In brief: Sego eyes up party leader role

France's former presidential candidate, Segolene Royal (pictured), is seeking to follow in the footsteps of her former partner, Francois Hollande, and replace him as leader of French Socialist Party when he steps down later this year...Poor old Granta. The influential literary magazine just spent four months recruiting its new editor Jason Cowley, only to find that after just one issue he has jumped ship to the New Statesman. Says a source: “I think he went for the money, although Jason is a rather restless character and he probably got bored with the long lead times between each publication”... Julia Roberts is to star in a film biography of Joan Root, the British environmentalist who was shot dead in her Kenyan home two years ago after she fought to save the lake she lived by from being poisoned... Police are investigating a complaint from a driver who says he was tailgated at high speeds by officers trying to keep up with a sports car carrying Prince Harry on a Saturday night... A chance has arisen to become a neighbour of the reclusive media moguls the Barclay twins, owners of the Daily Telegraph. The Channel island of Herm, which is just 6km from the tycoons' fortress-like property on Brecqhou, is being sold for £15m and includes its own hotel, restaurant and jail… The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla all refused to be photographed by Hello! magazine at Peter Phillips's wedding at Windsor Castle on Saturday. Phillips, son of Princess Anne, had brokered a £500,000 deal with Hello!, an arrangement described as "WAG-ish" by senior courtiers...