Sunday's papers

Top jobs in Europe.The Sunday Times reveals that Gordon Brown is secretly backing David Miliband to be the European Union’s foreign affairs chief.

Downing Street is discreetly supporting the foreign secretary as a candidate for EU high representative for foreign affairs, with Tony Blair looking increasingly unlikely to win the presidency.
Miliband’s departure for Europe would increase the chances of one of the prime minister’s chosen candidates, Ed Balls or Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary’s brother, winning a leadership contest if Labour is defeated at the general election.

says the paper and according to the Independent

The possibility of Mr Miliband departing for Brussels would have a significant impact on the career of Peter Mandelson. At the very least, he could expect to be given the job of Foreign Secretary. However, he could also parachute himself into Mr Miliband's South Shields seat in the hope of, at some stage, succeeding Mr Brown.

Meanwhile the Observer reports that

Tory donor Lord Ashcroft was embroiled in fresh controversy last night after it emerged that he accompanied the shadow foreign secretary to key meetings overseas, amid rumours that he will be given a top foreign policy role in a future Conservative government.

The Telegraph has learnt that three new banks are to appear on Britain's high streets as part of a major break-up of the sector to be announced by the Government this week,

the Chancellor, will confirm over the next few days that Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group, both of which are majority-owned by the taxpayer, will be split up.

The new banks will be standard retail banks concentrating on deposits and mortgages and offering what ministers hope will be a better deal for the consumer with an invigorated mortgage market and more competition.adds the Observer

According to the lead story in the Mail,Tony Blair has been in talks with Tesco about helping them open supermarkets in the Middle East - allegedly in return for up to £1million.However continues the report

It is believed the discussions between the former Prime Minister, now a peace envoy to the region, and the supermarket chain, whose slogan is 'Every little helps', ended after the two sides failed to agree terms.

The Times reports that Government advisers are preparing for the mass vaccination of schoolchildren to stop the spread of swine flu.

The plans come amid growing concern about the number and severity of infections in children. Figures released last week show that children under the age of 15 account for a fifth of all swine flu hospital admissions. A total of 217 children have been treated in hospital, including 27 who are in critical care.

The Government's drugs policy has descended into chaos with advisers poised to quit over the sacking of Whitehall's chief drugs expert,reports the Telegraph.

A mass resignation is believed to be among the tactics being considered by the 30 unpaid members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), including some of the country's leading doctors, psychiatrists, chemists and charity workers, who advise ministers on the harmfulness of drugs so that penalties can be set

proportionately.

The Independent reports that the NHS is paying millions to gag whistleblowers.

Some local NHS bodies are spending millions of taxpayers' money to pay off and silence whistleblowers with "super gags" to stop them going public with patient safety incidents. Experts warn that patients' lives are being endangered by the use of intimidatory tactics to force out whistleblowers and deter other professionals from coming forward.

Meanwhile the Times reports that

THE government has been forced to rewrite its advice on breast cancer screening after research showed that thousands of women have been misled into having unnecessary surgery.

President Hamid Karzai was involved in desperate talks last night to broker a deal with his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, to head off another crisis in Afghanistan's presidential election saga. reports the Observer

diplomats said last-minute efforts led by Kai Eide, the senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, were under way in an attempt to stop a boycott by Abdullah of a run-off vote on Saturdaynext Saturday.

The lead in the Independent is Wildlife crime: Britain's killing fields.The paper reports that

Crimes against wildlife, including badger baiting with dogs, hare coursing, poisoning of protected birds and even trapping them to sell as caged pets have soared to unprecedented heights. New figures from the police show that the number of wildlife crimes more than doubled in the last year, from 2,177 to 5,854.

The Express reports that the EU wants to end the right of shoppers to get their money back for shoddy goods.

This would end the 100 years of protection British consumers have enjoyed.

says the paper adding that

Ministers have vowed to fight the Consumer Rights Directive but the UK Government has no power to stop the change if it is backed by the majority of European Union states.

The News of the World has the first interview with the victim of Marlon King's nightclub attack

As King, 29, began an 18-month jail sentence for groping 20-year-old student Emily Carr and punching her in the face, she told for the first time how the £35,000-a-week striker taunted and floored her in the vicious nightclub attack.

The Mail on Sunday reports some strange goings on in Vienna.

A British nuclear expert who fell from the 17th floor of a United Nations building did not commit suicide and may have been hurled to his death, says a doctor who carried out a second post-mortem examination

.reports the paper adding that

Timothy Hampton, 47, a scientist involved in monitoring nuclear activity, was found dead last week at the bottom of a stairwell in Vienna.

Finally many of the papers report that Stephen Fry has said he is going to quit Twitter after a fellow user of the popular internet site described him as “boring”.

Yesterday Fry said he was ready to silence his fingers and thumbs and stop providing his 925,000 followers with near-hourly updates on his thoughts and activities, known as “tweets”.
At 2.18pm he posted: “Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around. Pity. Well, it’s been fun.”

reports the Sunday Times