Hastings steps down as 'Standard' editor

Max Hastings, the journalist who "liberated" Port Stanley during the Falklands War, is to stand down after five years as editor of the London Evening Standard, it was announced.

Dispelling months of rumours about his retirement, the paper's publishers, Associated Newspapers, said Mr Hastings, 56, would be devoting himself to full-time writing, including a column for the Daily Mail and special reports.

He will be succeeded by Veronica Wadley, 49, the Daily Mail's deputy editor with responsibility for features. She takes over early next month.

Mr Hastings said it had been a "huge pleasure and privilege" to edit the paper and he was looking forward to getting back to writing. He is probably best known for reporting from the Falklands in 1982 when he was, by his own admission, "a very frightened newspaper reporter" accompanying British soldiers into Port Stanley.

At the Standard, he produced a newspaper very much in his own image, with passionate support, for example, of the Countryside Alliance. Circulation has been falling and has arguably not been helped by competition from Associated's freesheet, Metro.

Ms Wadley is a former debutante who worked at The Daily Telegraph before joining the Mail. She is married to the author and investigative journalist Tom Bower. They have two children.