Turesday's papers

It's payback time for MP's as most of the papers lead with the aftermath of Sir Thomas Legg's independent enquiry.

The top news is that Gordon Brown is to repay more than £12,000 in expenses after an independent inquiry found he had made excessive claims for cleaning, gardening and decorating.

The Prime Minister has always maintained that his expenses claims were entirely legitimate and in accordance with parliamentary rules.
But an inquiry by Sir Thomas Legg has concluded that Mr Brown made a number of claims judged to be excessive or incorrect. On Monday Mr Brown agreed to repay more than £10,000 in cleaning costs and more than £2,000 for other claims

. says the Telegraph

The Times describes a a day of high emotion in Westminster,where

MPs waited anxiously for letters telling them of Sir Thomas’s verdict. By the afternoon the Commons Administration Office was packed with MPs who had been waiting for hours to learn whether they were in the clear or if they would be asked to provide more information about their claims or repay money

as MPs began reading their letters from Legg, which started appearing in their Commons pigeonholes at around 5.30pm today, Brown made clear he understood their concern. "It has been a difficult time, a difficult day and difficult letters are on the way," he told the parliamentary Labour party. "We cannot have closure we deal with this." says the Guardian

Meanwhile the Mail describes how

Jacqui Smith was let off with a slap on the wrist yesterday even though Parliament’s sleaze watchdog said she was in clear breach of rules on MPs’ expenses.

Her account of how many nights she spent in London had been contradicted by records kept by the police protecting her, the inquiry found.says the Telegraph adding that

John Lyon, the parliamentary watchdog who carried out the seven-month investigation into her expenses claims, also found that Miss Smith had misused her allowances by charging the taxpayer for two adult films watched by her husband, adding that the claims were not a "one-off".

For the Independent they are all in it together as it reports how

In a dramatic twist to the expenses saga, senior figures in all three main parties were dragged into the net. Sir Thomas asked David Cameron, his shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, and the Chancellor Alistair Darling to provide further details of their claims for mortgage interest under the MPs' "second homes" allowance, while the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, repaid £910 he had claimed for gardening costs.

The Guardian claims it has been gagged from reporting on Parliament a move which the paper says appears to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

In an interview with The Times,The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for “unsustainable” air-freighted food to be replaced gradually by homegrown produce from thousands of new allotments.

Dr Rowan Williams said that families needed to respond to the threat of climate change by changing their shopping habits and adjusting their diets to the seasons, eating fruit and vegetables that could be grown in Britain.

The Ministry of Defence won a partial legal victory yesterday in its bid to cut compensation payments made to two injured servicemen.reports the Independent

Allowing the Government's case for a more restrictive interpretation of the assessment procedure, Lord Justice Carnwath said a tribunal wrongly applied two elements of the formula which calculated the soldiers' awards.

A woman has been arrested allegedly in connection with the paedophile network involving Vanessa George, the nursery assistant who abused children in her care. reports the Telegraph

Tracy Lyons, 39, from Portsmouth, who is seven months pregnant, has appeared before the city’s magistrates accused of sexually assaulting a child and making and distributing an indecent image of a child. She was remanded in custody until January

Many of the papers carry the news that scientists have established beyond doubt that in rare cases cancer can be transmitted in the womb, following the birth of a baby to a woman with leukaemia.

A team at the Institute of Cancer Research, a college of the University of London, working with colleagues in Japan, found that the cancer had defied accepted theories of biology. Leukaemia cells had crossed the placenta and spread from the 28-year-old mother to her unborn baby.

says the Guardian

THE distraught "third man" at Stephen Gately's Majorca holiday home wept last night as he recalled the horrific moment he found the singer's body.reports the Sun

Georgi Dochev, 25, had accompanied the Boyzone pin- up and gay partner Andy Cowles to their flat after meeting them in the island's capital.
But hours later he emerged from the bedroom to find 33-year-old Stephen dead on the couple's sofa - his "pale and cold" body crouched in a mysterious "prayer position".

Finally the Independent reports how the last surviving members of an ancient Amazonian tribe are a tragic testament to greed and genocide.

Just five people represent the entire remaining population of the Akuntsu, an ancient Amazonian tribe which a generation ago boasted several hundred members, but has been destroyed by a tragic mixture of hostility and neglect.