Sunday papers

Afghanistan continues to dominate many of the papers at the end of another awful week for the country.

According to the Sunday Times,army chiefs are drawing up plans to withdraw British troops from outlying bases in Afghanistan.

In what would be a significant change of strategy against the growing Taliban insurgency, they are considering abandoning several bases including Musa Qala, the scene of bloody battles that claimed 15 British lives. Army forces would attempt to hold only the larger towns in Helmand province.

says the paper

The Observer meanwhile reports that

America's top general in Afghanistan believes Britain's 9,000 troops should be removed out of "harm's way" because the Taliban will target them in the run- up to next year's general election, it was reported last night.

For the Independent it is simply time to leave.It dedicates its front page to Patrick Cockbourn who writes that

Britain should start withdrawing, not reinforcing, its troops in Afghanistan. Sending extra troops is unnecessary and will prove counter-effective. The additional number of British troops is small, but the US is poised to send tens of thousands more soldiers to the country. The nature of the conflict is changing. What should be a war in which the Afghan government fights the Taliban has become one which is being fought primarily by the American and British armies. To more and more Afghans, this looks like imperial occupation

Meanwhile the Mail reports how tThe grieving mother of a heroic Sergeant-Major gunned down by a rogue Afghan policeman has accused Labour of treating British troops like 'peasants'.

Meanwhile there is much coverage on the shootings in fort Hood.According to the Telegraph,Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.

The massacre at Fort Hood has raised numerous issues in a country reeling from shock at the tragedy. The long, costly war of attrition taking place in Afghanistan has already taken its toll on the morale of ordinary Americans. Hasan's Islamic faith has forced uncomfortable questions over the role Muslims play in the military. His profession as a military psychiatrist has caused many to wonder at the horror of a man tasked with treating wounded soldiers turning on his comrades and slaying them. Across the United States painful topics are being discussed, political arguments fought and battle lines drawn.says the Observer.

It leads with the story that Labour has a secret plan to axe spending on training for young people

Confidential papers obtained by The Observer show that, while Brown and his ministers have suggested they are raising investment in training, skills and apprenticeships, behind the scenes they are preparing some £350m of cuts for 2010-11 that will slash the number of training places on offer by hundreds of thousands.

More problems for Gordon Brown in the Telegraph which says he is facing international embarrassment after leading nations slapped down his proposal for a tax on financial transactions to raise hundreds of billions of pounds.

The Prime Minister used a speech at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in St Andrews to call for the new tax to fund future bank bailouts – despite previous government opposition to such a move.
However, within hours of his speech, both the US and Canada rejected the plan. Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, said: "That's not something that we're prepared to support."

Also problems for the Tories as the Independent says that

David Cameron has been given an 18-month deadline by a powerful band of Eurosceptic Tory MPs to renegotiate Britain's relationship with Brussels or face an "all-out war" for a referendum, it emerged yesterday.

Uncovered documents by the Sunday Times show that Labour's “open door” immigration policy knowingly risked allowing dangerous people to settle in Britain unchecked

The Whitehall correspondence, which was illegally withheld by the Home Office for four years, shows how ministers were told by the country’s most senior immigration official that his staff were to be “encouraged to take risks” when granting visas, work permits and extended residency to hundreds of thousands of new migrants.

The search is on the winners of the £90m Euro Lottery

Two British lottery players are unaware they are sitting on a record-breaking £90million fortune.
They each won £45,570,835.50 in Friday's EuroMillions game, making them the nation's biggest ever lottery winners, but neither has come forward to claim their prize.
The most likely explanation is that they have yet to check their numbers. However, the delay raises the dreadful possibility that their tickets have been lost, which may prevent them from collecting their winnings.

is the lead in the Mail

The News of the World has captured England captain John Terry's father selling cocaine

In scenes that will shock the millionaire Chelsea ace, Ted Terry, 55, fixed a deal to supply an undercover News of the World team with the illegal Class A drug.

