? Fugitive tycoon returns to UK after 17 years
? Q&A: Asil Nadir trial
? Profile: Asil Nadir

Fugitive tycoon Asil Nadir will appear in court today for the first time since fleeing Britain 17 years ago, during which a provisional trial date may be fixed and his bail renewed during a brief hearing at the Old Bailey.

Nadir was given bail in his absence on 30 July on condition he returns to the UK and attends court today.

Old Bailey judge Mr Justice Bean said he hoped it would end the "legal limbo" which existed since Nadir fled Britain for Northern Cyprus.

He also quashed an arrest warrant for him and imposed 10 conditions on bail, including Nadir, 69, being electronically tagged.

Nadir was facing 66 counts of theft involving £34m fraud allegations in May 1993 when he flew from Britain to the Mediterranean island, which has no extradition treaty with the UK.

The Conservative Party donor was secretly flown out in a private plane after his Polly Peck business empire collapsed.

He had appeared in court the previous year but had not technically surrendered to his bail.

So, the judge said, a subsequent arrest warrant issued on the basis that he had breached his bail, was not valid.

Nadir's legal team told the court he was willing to return to face trial if he was granted bail.

The Serious Fraud Office had agreed not to oppose bail if the stringent conditions were imposed.

The conditions include depositing £250,000 with the court as a security and surrendering travel documents.

Defence barrister William Clegg, QC, said Nadir had a "determined intention" to stand trial.

Nadir, who now has new business interests in Northern Cyprus, arrived at Luton airport a week ago with his 26-year-old wife, Nur.

The couple are renting a £20,000-a-month town house in Mayfair, central London, as Nadir's legal team prepare his defence.

Is it any of our business? Or are politicians' lives fair game?

Mattering is a very complicated business. Nothing matters, full stop. You always have to ask what exactly it is that matters, for whom or for what. In the case of William Hague, that means there are dozens of questions flying about, all of which are getting somewhat confused.

Being gay or bisexual in itself should clearly not be an issue at all, except perhaps for his wife Ffion. Would it matter, however, if Hague were revealed to be a love rat? Again, not in itself, not for the general public. That's not because infidelity is harmless or there's no such thing as sexual morality. Friends and family would have good reason to be bothered by any such revelations. But for the rest of us, politicians need to be judged on how well they do their jobs, not on how good or nice they are in their private lives. I would love to have a parliament full of people who are committed, competent, have the right political values and are lovely human beings. But of these qualities, loveliness is without question the lowest of my priorities.

There are always those who protest that how people behave in their private lives matters because character matters. But this underestimates the extent to which character is at least in part situation-specific. Someone can be a loyal rugby team member and a disloyal husband; honest with his wife but mendacious with colleagues; courageous facing illness and cowardly at sea in a storm. We should indeed judge politicians by their virtues, but only those that apply to their work as MPs. Lie to the electorate and you're out. Lie to your spouse and you're a bastard, but you can keep your job. (We will remember you're a bastard though, so don't try to pretend otherwise.)

However, there is perhaps one reason why it might matter if the accusations against had been true. This is a man who as Conservative party leader said: "It is the institution of marriage, the lifelong and exclusive commitment of one man and one woman to each other, which provides the best hope for stable family life and for the upbringing of children." When politicians' personal behaviour is shown to be inconsistent with the principles they have advocated and have used to drive policy, we are at the very least entitled to have a go at them.

We live in a society where the media, in particular the internet ? social networks and the bloggers ? are obsessed with the private lives of public figures, especially politicians. It seems to be very much an Anglo-Saxon plague; other European countries take a more balanced view. But it does mean that at every point politicians have to consider how information about them can be distorted to create a story.

I share the view that the William Hague story is another example of how obsessive and trivial some of our media have become, but he should have been more careful about the opportunity he was giving to some parts of the media for a slur on his character.

I have considerable respect for him as an individual. He is something of a loner and a very private man, which may be why he didn't realise what could be made of his sharing a room with an aide. Anyone who has been through the experience of being pursued for some private indiscretion or, more often, the breakdown of a marriage or other relationship, can imagine the desperation the victim feels, and I would judge that that desperation lay behind his painfully frank statement, which must have cost him and his wife a great deal of anguish. I hope the internet media will now leave him alone.

Bad judgment, people say, to share a room with an adviser. Bad judgment, they say, to make a detailed statement that takes a rumour circulating on the margins of the internet to the pages and screens of the mainstream media, meaning this story instantly becomes part of the Hague permanent profile.

But, assuming his statement to be true, which I do, not least because he has made it in such unequivocal terms, I am left thinking not just that it might, yes, seem a bit odd to share a room with a young male adviser, but really, why does he have to go into all this in such detail at all? A rumour on the internet, born largely it seems of an unfortunate photo ? most politicians are poor at casual clothes ? and suddenly he is divulging really private details of his wife's miscarriages, and having people question his judgment not on policy, which really matters, but on what is essentially media handling of a tricky situation.

Anyway, as many of you know, I am usually willing to give the Tories a good kicking, and often they deserve it. But I wish William and Ffion well. And I wonder how the papers would have covered Abraham Lincoln's campaigns; in those days opponents and colleagues shared beds, not just rooms, to save money on the campaign trail.

alastaircampbell.org

It should not even be an issue. What matters is the integrity and competency of politicians. That is a matter of public concern ? whether they are good at their jobs, and whether they are honest in their jobs and how they treat other people in their job. What they do in their private lives, as long as it's not illegal, is completely outside the public interest.

It's in the interest of journalists trying to sell newspapers, but not the public interest. When are we going to grow up as a country and judge people on their honesty and decency, and not on matters of public prurience?

What is it about Tories, beds and homosexuality? There was Christopher Grayling, who supported the right of bed-and-breakfast owners to shun gay people wishing to share a double bed. And David Ashby, a Conservative MP from 1983 to 1997, forced to resign as a parliamentary private secretary after it emerged he had shared a bed with another man while on holiday in France. Ashby said he had often slept in the same bed as male friends ? those who believed it showed he was gay had "dirty minds", he said. In the end, his wife left him amid a media storm.

It's hard to understand why William Hague fell into the same trap. If he was having an affair with his adviser, Christopher Myers, would the darling of the lucrative after-dinner circuit not simply have got out his credit card for two rooms ? but used only one? On the other hand, why appear so frugal by sticking to a twin room ? and then be so profligate by appointing Myers as a third special adviser when David Cameron declared that ministers needed no more than two?

I find it all mystifying. As I do Hague's use of his wife's miscarriages in support of his heterosexuality, even going to the length of pointing out that Ffion lost a baby "this summer" ? as if to say that he could not have been carrying on with Myers because he was too busy with his wife. But people do the oddest things to hide their homosexuality.

One consequence of the progress made on equality in the 20 years or so since I nervously told my mum that I was gay is that it is now socially acceptable to gossip publicly about people's sexuality. The media now openly discusses gayness in the way it would simply not have done when it just wasn't mentioned in family newspapers.

So what of that press reaction? However much high-minded commentators puff that the Hague whirlwind is "not about homosexuality" but public money and hypocrisy, it's really about the simultaneous fascination and repulsion that gay sex still holds for the dirty mac brigade in the British press. As the family of murdered MI6 man Gareth Williams will tell you, the merest hint of manly action is guaranteed to inject a turbo charge into any juicy story. If that's progress, there's a way to go yet.

Matt Wells is blogs editor, guardian.co.uk

Does it really matter who William Hague shares a room with? From a PR point of view, it does. In the 21st century, few care whether an MP is gay or straight. What the general public do care about is honesty and credibility. If a perfect marriage is not so perfect and is a PR ruse, expect a critical backlash.

The internet has teased the story out of speculative cocoon state and pumped it full of helium. It should never have reached the stage where Hague was offering up very personal details to smooth over a rumour started on a blog. His PR should have killed the story right away, but Downing St and Hague's press and media teams are seemingly out of sync. Over the weekend No 10 was threatening legal action against any media organisations who printed the allegations. By Tuesday, Hague had issued a statement sharing details of the miscarriages he and his wife have suffered. Too many people are working ineffectively to bury this story.

In an internet era where conspiracy theories breed like bacteria, stories have to be extinguished immediately or you end up with a forest fire.

It was not shameful or undignified for William Hague to deny that he has ever had a relationship with a man or an "improper relationship" with Chris Myers. I assume Hague's denials are true, and given the mounting speculation, his frankness was justified, necessary and honest. Nevertheless, denying an "improper" relationship is not the same as denying a relationship. Moreover, Hague may not regard a fling as a relationship, in much the same way that Bill Clinton played semantics with the meaning of sex when quizzed about the Monica Lewinsky affair. But since there is no evidence of any fling, whether proper or improper, it's time to stop the gossip.

Of course, if he was having a gay affair behind his wife's back, that would be a betrayal of trust. I would feel great sympathy for Ffion. Such a deception would damage his reputation for integrity and trust. But the damage would not be significantly more or less than if he had an affair with a female adviser. It would be the act of betrayal, not the gender of his partner, that would generate the strongest public reaction.

In 2010, most British people are pretty relaxed about gay MPs and cabinet ministers. We are more concerned about their policies than their private lives. And rightly so. What they do in private has no bearing on the public welfare. There have been plenty of gay people at the top of UK government, and at lower ministerial level, for more than a decade, including Peter Mandelson, Chris Smith, Nick Brown, Ben Bradshaw, Angela Eagle and Chris Bryant. The current vice-chair of the Tory party, Margot James MP, is an out lesbian. She and others show that being openly gay is no longer a bar to election and to promotion to high office.

Children's minister points to need for 'heeding basic child psychology principles when involving young people in TV'

The coalition government is to press ahead with a full review of the UK's child performance laws to protect young people from potential exploitation by reality TV formats.

Announcing the move earlier this week Tim Loughton, the children's minister, referred to Channel 4's Boys and Girls Alone, saying it "sparked fierce debate about a kind of engineered Lord of the Flies type of scenario".

