Wheeler of the BBC dies aged 85

Sir Charles Wheeler, one of the BBC's longest-standing foreign correspondents and the father-in-law of London mayor Boris Johnson, has died at the age of 85. The veteran journalist, who was suffering from lung cancer, was based in the US for a decade from 1965, covering race riots (he is pictured in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s), the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the Watergate scandal.

Some critics accused Wheeler of editorialising, but he believed it was wrong to remain dispassionate about issues that were truly shocking. His frankness caused something of an international incident when, in one broadcast, he referred to Ceylon's new prime minister as "an inexperienced eccentric at the head of a government of mediocrities".

After this, Ceylon threatened to leave the Commonwealth and only the intervention of the then Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, eventually calmed the situation. He also upset Buckingham Palace when, while covering a tour of Ceylon by the Queen, he was overheard in a pub saying "I wish that bloody woman would go home." Boris married his daughter Marina in 1993.