The Express meanwhile wants the Maddy investigation repoened

Kate and Gerry McCann want the Yard’s ­renowned kidnap team to assess an avalanche of new information after last week’s emotional internet appeal, which ­generated five million hits from around the world.

Another case that could be reopened as the Independent reports that

Simon Mann has been urged by Foreign Office officials to remain silent about the coup attempt that left him languishing in an African prison, and settle for a "quiet life" with his wife and family in the UK,

The Observer reminds us how

it had been revealed to the British government some months before it was launched – revealed that "Scratcher" was a nickname given to Mark Thatcher and "Smelly" to Ely Calil. Hart was a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher's government. Even Lord Archer was thrown into the melee when phone records linked him to Calil and a JH Archer was found to have deposited a large amount of money into Mann's offshore bank account days before the coup attempt. Archer was also on friendly terms with Thatcher, but has refuted any link to the "Dogs of War" scheme, a denial backed by Mann.

Meanwhile according to the Times,Sir Mark Thatcher became an informer to the South African secret services in an attempt to avoid prosecution for his role in a botched coup in central Africa.

Finally according to the Telegraph,having an extramarital affair should not stand in the way of someone becoming an MP.

The Tory's shadow women's minister Baroness Morris of Bolton,called on Tory activists not to sack a candidate who had an affair, saying that "in this day and age" it was not a reason to stop someone entering Westminster.

Saturday's papers

The Times, as does many of the papers, reports on the killing of 13 people at a Texas army base

Investigators have begun piecing together a harrowing story of missed clues and sudden carnage left by an army psychiatrist who gunned down more than 40 people on a Texas army base, killing 13, when faced with the prospect of deploying to a war he wished President Obama had ended.

says the paper

Whilst the Independent tries to get inside the mind of the army killer

For a few hours late on Thursday, it seemed this would follow the usual sad script of shooting tragedies in America. The "monster" assailant would turn the weapon on himself or be instantly gunned down by others. But Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist with the rank of major, survived. Felled on the scene by bullets fired by a civilian police officer, he was last night in a stable condition and on a respirator.

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that President Obama has sought to stop people jumping to the wrong conclusions over the shooting

"I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we get all the facts," Obama said. The risk of a witchhunt rose today when the commander at the Fort Hood base, Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, disclosed that wounded soldiers said Hasan had shouted "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire on unarmed soldiers at the Texas base.

According to the Telegraph though,he had come to the attention of the FBI six months earlier over possible links to extremist comments posted on the internet.

Meanwhile in this Gordon Brown gives a speech in which he says the Independent

issued a stark warning to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Britain will not continue to put its forces "in harm's way" in his country unless he is prepared to root out corruption.

Mr Brown defended Britain's military mission in Afghanistan, saying that the 9,000-strong UK force forms "our first line of defence" against terror attacks at home and insisting "we cannot, must not and will not walk away". says the Telegraph

The Times has come across an internal document which warns that the long-term future and reputation of Britain’s Armed Forces is at risk unless progress is made in Afghanistan.

The pronouncement by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and Sir Bill Jeffrey, the Permanent Secretary, leaves no room for the possibility of early withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Planning within Defence should be based on the assumption of a rolling three-year military commitment to Afghanistan, reviewed annually,” they say in a jointly signed document circulated as guidance to MoD staff preparing for next year’s defence review.

The Guardian leads with news that

Scotland Yard faced calls for an "ethical audit" of all officers in its controversial riot squad tonight after figures revealed that they had received more than 5,000 complaint allegations, mostly for "oppressive behaviour".

The Telegraph reports that Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, the head of the independent watchdog charged with reforming MPs’ expenses and restoring public trust in Parliament, is a close friend of Alastair Campbell.

Whilst according to the Guardian he will not necessarily implement the proposals published by Sir Christopher Kelly, but will instead conduct a wide-ranging review of his own.

