From the web team:

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said he is "urgently seeking clarification" of the announcement by a senior Iranian cleric that local staff working at Britain's Tehran embassy will face trial.

Nine embassy staff were held in Tehran last weekend. Britain says all but two have now been freed. Today Ahmad Jannati from Iran's Guardian Council said of the still detained members of staff: "Naturally they will be put on trial, they have made confessions."

Tonight we will be discussing the British-Iranian relationship and why the UK has replaced the United States as the bete noir of Iranian hardline rhetoric.

Also tonight, Palin for President? Not if some in her party have anything to do with it.

We report from Washington on the Republicans who want to destroy Sarah Palin despite her popularity with the party's grassroots.

And Andy Murray's Britishness - is his relationship with the English just a marriage of convenience?

And here's Kirsty Wark with what is coming up on Newsnight Review:

And then on Review, is the Iran of our imagination the real Iran?

It is one of the oldest civilizations, has an extraordinarily young population, is one of the most literate countries in the world, and is a cultural cornucopia.

In the UK the cultural response to the post-election uprising was swift.

On Wednesday the Royal Court theatre mounted a powerful short "scratch" production distilled from the millions of Twitter "tweets" from Iran and beyond.

We'll be talking about the impact of technology in closed societies with our guests Jonathan Freedland, Baroness Haleh Afshar and Iranian writer Azadeh Moaveni.

We'll be revisiting two of the most powerful accounts of modern Iran, the Oscar-nominated film Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, based on her graphic novel, and Azar Nafisi's bestselling Reading Lolita In Tehran.

Shirin is the new film from the Iranian arthouse director Abbas Kiarostami in which we watch 100 Iranian women as they watch a filmed performance of a 12th Century Persian poem about Shirin the Queen of Armenia.

And more on the impact of the net when revolution threatens to destabilise closed societies.

The film Burma VJ is the account of the pro-democracy uprisings in Burma in 2007 as told by citizen journalists with forbidden cameras.

Do join us for all that and more.

Tell us your view on the Murray Britishness debate here.

Indeed, I'm told his forthcoming departure for Spain lay behind his decision, last February, to step down as Treasurer of the Christian Socialist Movement, after two years in the job.

Ostrowski's Spanish plans were so far advanced that many people in Labour circles were rather surprised when it was suddenly announced that he was now Labour's man in Norwich North.

Presumably Ostrowski's academic plans will be abandoned if he is elected to Parliament on 23 July.

But if, as seems more likely, he loses the by-election then Madrid is still very much an option. I understand that in April Ostrowski told the university in Madrid that he wouldn't now be coming this autumn, but that he was still interested in coming in September 2010.
The university are keeping the MA place open for him for another year, and Ostrowski has until next July to decide whether to take up.

For now, a Labour spokesman says, "Chris is focussing all of his attention on the by-election."

Last night Review's editor Liz Gibbons and I went to see an extraordinarily moving short "scratch" play at The Royal Court in London called "The Tweets of Tehran". It was a fortuitous last minute change of programme on the launch night of the theatre's "Rough Cuts" season of plays related to Article 19 of the UN Convention on Human Rights.

The actor/director Ramin Gray had searched through the thousands upon thousands of "tweets" on Twitter about the Iranian protests, and in a matter of days had constructed a selection of them into a brilliantly coherent and moving play (Follow Newsnight's Twitter updates by clicking here).

I say fortuitous because we had already decided to devote Review this week to a discussion about cultural representations of modern day Iran in the wake of the post - election crisis.

Our guests, the Iranian academic Baroness Haleh Afshar, the author of "Lipstick Jihad" Azadeh Moaveni, and the journalist and author Jonathan Freedland are revisiting the Oscar-nominated film Persepolis, and the bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, and viewing the new film Shirin by the Iranian arthouse director Abbas Kirostami, in which we watch Iranian women as they watch a movie of a 12th Century Persian story.

We'll also discuss new work from artists working in Tehran, and we'll explore the phenomenon of the world watching and reading about protests on the internet. That's where the The Royal Court play comes in.

We'll also talk about a new film, Burma VJ, about the men who risked their lives to record the Burmese uprising in 2007.

The US army has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in south Afghanistan's Helmand province. We'll be considering if their approach is likely to be more successful than that of the British and bring you the latest on the news that a US soldier is thought to have been captured by militants in the east of the country.

The Health Secretary Andy Burnham today announced that the rising number of swine flu cases in the UK mean that trying to contain the virus is no longer an option. The UK's emergency response will now move to a new "treatment" phase as there may soon be as many as 100,000 new cases a day. Mr Burnham confirmed that swine flu vaccines currently in development should be available from next month, with 60m doses available by the end of next year. Tonight we'll be investigating just how prepared we really are.

It's almost 40 years since the first man walked on the moon and to mark the anniversary our Science Editor Susan Watts will be examining what the future holds for space flight and Nasa, and Kirsty Wark will be speaking to the legendary Apollo 11 moon walker, Buzz Aldrin.

