endorsement and they were disappointed not to see you. But as always Sam was wonderful (and I thought it was OE’s [Old Etonians] were charm personified!)

“I am so rooting for you tomorrow not just as a proud friend but because professionally we’re definitely in this together! Speech of your life? Yes he Cam”.

The Conservatives have been accused of having a biased view in favour of the bid by News Corporation.

The prime minister’s witness statement reveals he had 1,404 meetings with “media figures” – 26 a month on average – while in opposition between 2005 and 2010. Once in government, that fell to an average of about 13 a month.

In 2008 he took a trip to the Greek island of Santorini for a dinner with News International boss Rupert Murdoch because it was a chance to “build a relationship” with him.

When asked by Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press, how frequently he had seen Mrs Brooks between 2008 and 2009 when he was at home in his constituency in Oxfordshire, Mr Cameron was not specific.

He replied: “Not every weekend… um, in 2008/09, I’d have to check, I might be able to go back and check but I don’t think every weekend, I don’t think most weekends.”

‘Controversial appointment’

When he returned to give evidence in the afternoon however he said he had more details, after checking his wife Samantha’s diary.

It suggested the couple were “in the constituency” 23 weekends in 2009 and 15 in 2010, meaning “we probably did not see [the Brooks] more than once every six weeks”.

Lord Justice Leveson replied: “The great value of wives, prime minister.”

Charlie and Rebekah Brooks appeared in court on Wednesday

Mrs Brooks and her husband Charlie – who went to school with Mr Cameron – have both been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in relation to the phone-hacking scandal surrounding News of the World. Both deny wrongdoing.

The prime minister told the inquiry he accepted hiring Mr Coulson was “a controversial appointment” which had “come back to haunt both him and me”.

However, Mr Cameron said had been given “assurances” at the time by Mr Coulson that he had no knowledge of phone hacking at the paper.

Earlier Mr Cameron said politicians “have to take care when you have personal friendships [with individuals in the media] but that can be done and I have done that”.

Mr Cameron said the relationship between politicians and the media had deteriorated. “How we get it to a better place, I think part of it will be about transparency, better regulation, having a bit more distance, that will be part of respect.”

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said some of the key moments in Mr Cameron’s testimony were when he was asked about Mr Murdoch, Mrs Brooks and the Sun, saying his answers were often “terse” and that he looked “tense”.

Meanwhile Mr Hunt, responding to a Parliamentary question, said the Leveson Inquiry has so far cost taxpayers £3.2 million, with the total cost for part one of the investigation expected to reach £5.6 million.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18437287#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 14:05 GMT

By Tim Masters
Entertainment and arts correspondent, BBC News

Close-up of the facade at Whitechapel Gallery

Sculptor Rachel Whiteread has unveiled her first permanent public commission in the UK – a frieze of golden leaves high above a street in east London.

The Tree of Life sculpture fills a blank space above the entrance to the Whitechapel Gallery.

Whiteread said: “I’ve made it as a gift to the area, something that will brighten up someone’s day.”

The artist, the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993, has lived near the art gallery for 25 years.

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It’s wonderful to have something in the high street that isn’t a franchise or a brand”

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Danny Boyle on Rachel Whiteread’s new addition to Whitechapel

The artwork is one of the major commissions of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.

“It’s wonderful to have something in the high street that isn’t a franchise or a brand,” said filmmaker Danny Boyle, the artistic director of Olympic Games opening ceremony.

Speaking at Thursday’s launch event, the Trainspotting director added that the sculpture was “a breath of air that picks up something that’s not litter in our high street”.

Whiteread’s work was inspired by the Whitechapel Gallery’s existing architecture which features a Tree of Life motif on its terra-cotta panels.

Cast in bronze and covered in gold leaf, the artwork’s leaves and branches create a flurry across the front of the building visible to anyone passing in the street.

Rachel Whiteread was the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993

Gallery director Iwona Blazwick said Whiteread’s frieze had joined London’s repertoire of high-level gilded sculptures.

“There are angels and weather vanes and the most extraordinary features decorating our rooftops,” she said. “I think we should have a campaign to get people to look up a bit more and see these hidden treasures.”

The Whitechapel Gallery building, opened in 1901, was “finally complete”, she said.

Original plans for a frieze in the recessed space above the entrance were never realised, leaving it empty for more than 100 years.

Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture often takes existing architectural structures as its starting point.

She came to public attention in 1993 with House, a life-sized cast of the interior of a Victorian terraced property in east London. Her sculpture Monument was commissioned for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2001.