The Mail leads with the terrible story of the Mother who died whilst trying to save herbullied son from a blaze after a firework is pushed through their letterbox

Mary Fox pushed her teenage son through a window to safety as a blaze tore through their house.
But she was overcome by smoke and flames before she could escape herself.

The Times reports that the parents of the two French students murdered by an offender under probation supervision began a claim yesterday for “substantial damages” against the police and Ministry of Justice.

The families are seeking compensation over systematic failures and negligence in the justice system that contributed to the deaths of their sons, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez.

Finally The Independent reports how Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, paid a secret visit to a First World War memorial in Belgium ,only to become embroiled in an angry confrontation with a 13-year-old schoolboy

William Robey, was in Ypres visiting the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing as part of a school trip when he spotted Nick Griffin surrounded by some of his supporters.

Friday's papers

Fields of poppies on the front of many of the papers as a bad week in Afghanistan coincides with Rememberance Sunday

The Prime Minister is to make a speech today on Afghanistan and the Telegraph says that Gordon Brown will warn in a speech following the death of seven soldiers in six days.

Describing the Afghan mission as a “conflict of necessity not choice,” Mr Brown will insist despite growing doubts over the continued deployment of British troops, “we cannot, must not and will not walk away”.

The Sun meanwhile reports that the wife of massacred soldier Darren Chant yesterday revealed he was due to be a father again.Muslim Nausheen, 30, is six months pregnant.

It adds though that

Gordon Brown was blasted as a "ditherer" for failing to act on his vow to send 500 more troops.

Another death and a homecoming on the front of the Mail which describes how

With staggering courage and the utmost dignity, Christina Schmid pays an instinctive tribute to the fallen bomb disposal expert - with a solitary round of applause.
Wearing Staff Sergeant Olaf 'Oz' Schmid's medals proudly on her lapel, she smiles in a humbling display of personal fortitude

The Express reports that

BRITISH troops in Afghanistan were warned by their commander yesterday that the massacre of five of their comrades by a rogue policeman “probably won’t be the last”.

Meanwhile the Independent reports that

Barack Obama is coming under mounting international pressure to make an early decision on his strategy in Afghanistan amid fears of a dangerous drift as he agonises over his next moves.

And the Times reports that

The head of the United Nations in Afghanistan threatened a complete pullout yesterday after half of his staff were evacuated following last week’s terrorist attack, in which five UN personnel died.

The Guardian leads with the news that

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design,

The paper adds that

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design

According to the Independent,British Government officials believe there is no hope of signing a legally binding climate change treaty in Copenhagen next month.

The positions of major world powers are so far apart that another year or even more may be needed to negotiate a world climate treaty, senior British sources said at talks in Barcelona, which end today.

The Times leads with the news that sex education is to be made compulsory for all pupils,

prompting fury from faith groups which said that the move would contravene the right for children to be educated in accordance with their parents’ beliefs.

All 15-year-olds must receive at least one year of sex and relationship lessons, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday. Those whose religious or moral values prevent them from attending will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school. Until now parents could opt out of lessons about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality until their children were 19.

MP's expenses continue to fill the papers.The Telegraph reporting that Alan Duncan, the shadow prisons minister, has been cleared of breaking the rules on expenses by a committee of MPs, despite failing to produce mortgage documents.

According to the Mail,

Women will be put off standing for Parliament unless they can hire a cleaner on their expenses, a female minister claimed yesterday.The warning by Work and Pensions Minister Helen Goodman follows a call this week to ban cleaning expenses by Parliamentary sleaze watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly.

Finally the Sun reports that a shock survey has revealed that

ONE in 20 British The same number thought the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of the war.
One in six youngsters believed the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp was a theme park - and one in 12 thought the Blitz was a European clean-up operation following World War II.

Nobody likes us we don't care

Glen Oglaza has it spot on about the Tories and Europe.

Are the Tories the Millwall of Europe: Nobody likes us but we don't care?

But here is the real point that he makes

We are in the European Union, so let's lead it from the front.