And our culture correspondent Stephen Smith has been sifting through a television treasure trove - hours of TV news film archive recorded by a US news agency in the 1960s and 70s has recently been discovered in an empty London office bringing a glimpse of how we lived 40 years ago.

Do join Kirsty at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

*Follow Newsnight's Twitter updates by clicking here*.

"Luckily," says my source, "it was only one of the tame ones, that doesn't have much more than is in the public domain. Not one of the serious ones which say what a mess we're really in."

Between August 2007 and October 2008, one after the other, the British banks had to be rescued. First Northern Rock, then HBOS, Bradford and Bingley, RBS and Lloyds. Bank bosses got their marching orders. And one of the the regulators did a vanishing act as well. Sackcloth was worn. A whole new era of banking regulation was promised.

Before we had the FSA we had what bankers used to call, regulation by eyebrows. One of the great and good would wander up to a City banker, possibly at the cricket, and say - "You know that thing you're doing at the bank, well ...." and raise his eyebrows.

Today there's no chance of going back to regulation by eyebrows. But there is a bit of a spat over whose eyebrows will be the most powerful in the future.

The new boss at the FSA, Adair Turner, has called for a "radical change" in regulation.
Central to that is the power to force banks to hold more capital. Banks that hold more capital make less money. Turner wants to use this power

• to raise the amount of capital banks have to hold the boom phase of an economic cycle


• penalise banks seen as taking unneccesary risks


• and to rein in banks pose a threat to the entire system

Newsnight understands measures along these lines will be in the White Paper due to be published in the next week. But they'll work bank by bank. There will be no general quota for the capital banks must hold; nor will there be a general limit set of the leverage (i.e borrowing) banks can work with.

There is general agreement now to move to something called "macroprudential regulation".

This means regulating to prevent booms turning into bubbles, and considering risks to the whole system not just individual banks. But behind the scenes it has been eyebrows at dawn over who will actually wield this power.

The governor of the Bank of England thinks he should do it. So do the Conservatives. The government wants the FSA to do it. And the banks above all want certainty.

There is another problem: Britain is home to some of the world's biggest banks. Some, like RBS, were clearly too big to fail. Others, like HSBC, are so international that it's never really clear who would, or could, pick up the pieces if it failed. That has led the Bank of England to cause a few eyebrows to be raised, by saying this:

"If some banks are thought to be too big to fail, then, in the words of a distinguished American economist, they are too big. It is not sensible to allow large banks to combine high street retail banking with risky investment banking or funding strategies, and then provide an implicit state guarantee against failure." (Mansion House speech)

Newsnight understands the government will demand the banks that do a mixture of low risk and high risk business break themselves up into legally separate entities, so that the deposit taking part could be rescued over a weekend and the high-risk part allowed to fail. There will be new rules drawn up under existing law.

Many in banking fear that the behind the scenes battle will mean next week's White Paper is inconclusive.

I understand that - on rules to protect the whole system, and on the issue of breaking up banks that are too big to fail, the government is set to issue, effectively, a Green Paper - that is a discussion document. The government is, effectively waiting to see what the USA and EU do on this. Some in the world of banking see this as a sign of weakness.

In the new system there will be no general quotas for holding capital, no maximum ratio for the amount of borrowing a bank is allowed to do. It will all be regulated, bank by bank, by Adair Turner at the FSA. it's a very British solution.

Nearly a year on from the financial meltdown, amid a political stasis on the strategic issue of regulating systemic risk... we'll get a discussion document. As one banking insider put it to me rather cynically tonight: it will be "Winning the Fight for Britain's Banking Future".

But the way, forget Matt Lucas and Stephen Fry - follow me on Twitter, here.

Tonight we devote a large part of the programme to examining what has changed in the financial industry nearly a year after the banking crisis. Paul Mason will be giving his assessment on whether regulations to be introduced in next week's White Paper could prevent another crash (follow Paul Mason's Twitter updates by clicking here). We'll be joined live by the Minister for the City, Lord Myners. Meanwhile Justin Rowlatt has been investigating if the age of excess in the city has been curtailed and we'll be debating if the culture has changed at all.

Also tonight - should a broadcaster that's funded by the Iranian government be allowed to operate in Britain? Press TV, the English language international television news channel is being investigated by OFCOM for breaching its duty to be impartial and accurate and one of its presenters has resigned following the station's coverage of the Iran protests. Our culture correspondent Stephen Smith investigates.

Plus we'll have the latest from Michael Crick on National Express, and, of course, highlights from Andy Murray.

Do join Jeremy at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

Well at risk of giving credence to what is probably now more than an urban myth, the official line is a resounding "no, no, no - a very bad idea".

But let's look at the logic here.

From parents' point of view, perhaps with a couple of children in local schools, it might make sense that they would prefer their children to catch the virus now, when it is arguably easier to cope with than in the coming autumn and winter when it will certainly be more miserable to be ill; local healthcare resources are more likely to be swamped as numbers of infections rise; and the virus could have changed to become more dangerous.