Whiteread’s Holocaust Memorial (2000) in Vienna and Water Tower (1998) in New York remain as permanent public sculptures.

“I don’t think there’s anything profound about the work,” Whiteread told the BBC at Thursday’s unveiling.

Whitechapel Gallery facade (seen left), with the Tree of Life by Rachel Whiteread

“It’s connected with the architecture, the sociology and anthropology of the area. I’ve worked with the local foundry, so it’s all very much East End-based.”

She spoke of having a “eureka moment” during a walk in Italy. “I plucked a twig off a tree and said this the kind of thing I want to do!”

Whiteread, who doesn’t like to work on a computer, designed Tree of Life after building a full-scale model of the facade of the Whitechapel Gallery in her studio.

Much of the external construction work took place amid the recent extreme weather conditions.

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London 2012 – One extraordinary year

• The BBC’s home of 2012: Latest Olympic news, sport, culture, torch relay, video and audio

“The first time I went up to see the Tree of Life was in a blizzard with a force 10 gale,” recalled Whiteread. “In the past two months we’ve been installing during the monsoon period.”

Whiteread’s commission was mainly financed by the Art Fund, with support from the Henry Moore Foundation.

Ruth Mackenzie, director of the London 2012 Festival, said the “ravishingly beautiful” sculpture was free to be admired by the millions who travel down Whitechapel High Street.

“We’ve got a golden legacy that shouts from the rooftops, literally,” she said.

Sculptor Antony Gormley told the BBC: “Rachel’s genius is that she allows the past to become present in a way that nobody else can.

“These wonderful golden things hover on the facade and give it a kind of vitality. It’s both extremely reserved but incredibly joyful.”

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18432744#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 08:37 GMT

McGregor was born in Bermuda and raised in Norfolk

British author Jon McGregor has won the 100,000 euro (£81,000) International Impac Dublin Literary Award for his third novel Even the Dogs.

The writer beat off competition from 146 other shortlisted titles to receive the accolade, the world’s largest prize given to a novel published in English.

According to publisher Bloomsbury, Even the Dogs is “an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society”.

McGregor is the third British author to win the lucrative prize.

Andrew Miller was the first, winning in 1999 for Ingenious Pain, while Nicola Barker won the following year with Wide Open.

Two other British novelists – Tim Pears and Animatta Forna – were among this year’s ten shortlisted authors.

On his Twitter feed, McGregor said it was “a great prize” to win and that he felt “in good company”.

The international judging panel, which included Irish book of the year nominee Mike McCormack praised Even the Dogs as “a fearless experiment which shows us in close-up detail the lives of a gathering of homeless addicts”.

The Top 10 was whittled down from submissions nominated by 162 public libraries from 45 countries.

The award is organised by Dublin city libraries on behalf of Dublin City Council and is sponsored by Impac, an international management productivity company.

It is open to novels written in any language by authors of any nationality, provided the book has been published in or translated into English.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18438925#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 11:58 GMT

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David Cameron: Important not to get ‘buried by daily news agenda’

David Cameron has accused Gordon Brown of “cooking up” a “specious and unjustified conspiracy theory” about a deal between the Conservatives and media group News International.

Mr Brown had told the Leveson Inquiry the Tories agreed to cut funding for the BBC and media regulator Ofcom in return for political support from NI.

But Mr Cameron said the suggestion was “complete nonsense”.

He said he had “never traded a policy” in return for media backing.

Mr Cameron is a friend of ex-News International boss Rebekah Brooks, and hired ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief.

But Mr Cameron said there had been “no overt deals”, “no covert deals” and “no nods and winks” with the company.

Media meetings

He said he did have some conversations with editors in which he told them “we’d love a bit more support from your paper”, but “not very often”.

Policies relating to Ofcom and the BBC were “born out of proper Conservative thinking about the media”, he insisted, not any kind of deal.

Continue reading the main story

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Newspaper reporting and coverage feels like you’re being shouted at rather than spoken to”

End Quote
David Cameron
Prime Minister

The prime minister’s witness statement reveals he had 1,404 meetings with “media figures” – 26 a month on average – while in opposition between 2005 and 2010. Once in government, that fell to an average of about 13 a month.

“Most of these meetings were about me trying to promote Conservative policy,” he said.

In 2008 he took a trip to the Greek island of Santorini for a dinner with News International boss Rupert Murdoch because it was a chance to “build a relationship” with him.