The EU should be led by Britain, Germany and France - but we always seem to be the Tail-End Charlie.
But I guess that will remain the way so long as we are not in the Euro or signed up to Shengen (uniquely difficult for the UK).
If we are staying in, let's do it properly and whole-heartedy - or let's just get out and trade with the Commonwealth instead.

Good summary of Afghanistan

The Afghan police were supposed to be layabout drug addicts and petty crooks, but that the force has been infiltrated by murderous, cowardly fifth columnists has concentrated Westminster minds. Current strategy in Afghanistan is failing.

Concise and to the point by the Spectator's David Blackburn

Thursday's papers

One story dominates the front pages as the Independent puts it,Killed by the Enemy within as five British soldiers are shot dead and others critically wounded after a rogue Afghan policeman turns machine gun on his colleagues as they relax in base

The exhausted soldiers - helping to train Afghan police - had made it back to the haven of the nick when the maniac they thought they could trust burst in.
The defenceless heroes had also taken off their body armour and helmets when the merciless renegade - secretly in the Taliban - let rip with an AK47.

says the Sun

Last night a manhunt was under way for the killer, who is suspected of having been planted by the Taliban at Checkpoint Blue in Nad-e-Ali, an insurgent-packed district in Helmand province. says the Mail

The shooting led to questions in the Commons over the West’s plan to train Afghan forces to take over security from Nato troops, and intensified calls for a clear exit strategy for British forces. says the Telegraph

Whilst the Times reports that

The shootings exposed cracks in the military alliance and domestic political unity. Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader, and Lord Powell of Bayswater, Margaret Thatcher’s former foreign policy adviser, warned of the dangers of ebbing public support.

Away from that story the Guardian reports that France's Europe minister says David Cameron's pledge to reclaim EU powers is 'pathetic' and will leave Britain isolated

Speaking to the paper,

Pierre Lellouche described as "pathetic" the Tories' EU plans announced today, warning they would not succeed "for a minute".Lellouche, one of the most Anglophile members of Sarkozy's government, made his remarkable intervention after David Cameron outlined a fresh Tory approach to the EU in the wake of the full ratification of the Lisbon treaty.

The Telegraph says that

David Cameron, has pleaded with his MPs and voters to allow him to concentrate on fixing the fragile British economy if he becomes Prime Minister rather than having “a massive Euro bust up” over the Lisbon Treaty.

Yesterday's other main topic is relegated from the front pages.

Sir Christopher Kelly's long-awaited plans for cleaning up the discredited allowances system demanded radical action to rebuild public confidence in Westminster.

says the Independent

MPs are to be banned from claiming mortgage interest on expenses after an "appropriate" transitional period, under the recommendations of Commons watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly published today.

reports the Guardian adding that

Members of parliament will also be stopped from employing family members by the end of the next parliament or within five years, the long-awaited report stated.

Meanwhile the Mail says that

Grasping MPs demanded a huge pay rise last night after a crackdown on their expenses brought the Westminster gravy train to a halt.
In an astonishing show of contempt for voters, ministers and backbenchers complained that their £65,000-a-year salaries will not be enough to live on.

Away from politics and the Times reports that

A nanotechnology therapy that targets cancer with a “stealth smart bomb” is to begin patient trials next year in the first clinical test of a pioneering approach to medicine

Abroad and the Independent reports that

the official commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the storming by students of the US embassy in Tehran and the start of the 1979 hostage crisis was hijacked by the opposition yesterday – for their biggest show of strength in months.

The Telegraph reports how Republicans are celebrating after winning two state governorship elections against President Barack Obama's Democratic Party.

Victory for Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey was seen as a strong warning signal to Mr Obama as he labours to reform the American health care system, enact legislation restricting carbon emissions and build support for foreign policy initiatives that have so far made scant progress.

The Guardian reports that

The British mercenary Simon Mann today vowed to testify in court against Sir Mark Thatcher and the oil tycoon Eli Calil, the two men he alleges were co-conspirators in the failed attempt to take over Equatorial Guinea in 2004.