And many experts agree that even if the virus alters between now and then, those who catch it earlier will develop some immunity to whatever comes later.

But these same experts are having to balance that narrow logic against broader public health concerns.

And on balance, they say, the greater public good still weighs heaviest.

They might concede that most children who catch H1N1 may get over it after just a couple of days of a slight fever, a sore throat and aches and pains - easily sorted out with a few doses of pain killers and some early nights.

But, for vulnerable groups flu is still a killer, and so is this new one.

Friends of those infected at a swine flu party might have asthma, or grandparents unlucky enough to catch the virus - even though their age groups has some immunity from similar viruses circulating a few decades ago.

And asthmatics and older people who DO catch this flu have a higher chance of a severe illness - and complications.

And by seeking out infection, rather than sticking to the wash your hands, "Catch it, Kill it, Bin it" routine, the fear is that the numbers of infections could, as one expert put it to me today "go large" over the summer .

Statistically, having a larger number of infections around raises the likelihood of seeing more really serious cases.

And that is what the government wants to avoid.

In fact Sir Liam Donaldson, the government's chief medical adviser, was candid last week when he said that the whole strategy of containing the spread in areas least affected, and managing it in areas with widespread transmission, is designed to buy time until there is a vaccine in place to boost the immunity of the rest of us - the "herd" - and dampen down the whole bell curve shape of this pandemic.

The driving thought here is that the fewer infections we see overall, the smaller the impact on public services, and the economy as a whole... and an NHS better able to help those with serious complications.

So whilst there is an inarguable internal logic to the position that for some individuals it might be better to catch this new flu now than later, it may not be better for the UK population as a whole.

And as for that logically-minded parent - perhaps it makes sense not to actively seek out infection (even if the mythical swine flu party actually exists), but instead to take news of cases at their child's school with a common sense shrug of the shoulders.

It might also help not to rush around demanding Tamiflu, the anti-viral drug, unless of course they have concerns about asthma or other long term conditions in their offspring.

This was underlined last night with reports that a patient in Denmark has developed resistance to Tamiflu. Though he has now fully recovered, this could mark the start of a significant change in the new H1N1 virus.

What happens in the next few days will be key.

This case could be a one-off, with no further cases in the community. Or, Danish authorities, who will by now no doubt be scrutinising patients closely, could report more cases.

In that situation we could be witnessing the beginning of what many scientists have long described as inevitable - the emergence of a Tamiflu-resistant strain of the 2009 pandemic virus, and the chance that it will become the dominant strain.

Of course this may not happen. Often in the past, viruses that develop resistance to Tamiflu have also been weaker specimens, fizzling out before they become widespread.

But last year a group of H1N1 viruses emerged that were not only resistant to Tamiflu, but showed no compromised abilities.

One interesting concern crossed my radar last night. I hear that Health Protection Agency staff are getting reports of "pack-splitting" of Tamiflu by parents at schools where the drug has been given out to classmates as a prophylaxis.

Hard to guess at the reasoning, but perhaps the aim was to treat two siblings, when only one was given a packet of the drug, or perhaps to treat a child with half the dose now, saving the rest for the winter months.

It is worrying the authorities because it is just the sort of approach that can allow resistance to Tamiflu to develop.

They still hope that we won't see widespread Tamiflu resistance before the autumn, and a vaccine on offer.

If we do, then they will have the alternative drug, Relenza, to hand. Though questions remain about whether we have enough of this drug in the UK stockpile.

The row between the government and the Conservatives over spending and cuts has just intensified.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has told the BBC that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is denying the Conservatives information they need in order to decide how to cut public spending.

The Conservatives say a request they made for access to the detailed spending information available to ministers has been turned down.

We are trying to speak to the Conservatives, and we are asking the government to respond to Mr Osborne's comments.

Michael Crick will be reporting from Norwich North, where Labour today issued the writ for a by-election, which will take place on 23 July.

Our political editor has spoken to the MP Ian Gibson - whose resignation sparked the by-election - about how he feels badly let down by Labour.

We have a new episode of Politics Pen, in which hopefuls pitch their ideas on cutting public spending in Dragon's Den-style. This week the candidates take aim at inheritance tax and defence budgets.

And we will have Arianna Huffington, founder of the influential Huffington Post, here in the studio to talk to Jeremy Paxman about how the story of Iran's traumatic election has been driven - often controversially - by the internet.

When was the last time a Parliamentary contest involved two leading candidates who are so young - a combined age of 55?

The Conservative contender in Norwich North, Chloe Smith, is only 27, while her Labour opponent, Chris Ostrowski, is just 28.

If either of them is elected in the by-election they will replace the Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson as the "baby" of the Commons. Ms Swinson is now 29.

You can watch my first first report from Norwich North on Newsnight on Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 10.30pm.