MAN IN THE NEWS

David Ireland

THE head of the Empty Homes Agency has unveiled the results of the charity's challenge to the mayoral candidates. Boris Johnson is seen as the one who will best address the issue of empty homes with his ambitious target of cutting them to one per cent of London's housing stock by 2011. Ken Livingstone - committed to reducing them from 2.75 to 2.5 per cent - was second, with Sian Berry and Brian Paddick joint third. Mr Ireland said: "Vacant properties blight the lives of the people in whose neighbourhoods they stand and lead to more house building than is necessary."

CAMPAIGN CAPERS

• WHAT a difference six years makes. In 2002, Ken Livingstone came out against the MMR injection. With partner Emma Beal newly pregnant, he said "in no way would I inflict on a child that risk". He now tells BBC Radio 5 Live that after reading up on it, he gave his youngest children the jab. "I haven't the slightest doubt now in saying there's no risk with the MMR. The real risk is if you don't have it you will catch one of these diseases and it might kill."

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  Sex, lies and the Stasi

  On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall was finally breached, ending the reign of East Germany’s feared security service. Here Anne McElvoy, who spent much of the Eighties in the city, recalls her encounters with the spooks

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  The geeky-girl solo artists descending on the music scene

  Kookiness is what sells music these days and these opinionated artists have it in spades, says Jasmine Gardner

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