Speaking as he flew back to Britain from the west African state, Mann made clear he had no intention of drawing a line under the episode, and would welcome a fresh inquiry that could lead to him giving evidence against his two old friends.

The Mail reports that a university lecturer flew to the Channel Islands to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online,

A court was told yesterday that

Dr Trevor Jackson, a leading academic, groomed the girl on a social networking site.
The 46-year-old, who resigned from Newcastle University last month, travelled to Jersey five times in five months to see the girl and often met her in hotels.

The Sun reports that a gang of students battled with cops when they were told not to board a packed bus.

Riot police were called as yobs fought officers in front of horrified shoppers.

adds the paper

Finally it's bonfire night and the Independent reports that

some devotees of this home-grown festival of fire, marking the day that Protestant Britain rejoiced in its defeat of the Catholic gunpowder plot to bring down James I, fear that our long-held love affair with the death of Guy Fawkes might be in danger of fizzling out.

And the Mail has an example from Devon where there won't be any waiting around for the flames to take hold.

The blaze will be raging just as soon as the organisers press the on-button on their giant television.Thousands will celebrate November 5 crowded around a screen showing film footage of fire after organisers gave up wrestling with health and safety rules to hold the real thing.
The event - dubbed 'non-fire night' - will leave families holding sparklers and staring up at a 16ft by 12ft screen showing images of a roaring blaze.

Wednesday's papers

The right wing press are not happy that the Lisbon treaty will now be coming into effect.

Britain-the end says the Express as it explains that the country

was last night frogmarched into a miserable new era of meddling Brussels rule after the final remaining resistance to the hated Lisbon Treaty collapsed.

Sign sealed delivered and up yours says the Sun

THE last hope of blocking a new European constitution was snuffed out last night - the final kick in the teeth after Labour's betrayal of Britain.
The Czech Republic became the last EU nation to sign the Lisbon Treaty, which will now become law.

Britain's power to govern itself is to be surrendered increasingly to Brussels after the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty was finally ratified.says the Telegraph adding that

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, will today set out plans for an alternative Tory pledge to renegotiate several parts of Britain’s EU membership, trying to win back control over social and employment laws.

The Times reports that

Gordon Brown and other leaders hailed a new era of expanded powers for the European Union to act on the world stage after the Eurosceptic President of the Czech Republic signed the treaty. The relief across European capitals was palpable as the eight-year journey of an accord that gives Europe a president and a new chief of foreign affairs came to an end.

David Cameron will attempt to appease Conservative Eurosceptics tomorrowwhen he outlines plans to repatriate some powers from Brussels as part of a toughening of Britain's relations with the EU.says the Guardian

Whilst the Independent says that

David Cameron will now face charges of betrayal from Eurosceptics on the party's backbenches after he made a "cast-iron guarantee" to the public in 2007 that he would hold a referendum on the treaty.

It is one of the papers that doesnt lead with events in Brussels.Instead it reports that

Employees who raise concerns about their company's environmental practices won the right to legal redress yesterday after a judge ruled that green beliefs deserved the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions.

Neither does the Guardian which claims that a major fissure has opened in Labour's support for the Afghan war with a call from the former Foreign Office minister Kim Howells for the phased withdrawal of British troops from Helmand.

Writing in the Guardian, Howells, who had ministerial responsibility for Afghanistan until 2008, said: "It would be better to bring home the great majority of our fighting men and women and concentrate, instead, on using the money saved to secure our own borders, gather intelligence on terrorist activities inside Britain."

Meanwhile the Independent says that

Hamid Karzai began his new presidency yesterday with a pledge to reach out to opponents and tackle the corrosive corruption which has deeply tainted his government and led to widespread international condemnation.

however it adds that

he appeared to rule out sacking ministers and officials accused of corruption and did not say how he would tackle the systemic malpractice and criminality which has undermined governance during his tenure.

