A High Court judge is deciding whether to lift an order banning journalists identifying a woman with whom former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin had an "extra-marital affair".

A year after leaving office as minister for the City, Lord Myners is to become a partner and chairman in a leading City firm of "active investors".

The woman alleged to be Sir Fred Goodwin's former lover has been told by a judge that if she wants the Government to prosecute a newspaper that nearly identified her, she should contact the Attorney General herself.

Hundreds of other reporting restrictions remain in force, and the public knows next to nothing about them

Newspapers vie with one another to convince their readers that this tawdry, trivial stuff is somehow important

Four weeks of speculation, legal wrangling and mass civil disobedience on the internet came to an end yesterday when an MP used parliamentary privilege to name Ryan Giggs as the Premier League footballer at the centre of the super-injunction fiasco. John Hemming named the Manchester United player only hours after a High Court judge had ruled that a ban on naming him should stand. Last night, Mr Justice Eady refused to lift the injunction despite the intervention – raising the prospect that Mr Giggs could sue news organisations who have named him for damages. To murmurs of disapproval from fellow MPs, the Liberal Democrat said: "With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all.

A privacy order preventing journalists publishing details about a "sexual relationship" former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) boss Sir Fred Goodwin had with a work colleague does not stop financial regulators mounting "any sort" of inquiry, a High Court judge said today.

Rant

The distinction between who is and isn't fair game for the press is complicated. So it is a relief that we can all agree on Sir Fred Goodwin. Actors and footballers are one thing: a hubristic banker who left the taxpayer with the bill for his rampage is a different matter. We can tell that the alleged affair between Goodwin and a senior colleague at the Royal Bank of Scotland is a solid-gold scandal rather than diverting gossip because the Financial Services Authority has deemed it worthy enough of investigation.

Britain's banking regulator is to launch a new probe into the failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland in light of revelations about Sir Fred Goodwin's private life.

The public interest defence for publishing details of Sir Fred Goodwin's love life is clear cut. This is a man who presided over one of Britain's biggest ever corporate collapses. Moreover, the ruin of Royal Bank of Scotland did not affect only its staff and shareholders, but everyone else in the country.

The accomplished controversialist Lars von Trier may endure a few sleepless nights in the next month: Denmark is starved of darkness at this time of year, after all. But he can rest easy in the knowledge that his exile from the Cannes Film Festival – quite apart from garnering him countless precious column inches – will likely lapse in due course.