Friends of jailed ex-minister make claim ahead of court hearing to settle costs of his trial

One of Britain’s few black women judges, who shot to prominence six years ago with a “misery memoir” about her tough early life, has been arrested and questioned by police.

I used to know the streets round London's Clapham Old Town reasonably well, wheeling pushchairs past the grand façades of The Pavement, balancing small children on swings in Grafton Square, haring after scooters in Rectory Gardens. Someone once told me this was the oldest squat in London. I like Rectory Gardens – the random collections of stuff tacked on to walls, the small bits of garden laid straight on to the street, shored up with timber offcuts, casually, promiscuously planted with marigolds and lettuce, petunias and parsley.

The evolution of birds may have helped to keep insects from growing into much larger species, scientists have said. Faced with an airborne predatory threat, the creatures stayed small to be more manoeuvrable, it is believed.

Britain's busiest railway station has reopened after a power cut forced it to close, Network Rail said.

Outlook: The Sex Pistols' lyrics could scarcely be more relevant today, and not just on these shores

Andy McSmith charts his dazzling rise in the City and Westminster – and a speedy fall

Chris Huhne, the Cabinet minister facing possible criminal charges for perverting the course of justice, has spent almost £1.3m on a new London home.

They're not making it easy to get into Four O Nine. Is it worth it?

Planet Organic, the £20m turnover café and supermarket chain backed by the entrepreneurs behind Space NK and Fenn Wright Manson, has turned a profit this year and plans to open new stores across London.

So many. Oh so many terrible first dates. The guy who took me to a conceptual art exhibition, then a David Hare play. Straight after, I tell you, without even so much as a double vodka in between.

It was heart-warming to see the good folk of Clapham, Hackney and the rest mobilise themselves for a mass clear-up, using the same social media that had summoned the urban pillagers less than 24 hours before. Raising their brooms and dustpans aloft, they appeared the very model of David Cameron's Big Society. Whoever would have forecast that it would be looting mobs in London that would give it birth?

After two nights of violence, the capital was braced for more on Monday – but not on the scale that transpired. Cahal Milmo recounts the extraordinary events

As he fought to be heard, there were cries of 'How was your holiday?' and 'Why are you here three days late?'