According to the Times,

Lord Mandelson will today seek private talks with the board of General Motors to discuss the future of about 5,500 Vauxhall workers in Britain after the American car giant scrapped advanced plans to sell its European business.

The Telegraph reports that every family in the country is now facing a tax liability of £4,350 to prop up Britain’s banking system after Alistair Darling announced the biggest bail-out in history.

The Mail leads with the story that Gordon Brown's business tsar Alan Sugar was under siege last night after dismissing struggling small firms as ' moaners' who lived in 'Disney World'.

The multi-millionaire claimed a mere 15 per cent of businesses turned down for bank loans had anything to complain about.The rest, he declared, needed an 'insolvency practitioner' rather than more money

A couple who wrote to the BBC to say they had chosen to take their own lives and criticised British laws on assisted suicides have been found dead at their home, police said last night reports the Guardian

American voters have delivered a sharp rebuke to Barack Obama by rejecting his allies in Virginia, the swing state that helped deliver him the White House almost exactly a year ago, and the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey. says the Telegraph

Finally the £1000 train ticket as the Independent reports that

Passengers wishing temporarily to swap the party culture of Newquay, Cornwall, for the more serene pace of life enjoyed in the sleepy coastal village of the Kyle of Lochalsh, in the Scottish Highlands, will have to pay £1,002 for the privilege after the latest round of fare hikes. Enquiries carried out by The Independent found that a passenger could opt for a one-week luxury cruise in the Caribbean instead, together with flights to and from Puerto Rico, and still come home with £50 change.

Clear your diaries for 25th March 2010

Mike Smithson is once again specualting on the date of a general election and this time it is the 25th March.

rumours has started circulating this afternoon with suggestions that key figures within the Labour party have been told “to prepare for March 25th”.
Who has been saying what to whom I have no idea. But going a few weeks early is about the last tactical advantage that Brown can deploy and it does make a sort of sense.

Can a fall in the pound help the economy recover

One possible economic way out of our current dilema is to allow the pound to fall and as Chris Dillow reports,this is being considered by a future Tory government.

He quotes from Giles Wilkes' papers slash and burn in which the author says that

George Osborne’s determination to cut the deficit at all costs risks leaving the economy sluggish and the government still mired in debt, according to a new report from liberal think tank CentreForum.

adding that

Even with a monumental collapse in the pound, there is little reason to believe that Britain’s export sector could respond fast enough to drive economic growth. Instead, this policy may just as easily weaken confidence and drive interest rates up, which would wreck a fragile recovery

So according to Chris

Imagine it's 2010-11, and Osborne announces big spending cuts. The Bank of England responds by keeping interest rates low. However, the Fed and ECB start to raise rates. The UK could soon end up with almost the lowest rates in the world. Carry traders around the world will then short sterling. The pound will fall, possibly very sharply. This effect would almost certainly swamp any uplift the pound gets from improved confidence about the public finances.

Tony Blair finds that his backing for European President is ebbing away

Yes it is the latest downfall video

Tuesday's papers

The Independent call it a victory for a crooked, corrupt and discredited government.

Hamid Karzai has been declared re-elected as President of the country for the next five years though his allies inside and outside Afghanistan know that he owes his success to open fraud. Instead of increasing his government's legitimacy, the poll has further de-legitimised it.

says the paper

According to the Times

Western leaders, desperate to end a crisis that has undermined their efforts to defeat the Taleban, rushed to endorse the decision by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and congratulate Mr Karzai.

The Guardian says that pressure was growing on Hamid Karzai today to form a unity government adding that

Diplomats and world leaders warned that he must reach out to Abdullah after the IEC, which has been heavily criticised for being biased in the president's favour, declared that Karzai would serve another five years in office.

Meanwhile its front page carries a picture of Staff Sergeant Olaf Sean George Schmid, 30,who

died instantly on Saturday while trying to make safe an improvised explosive device in the Sangin region of Helmand province,

Most of the papers carry the story that David Cameron is to tell the British people that a Conservative government will not give them a referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty.