A text message sent by Mrs Brooks to Mr Cameron in October 2009 was read to the inquiry in which she said she was “rooting for him”, both as “a personal friend” and because “professionally we’re in this together”.

The PM said that was a reflection of the fact that the Sun had the previous week switched its support to the Conservatives.

Mrs Brooks and her husband Charlie – who went to school with Mr Cameron – have both been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in relation to the phone-hacking scandal surrounding News of the World. Both deny wrongdoing.

Earlier Mr Cameron said politicians “have to take care when you have personal friendships [with individuals in the media] but that can be done and I have done that”.

‘Respect’

The prime minister was also asked about his decision to employ Mr Coulson after he had resigned from the News of the World.

He said he accepted it was “a controversial appointment” which had “come back to haunt him and me”, but he had been given “assurances” at the time by Mr Coulson that he had no knowledge of phone hacking.

“I sought assurances, I got them and that was the basis on which I employed him,” the PM added.

Charlie and Rebekah Brooks appeared in court on Wednesday

Mr Cameron’s appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice in London is part of the inquiry’s examination of the relationship between politicians and the media.

He said that relationship had deteriorated, meaning “a lot of politicians think the press always get it wrong” and the press think politicians “are just out for themselves”.

“It’s become a bad relationship. How we get it to a better place, I think part of it will be about transparency, better regulation, having a bit more distance, that will be part of respect.

“But respect has to come from high standards in both places… respect has to be earned on both sides.”

He continued: “When I say distance, partly what I mean is that the politicians… have got to get out of the 24-hour news cycle, not try and fight every hourly battle, focus on long-term issues and be prepared to take a hit on a story they don’t immediately respond to.”

Mr Cameron said the rolling, 24-hour news agenda meant newspapers had been forced to “turn up the volume” on their coverage, and focus on “finding an angle” rather than reporting facts alone.

“I think that newspaper reporting and coverage feels like you’re being shouted at rather than spoken to.”

He said the inquiry was a “cathartic moment” and a chance to “reset” relations.

Resignation calls

The Conservatives have been accused of having a biased view in favour of the bid by News International’s parent company News Corp to take over BSkyB.

The inquiry is likely to ask Mr Cameron about Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s handling of the BSkyB bid, which was abandoned in July 2011 amid outrage over the phone-hacking scandal.

The inquiry previously heard that Mr Hunt sent a memo to Mr Cameron voicing support for the bid before he was put in charge of overseeing it at the end of 2010.

Labour accuse Mr Hunt of being too close to News Corp, but the prime minister has backed Mr Hunt amid calls for him to resign.

Shortly after the prime minister arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice, the Metropolitan Police announced that three people, including a former prison officer, had been arrested as part of a probe into alleged corrupt payments to public officials.

The Crown Prosecution Service has also announced that Guardian journalist David Leigh, who admitted hacking an arms company executive’s phone, will not face charges.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18437287#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

14 June 2012
Last updated at 06:53 GMT

Shane Filan said he was devastated that his problems have come to this conclusion

Westlife singer Shane Filan has been declared bankrupt in the UK.

The Irish band have sold millions of records but Mr Filan suffered enormous losses in his country’s property crash.

In a statement, the 32-year-old said he had “worked long and hard” to tackle his debts and was devastated that his problems have come to this conclusion.

The pop star filed for bankruptcy in the UK which has a less onerous bankruptcy regime than the Republic of Ireland.

In the UK the period of bankruptcy typically lasts for a year but in the Republic of Ireland it is at least three years and more commonly 12 years.

Mr Filan owns a property company, Shafin Developments Limited, with his brother Finbarr.

It was established in 2004 and had been involved in developments in Counties Leitrim and Sligo in the west of Ireland.

Last month, the company was placed in receivership.

Escape

Earlier this week, the singer was declared bankrupt at Kingston-upon-Thames County Court and his name has been placed on the UK insolvency register.

The father-of-three is the latest in a steady stream of highly indebted Irish property developers who have filed for bankruptcy in the UK.

Ireland has agreed to liberalise its bankruptcy regime as one of the conditions of its EU/ IMF bailout.

However the country’s banks are concerned that the reforms could lead to a flood of mortgage defaults as ordinary homeowners use bankruptcy to escape from negative equity.

Westlife is one of the most successful boy bands of the last decade, selling more than 44m records.

Last October, they announced they were splitting up.

The band is currently in the middle of a farewell tour and continues to fill major concert venues.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18438032#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa