WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates
• Mervyn King's damning views on Cameron and Osborne
• Lib Dems drop attack against Cameron after Ivan's death
• US and UK fears over Pakistan's nuclear weapons
• Pakistan army sponsoring militants as cash goes missing
• Full coverage of the WikiLeaks cables
• Lib Dems drop attack against Cameron after Ivan's death
• US and UK fears over Pakistan's nuclear weapons
• Pakistan army sponsoring militants as cash goes missing
• Full coverage of the WikiLeaks cables
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11.55am: Downing Street sounds a little exasperated by the continuing questions about WikiLeaks in general and Mervyn King's comments in particular. Here are the latest lines from PA.
Cameron's spokesman refused to answer questions about the WikiLeaks documents at a regular daily media briefing in the House of Commons.
In response to further questions, he said that the prime minister believes the governor is doing a "good job", but declined to respond when asked whether he retains Mr Cameron's confidence.
"The issue of confidence simply doesn't arise," he said.
11.47am: US officials tried to influence Spanish prosecutors and government officials to head off court investigations into Guantánamo Bay torture allegations, secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights and the killing of a Spanish journalist by US troops in Iraq, writes Giles Tremlet in Madrid.
11.40am: Prime minister's questions at midday. It is sure to be spiced by Mervyn King's comments about Osborne and Cameron. Andrew Sparrow will be covering on the the politics live blog.
11.33am: Hillary Clinton has emerged from that OSCE summit in Kazakhstan to answer more questions about WikiLeaks.
She said had discussed the the leaked cables with her international colleagues, according to AP.11.24am: One of the cables quoted Tory party officials in October 2008 expressing concern about George Osborne's "high-pitched vocal delivery".
A month later the Daily Mail published a story about Osborne having voice-coaching lessons from a £100-per-hour Harley Street expert.
Some observers claim that in the past year his voice has dropped in tone and his speaking style sounds less posh.
11.01am: The British government gave secret assurances that it would "protect US interests" at the Chilcot inquiry, the Telegraph reports.
The story is top of Juan Cole's list of ten revelations about the Middle East that we have learnt from the cables so far.
10.40am: William Hague said he, David Cameron and George Osborne were all "children of Thatcher" and staunch Atlanticists, according to one of the latest cables to be released.
10.25am: The Bank of England has issued a terse statement in support of King. "The governor has a very effective working relationship with both the chancellor and the prime minister," a spokesman said.
10.17am: Nick Clegg was sent to Kazakhstan for that tricky OSCE summit with Hillary Clinton. He said the leaks of the US cables would not harm the UK's "uniquely strong relationship" with the US.
Following his discussion with Clinton in the Kazakh capital Astana, Clegg said: We discussed a wide range of issues, including Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process and Sudan.
I made clear to Secretary Clinton that recent WikiLeaks disclosures would not affect our uniquely strong relationship. UK-US co-operation will continue with the same depth and closeness as before.
10.05am: Mervyn King should resign, says his former monetary policy committee colleague, David Blanchflower.
Hélène Mulholland has the story based on this CiF piece by Blanchflower.
Mervyn King is one smart guy and that has always been abundantly clear. Unfortunately, it is his thirst for power and influence that has clouded his judgment one too many times. He has now committed the unforgivable sin of compromising the independence of the Bank of England. He is expected to be politically neutral but he has shown himself to be politically biased and as a result is now in an untenable position. King must go.
9.35am: Yet more rabid reaction in America. Former Pentagon official KT McFarland, said Manning should be executed and WikiLeaks declared a terrorist organisation.
9.24am: More WikiLeaks hysteria. The Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said the person responsible for the leaks should face the death penalty.
"Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty," Huckabee said according to Politico.
9.20am: The respected Middle East analyst Juan Cole finds evidence in the latest cables of British impatience with the diplomatic process last year over Iran's nuclear programme.
One cable shows Simon McDonald, head of the foreign and defence policy secretariat at the Cabinet Office, said Gordon Brown wanted to impose a 30-day deadline on Iran.
"That sort of impatience does not comport with genuine diplomacy, and it seems clear that the British were eager to impose further sanctions as soon as possible," Cole writes.He said the cable also suggested that the UK and the US wanted to get hold of Yukiya Amano, the then incoming head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and "twist his arm to be more alarmist in his reports on Iran."
8.55am: US state department spokesman PJ Crowley was repeatedly pressed to explain disclosures that US diplomats were ordered to spy on the UN leadership.
We've published an extended extract of the exchange. It included this defence from Crowley:
Diplomats are diplomats and their job is to interact with people, gather information, gain a perspective of events around the world, and report those findings in a way that helps inform our policies and inform our actions. They are not intelligence assets. It can be useful for a diplomat to understand from Washington – you have a diplomat out in any place in the world, hey, there are issues that are of particular interest to the United States government. If you come across information that might be relevant to these issues, let us know. That's … those are … that is something that diplomats actually do every day. But one particular cable does not turn a diplomat into an intelligence asset.
8.38am: The anti-WikiLeaks campaign is now becoming hysterical. Tom Flanagan, an adviser to the Canadian prime minister Stepher Harper, called for the assassination of Julian Assange on a CBC news programme.
The "shockingly flippant" comment is being seen as a fatwa against Assange.
8.29am: The leaks are "embarrassing" and "awkward," the US defence secretary Robert Gates admitted last night. But he said the consequences for American foreign policy should be limited. CNN uploaded this video of his remarks.
8.08am: Hillary Clinton faces an awkward time today at a summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Kazakhstan. Among the delegates are the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who US diplomats were instructed to spy on, along with other UN leaders.
Meanwhile, Hillary's husband Bill said he expects lives will be lost as a result of the leaked cables."I'll be very surprised if some people don't lose their lives," the former president said in a speech in North Carolina, according to AP. "And goodness knows how many will lose their careers."
Speaking to reporters after the event Bill Clinton said Julian Assange is trying to evade the reach of American law because he knows what he did was criminal.
"That doesn't mean that he did succeed in evading the reach of American law," he said.
7.57am: Prince Andrew is also under the cosh.
He used his royal position to demand a special briefing from the Serious Fraud Office weeks before launching a tirade against the agency's "idiotic" investigators at a lunch with businessmen in Kyrgyzstan.
The anti-monarchy organisation Republic have demanded the prince's resignation as UK trade envoy.
Republic spokesman Graham Smith said today: "On one hand Andrew is seeking private briefings from the Serious Fraud Office, on the other he is railing against the SFO and apparently condoning bribery in the course of international trade."Still not a peep from Buckingham Palace on all this.
7.39am: Interpol is on his back, Sarah Palin wants him to be hunted down like a terrorist – it couldn't get much worse for Julian Assange, and now his mum has now piped up to talk of her distress at his plight.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald she said: "He's my son and I love him and obviously I don't want him hunted down and jailed. I'm reacting as any mother would – I'm distressed."She added: "A lot of stuff that's written about me and Julian is untrue".
7.23am: Will Mervyn King be forced to resign? Not necessarily. In a detailed blogpost analysing the cables, our chief political correspondent Nick Watt writes that in some respects the disclosures are helpful for the governor.
The publication of King's private thoughts is a mixed blessing for the governor. On the one hand the cable may feed the perception, voiced last week by the monetary policy committee member Adam Posen, that the governor is "excessively political". Posen complained that the governor was unwise to endorse the speed of the Tories' deficit reduction plans in May. But on the other hand King may be able to claim that his criticisms of Cameron and Osborne show he is no Tory cheerleader.
7.09am: It's bumper day of WikiLeak revelations. There's lots to get through so here's a summary of the main stories today:
• Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England, privately criticised David Cameron and George Osborne for their lack of experience, the lack of depth in their inner circle and their tendency to think about issues only in terms of their electoral impact. Here's the cable.
• George Osborne lacked gravitas before the election and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery", according to private Conservative polling relayed to US embassy diplomats. Here's the cable.
• The defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Americans that the Tories would be tougher on Pakistan because they were less reliant on votes from the Pakistani community than Labour.
• The Liberal Democrats' two top strategists, Polly Mackenzie and Chris Saunders, now both working in government, planned to run a fierce anti-Cameron election campaign, describing him as "out of touch with real life". The death of Cameron's son Ivan forced them to drop the plan since it "eliminated these vulnerabilities".
• American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India
• Pakistan's army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and Mumbai attackers Lashkar-e-Taiba.
• US special forces soldiers have been secretly embedded with Pakistani military forces in the tribal belt, helping to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters and co-ordinate drone strikes.
• The cables make a number of other embarrassing disclosures about Pakistan including: president Asif Ali Zardari's preparations in case he gets assassinated; and the army chief's plan to oust Zardari.
• A series of classified US memos depict the French president Nicolas Sarkozy as a self-absorbed, thin-skinned, erratic character who tyrannises his ministers and staff.
• Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws. And Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst suspect of leaking the cables, faces 52 years in jail.
• George Osborne lacked gravitas before the election and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery", according to private Conservative polling relayed to US embassy diplomats. Here's the cable.
• The defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Americans that the Tories would be tougher on Pakistan because they were less reliant on votes from the Pakistani community than Labour.
• The Liberal Democrats' two top strategists, Polly Mackenzie and Chris Saunders, now both working in government, planned to run a fierce anti-Cameron election campaign, describing him as "out of touch with real life". The death of Cameron's son Ivan forced them to drop the plan since it "eliminated these vulnerabilities".
• American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India
• Pakistan's army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and Mumbai attackers Lashkar-e-Taiba.
• US special forces soldiers have been secretly embedded with Pakistani military forces in the tribal belt, helping to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters and co-ordinate drone strikes.
• The cables make a number of other embarrassing disclosures about Pakistan including: president Asif Ali Zardari's preparations in case he gets assassinated; and the army chief's plan to oust Zardari.
• A series of classified US memos depict the French president Nicolas Sarkozy as a self-absorbed, thin-skinned, erratic character who tyrannises his ministers and staff.
• Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws. And Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst suspect of leaking the cables, faces 52 years in jail.
You can follow all of yesterday's events on Tuesday's live blog.