It is the lead in the Telegraph which reminds its readers that

Mr Cameron gave voters an “iron-clad” promise in 2007 that a Conservative government would hold a popular vote on Lisbon

Mr Cameron began preparing yesterday for what diehard sceptics will see as a climbdown. He acknowledged openly for the first time that his party may not be able to hold a promised referendum on the treaty before it becomes law.says the Times

It leads with news that tThe Home Secretary admitted yesterday that the Government had made mistakes in its handling of immigration and had overreacted to the 7/7 bombings in London.

In his first speech on the subject, Alan Johnson said that ministers had ignored immigration problems and the growing pressure on jobs and services in parts of Britain. Some communities had legitimate concerns because they had been particularly affected.

Meanwhile the Guardian says that

The government had already ordered an inquiry into the future operation of the panel of scientists advising the Home Office on drug policy before the controversial sacking of its chairman,

The Independent reports that

In a letter to Mr Johnson yesterday, the council said that while it had not been possible to contact all 28 remaining members – two resigned at the weekend – "it is clear that a majority of the council have serious concerns" about Professor Nutt's dismissal and the future of the council.

Most of the papers report that Royal Mail is to face legal action over the recruitment of 30,000 agency staff during the bitter postal strike, according to the Communication Workers Union.

Meanwhile a A YouGov poll conducted for the Telegraph finds that

an equal amount of people blame the union for the action as they do the management (25 per cent each). Some 44 per cent of people said "both equally" were to blame. Only a fortnight ago, 28 per cent blamed the management and 21 the union.

A heartbroken mother took centre stage on Monday as the High Court was asked to let her seriously disabled son die.says the Mail adding that

She is backing a hospital's application for the year-old baby to be taken off life support.The baby's father, however, insists he must live and says a simple operation could even lead to him being cared for at home.

According to the lead in the Guardian

Thousands of families could lose out on free pre-school education due to a funding crisis that is forcing state-run nurseries to lay off staff, increase class sizes and in some cases close.

Miliband met by icy reception on debut mission to Moscow reports the Independent

The British Foreign Secretary's trip was the highest-ranking official British visit to Russia in years. But his Russian counterparty, Sergey Lavrov, made it clear that Mr Miliband's efforts to secure the extradition of the former security agent and current MP Andrei Lugovoi, as well as to make progress on a range of other issues that plague bilateral relations, would come to naught.

The Guardian reports that

The British mercenary Simon Mann, who was sentenced to 34 years in prison in Equatorial Guinea last year for plotting to overthrow the oil-rich country's government, has been granted a presidential pardon.

The Times says that the

Somali pirates who kidnapped a British couple last month were preparing to defend their hostages from Islamist extremists, who they said were heading to the area with plans to seize them.

4 out of 10 households get their rent paid by the taxpayer in the parts of Britain most blighted by benefits dependency.is the lead in the Express adding that

Figures released by the Conservatives last night showed that the annual cost of housing benefit has soared by an eye- watering £2.7billion under Labour, with almost a quarter of all households across London dependent on the allowance.

Finally the Sun carries the latest on Micheal Barrymore whom it says

is reduced to mucking out a pal's garage.
Barrymore, once host of ITV's prime-time show Strike It Lucky, now spends his weekends polishing cars, clearing junk and sweeping the forecourt.

Monday's papers

Both the Gaurdian and the Times lead with the fallout from the sacking of David Nutt,

The home secretary faces mass resignations from the government's drug advisory body over his decision to force out its chairman, who accused ministers of distorting scientific evidence on cannabis

.says the Guardian

Les King, an expert chemist, was the first to resign. He said that the Home Secretary had denied Professor Nutt his right to free speech and called for the council to become truly independent of politicians. He was swiftly followed by Marion Walker, a pharmacist and clinical director with the substance misuse service at the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

reports the Times

This is a war that cannot be won. And the suppression of David Nutt won't help says Bruce Anderson in the Independent

The maximum penalty for using a class B substance is five years in prison. Does anyone believe that any judge would ever pass such a sentence for smoking marijuana? So what is the point of pretending to buttress a law that is already widely flouted with even more pains and penalties which will never be enforced?

The Telegraph leads with the news that Harriet Harman has warned that radical proposals to overhaul the system of MPs’ expenses drawn up by an independent review may be blocked

She said it would not be fair for MPs to be forced to sack their spouses or other family members working in their offices.
She also indicated that plans to stop MPs living in the London commuter belt from having taxpayer-funded second homes may prove unacceptable.

According to the Times,Alistair Darling is expected to announce tomorrow that Lloyds Banking Group and RBS will be stripped down and various parts sold to new owners, creating as many as three new institutions on the high street.

The Guardian thinks that the Chancellor will need to pour up to £40bn of taxpayers' money into the banking system if he is to fulfil a pledge to carve out three new banking players on the high street in the next four years.

There is much attention on Afghanistan after Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the second round run-off in the elections yesterday

The former foreign minister said it would be impossible to participate in the November 7 vote after the government's refusal to sack or suspend officials and ministers implicated in fraud.

says the Telegraph

The move in effect clears the way for Hamid Karzai to retain power despite the fact that he was stripped of his first round election majority because of rampant fraud. A weakened Karzai administration, shorn of electoral legitimacy, represents a major blow to Western powers as they consider whether to send more troops to Afghanistan for the military campaign against the Taliban.says the Independent

Meanwhile the focus continues on the British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates whom the Telegraph says could be given their freedom in exchange for the release of seven pirates captured by the German navy last week.

Meanwhile the Sun reports that

A BRITISH holidaymaker died yesterday when she was crushed by a landslide on a family beach on Tenerife.
Marion O'Hara, 57, was at the island's popular Playa de los Gigantes resort when rocks fell 200ft from a cliff above her.

Someone is attacked by a complete stranger every 30 seconds in Binge Britain, figures revealed last night.is the lead in the Mail adding that

There were 1,057,000 violent attacks by strangers last year - the equivalent of 2,895 a day or 120 every hour.
Opposition MPs said it was the latest proof the Government's relaxation of licensing laws had failed.

The lead in the Independent is a report that

Every adult in the UK would be legally required to decide whether to donate their organs after death, under a radical solution to the critical shortage of organs for transplant put forward by the country's oldest royal medical college.

The Sun uncovers a new phenonoma this morning,Beefgate

BEEFEATER Moira Cameron was allegedly subjected to a hate campaign that saw her uniform defaced, notes left in her locker - and a web entry about her sabotaged.
The 44-year-old bachelor girl became the Tower of London's first female yeoman warder "on merit" in 2007 after 522 years of exclusively male guards.

The Mail reports on the The Halloween slayings

A man was under arrest last night after a retired company executive and his girlfriend were found dead in a Halloween murder at a house in a quiet residential street.
The victim, named locally as 62-year-old Ken Snell, a former senior executive with mobile phone giant Motorola, was with an unnamed woman just after 9pm on Saturday at the £250,000 bungalow in leafy Cringleford, Norwich.

Police in the Ohio city of Cleveland urged families of missing people to come forward with pictures of their absent relatives yesterday after the discovery of six badly decomposed bodies at the home of a convicted rapist, prompting a mass murder investigation

.reports the Guardian

A new study on the front of the Express has found that

GENTLE exercise can dramatically cut the danger of an early death from heart disease, according to new research.
Just 30 minutes of jogging or cycling three times a week has amazing results for people with heart problems – the UK’s biggest killer

Finally the Times reports that the Army’s youngest holder of the George Cross has clashed with the Ministry of Defence over the “lack of respect” paid by ministers to servicemen who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Former Lance Corporal of Horse Christopher Finney, 25, who left the Army in July and now works at a call centre for an insurance company, said that he was disillusioned with military life and angry with the Government, claiming more respect was shown to celebrities than to dead soldiers.