It will also look at whether the royal prerogative, one of the main sources of the monarch's power, should be removed. It will consider whether the Civil List should be whittled away for minor royals and study the Queen's role as the supreme governor of the Church of England.The Fabian Commission, whose members include Waheed Alli, the Labour peer and television executive, and Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth, former clerk of the parliaments, wrote to Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace before Christmas asking for co-operation.Yesterday a spokesman for Prince Charles said the position of St James's Palace was the same as that of Buckingham Palace "We want to give them help where we can. The basic idea is that we would try to be helpful," he said.. Alastair Campbell could be given powers over the Government's entire "spin" operation under a review of the Whitehall press machine.

Whether Downing Street's director of communications should overhaul public relations within every government department is one idea to be discussed by the independent inquiry. Between them they have played the West End and Hollywood to critical and popular acclaim. Now one of the great celebrity couples, Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas, are to appear in the unlikely surroundings of a Victorian temple to justice. They will follow celebrities including Sir Elton John and Naomi Campbell who have gone through the doors of the High Court in high-profile legal disputes.The move follows a landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal, which for the first time recognised that celebrities have rights to privacy. Ms Zeta Jones and Mr Douglas had signed a £1m deal with OK! magazine for pictures of the wedding, but its rival Hello! went on sale three days earlier with "exclusive" pictures obtained from the reception at New York's Plaza Hotel.The couple will claim damages for loss of income from syndication rights The case is to begin on 27 January. At an earlier hearing, the couple said they wanted compensation for damages caused to their professional reputations by the poor quality of the pictures. They also said their private lives had been "violated".Eduardo Sanchez, main shareholder at Hello!, had his £2m offer for exclusive rights turned down in favour of the much smaller OK! bid, the earlier hearing was told.The High Court was told yesterday that the pair would be seeking "very substantial" damages.Hello! is defending the action and claims that it was offered the pictures on the open market and was entitled to publish them..

Six people were injured when rival gangs of foreign men brawled in the streets of north Kent. All are expected to make a full recovery.Interpreters helped to establish where the men were from and if they were asylum- seekers. The fight was reported in Gravesend at 6.35pm on Wednesday and police were called again because of a disturbance in Rochester 20 minutes later.Two men were arrested at Gravesend and four others were taken to Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford. Two other men were found injured in Rochester and were taken to the Medway Maritime Hospital.A lifeboat crew helped police to recover a knife from the water at Gravesend a few hours after the fight.A spokesman for Kent Police said: "Many of the injured have wounds consistent with a sharp instrument being used. However, we cannot yet confirm whether knives were used."Police sources believe the incident was caused by gang rivalry.