A recovery method: It is the file '/usr/bin/ld.bfd.real.dpkg-new' that causes the failure. Moving this back to '/usr/bin/ld.bfd.real', it is possible to remove the package 'hardening-wrapper', then reinstall the broken 'binutils', and finally insert once again 'hardening-wrapper'.
At this stage no half-way installed package exists. It is your choice, but I naively maintain my view that 'binutils' is the culprit in this calamity. Best regards, Mats Erik Andersson, DM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org