Ofcom received 180 complaints about the show last year from viewers and organisations, including the NSPCC, the majority of which were about the safety and welfare of children who were shown being bullied and in temporary distress.

The media regulator cleared Channel 4 of harming children who took part, but criticised the broadcaster for not doing enough to tell viewers of the safeguards it had put in place.

Loughton, speaking at the International Association for the Study of Attachment (IASA) conference of psychologists in Cambridge on Wednesday, said: "There is a growing need to look again at our child performance laws, which date back to the 1960s. That is something that I will be undertaking in the autumn, together with the rather antiquated legislation on child employment."

The minister noted that some observers see a continuation of the Victorian freak show in modern reality television, and added that there was a need for "heeding basic child psychology principles when involving young people in TV programmes".

He said there was concern at the way impressionable youngsters were being conditioned to liking "that sort of thing". "That has raised profound questions over how young people involve themselves in the media and their experiences within it," Loughton added.

"Shows like Boys and Girls Alone, which was aired by Channel 4 last year, sparked fierce debate about a kind of engineered Lord of the Flies type of scenario, with the removal and separation of children from their families serving as a useful reminder... of [the importance of] heeding basic child psychology... when involving young people in a television programme."

Loughton said the government intended to continue the work of Dr Tanya Byron on internet safety, and children's TV academic Professor David Buckingham's review on commercialisation. He also highlighted the importance of the childhood and families taskforce set up by the new government, to assist families, which is chaired by David Cameron.

The conference was organised by the thinktank Mindful Policy Group, which promotes child mental health.

My recent post on bike theft prompted Transport for London to get in touch to say that its 30-strong Cycle Task Force team has made "around 36 arrests" related to bike theft and vandalism since its launch in June and also "helped Londoners security mark around 4,000 bikes" - a precaution that greatly improves owner's chances of being re-united with their cycle if it gets pinched and then abandoned and ends up in a police station. TfL says that "hundreds" of stolen bikes are presently stacked up unclaimed. The post also inspired top comments, as ever, from thereverent and Deej1. The latter linked to the following London Cycling Campaign video.

Very helpful. Must say, though, that it rather confirms me in my prejudice that the hassle involved in keeping your bike safe outweighs the advantages of cycling in the first place. Plus I'm a scaredycat, of course.

YouGov poll commissioned by his campaign suggests David Miliband is seen as the strongest candidate in the Labour leadership contest to serve as prime minister

David Miliband is seen overwhelmingly as the most effective alternative to David Cameron and the strongest candidate in the Labour leadership contest to serve as prime minister, according to an opinion poll among voters commissioned by his campaign.

Amid signs of a tight race between the Miliband brothers, Ed today receives a boost when the Blackadder actor and veteran activist Tony Robinson endorses him as the most "radical" candidate.

Robinson, a highly respected figure in the Labour party who topped the poll for elections to the National Executive Committee on three consecutive occasions, said: "Of all of the candidates, from the beginning of the hustings, Ed has clearly defined himself away from same old same old. He is the one who, from the beginning, was prepared to distance himself from Iraq, from ID cards, student loans. These are big things that matter to people."

But David Miliband took heart from a new YouGov poll which showed he was most likely to woo voters who rejected the party at the general election. The poll was commissioned by his campaign.

It found 47% of respondents who had a view believe the shadow foreign secretary is the most effective alternative to Cameron ? a 28 point lead over his nearest rival, his brother Ed, who scored 19%. Ed Balls trailed on 13%, with Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham on 11% and 10% respectively.

These numbers exclude those who said they do not know or said none of the above. If these are included, David Miliband is supported by 20%, with his younger brother on 8%.

The poll follows the disclosure that Cameron sees David Miliband as the greatest threat to the Tories, and will be welcomed by the shadow foreign secretary who is trying to portray himself as the candidate best placed to return Labour to power.

The poll of 2,907 people, conducted between 25-27 August, also found that David Miliband enjoys a strong lead among voters who abandoned Labour ? a key battle in the leadership campaign. He has a 25% lead over his brother among these voters on who would be the best alternative to Cameron, and a 27% lead as the candidate most likely to persuade people to vote Labour.

Most of those questioned (42%) see David Miliband as the best leader of the party, well ahead of his brother on 19%. These figures exclude the don't knows and those who rejected all five candidates.

Ed Miliband welcomed the strong endorsement from Robinson. The actor said: "There has been a lot of chatter about how it would be a terrible thing to choose a candidate who is in any way radical. The idea being that it would frighten the election so much that it would cast us into years of opposition. I think people who make that allegation have got very short memories. Tony Blair was extraordinarily radical. He was the person that got rid of Clause IV."

Robinson added that Ed Miliband would end the "unadulterated misery" of being a Labour member in recent years. "You have not felt there was any possibility of having any kind of say in policy. It was just dumped on you."

The actor said: "I was annoyed by the timing of Tony Blair's and Peter Mandelson's books. Mandelson was saying that if you have any new ideas, if you want to put clear water between yourself and what has happened over the last 13 years, you are going to make yourself unelectable. That is cheap and lazy rhetoric. It is what the silly kids do in the playground at school."