Which right wing papers will support Cameron

Stephen Glover believes that the right wing press are deserting David Cameron.

Writing in the Indy this morning,he reminds us that

The front page of The Times last Tuesday will have shaken the teacups at Tory HQ. At the top was a photograph of David and Samantha Cameron standing alongside David Ross and his girlfriend. Mr Ross is the chap in the soup over his shareholding in Carphone Warehouse. The headline over the picture was "The Party's over for Carphone playboy". The unwritten headline was "And Cameron is a silly ass for accepting donations from such a man".

The turning point for him came when Corfugate broke

the Times did not spare George Osborne for having unwisely hobnobbed with Oleg Deripaska, the controversial Russian billionaire – rather to its credit, since Mr Murdoch and his daughter Anna were among the cast of characters – while admittedly giving Peter Mandelson an equally hard time. It is not so much that the paper has fallen in love again with Gordon Brown; rather that it has taken against the Tory leader and his crew.

As we know all too well you need the press on your side to win the election,the question is who will be supporting Cameron?

Craig Brown-how the golden days are over for columnists

There has been much discussion about the Telegraph's current policy of getting rid of their comment and opinion writers.

This morning's Indy takes a look at one such casualty Craig Brown who is not unduly concerneed with his fate

"Why shouldn't they get rid of me?" he muses. "I'm a freelancer; I have no loyalty to them, they have no loyalty to me."

But he adds

Two years ago he was approached by the Daily Mail but stayed at the Telegraph when they offered him more money to do less work. "I think the golden days are over for columnists," he says. "Now I'll have to write 10 columns a week for half the pay. I'll probably have to pay for them to appear."

Will there be any opinion left at the Telegraph?

Guido is reporing that

Dan Hannan has been dropped as a leader writer and will now only "be doing occasional articles".

Dan is not the first of the feature writers to leave the paper

Craig Brown, AN Wilson and Iain Dale have all just got the chop in what the paper's insiders are claiming is all about economics rather than editorial tone. The "business model" is changing one source tells Guido. If you lose the paper's character and spirit, you will lose readers.

What the Monday media sections are saying

In the Guardian Jeff Jarvis says that Newsrooms are entering a hub-and-spoke future.Touring the BBC with its head of News Peter Horrocks,he tells us

He is making all his top managers rotate in that chair to immerse them in the demands of news in any medium. Next to the multimedia desk is a hub that manages content from BBC News resources - standard stuff - though now its contributors are organised by topic rather than medium

but

in the corner is something I think every newsroom will soon have: a media wire, which in Horrocks' words is a tasting operation that ingests and assesses content from all over to feed to any product and medium. There is a separate user-generated-content hub that does likewise with amateur content. (I'd argue these two will have to merge, as the line between professional and amateur, reporter and witness continues to blur.) This curatorial function, editing the world, is critical in a news ecology that pushes us to do what we do best and link to the rest.

The BBC gets a lot of attention in the paper with its top story asking Is the BBC hideously White City? claiming

Several in the broadcast industry agree that it has become more London-centric but suggest the issues are difficult to change in the short term. Several, including Andrew Marr, believe the corporation is trying hard to redress the balance

however

One prominent broadcaster suggests the Trust is simply running scared of powerful political pressure groups. The birth of the commission itself underlines the close connection between politics and broadcasting, at least in Scotland

The Independent looks at the Sichuan earthquake and its effects on the Chinese media.

Suddenly, Chinese reporters are asking tough questions about possible government corruption, journalists have been ignoring state-issued orders in order to get to the scene of the disaster, and footage of broken bodies and futile rescue efforts was shown live on TV. This is a startling change in a country often depicted by foreign media and governments as an authoritarian, press-belittling monolith.

Peter Wilby in the Guardian looks at the trend towards newspaper comment and comments himself that

Now the papers are full of them, and it has been estimated that, across the British media, at least 120 writers produce regular, broadly political columns. A political and media landscape without them seems to us inconceivable. Yet such columnists are by no means universal. In several European countries, political commentary comes almost exclusively from academics or other policy experts.

In the Independent meanwhile Stephen Glover takes a look at the coverage of David Davis in the media and in particular that of the Sun

it is possible that some other people are about to make a mistake that could surpass Mr Davis's. I am thinking of Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun, Rebekah Wade, its editor, and Kelvin MacKenzie, a columnist for the paper as well as a former editor, who is thinking of opposing Mr Davis in the by-election at Haltemprice and Howden.

and points out that

In democracies, governments do not own newspapers, though they try to manipulate them, and sometimes succeed. For their part, newspapers and their proprietors do not own governments, though they may also try, and Mr Murdoch has got closer than most to succeeding. It is no idle convention that the executive should keep out of the media, and the media out of the executive, but the essence of our democratic system. In one-party states, by contrast, government and press are one and the same

Is the media talking us into recession?

Being old enough to remember the last recession in the early 1990's,the general feling then was that part of the problem was the media coverage which talkd the country into recession.

Downturns after all are mainly due to a lack of confidence and constant headlines about falling house prices,the end of good times,oil prices,and inflation can only help to sow the seeds of doubt in the consumers mind.

Over at the Sky news blog,coverage of the recession is defended.

We are trying to reflect the reality out there. If the economic news is bad, we can't pretend it is good.
And we would seem to be out of touch with you if we didn't highlight the problems you are facing.
As with the Northern Rock story, we haven't created the concern but we are reflecting it.

It's a good point and the media of course has a duty to report what is going on,but the problem is often the positio in the agenda.The Middle class papers of the Mail and the Express will often lead with the latest in the downward economic trends.

This morning the Express is leading with a story about possible fuel shortages,I wander whether this for example will mean queues at the pumps later today

The Madrassa Guardian

The Times of India is not very happy with the current state of political opinion in the Guardian(via Coffee House)

In theory, all news reportage in a credible paper should meet the criterion of objectivity. However, in its commentaries and analyses (generally but not always confined to the editorial, or comment, page) the newspaper not only can, but is expected to, express its opinion on political and other matters, and the more cogently and forcefully the better.

says the paper but

however, the separation of what is sometimes called the 'church and the state' in newspaper jargon (i.e. the editorial page and the news pages) sometimes gets blurred.

But

The Guardian,is far to the left of not just the Tories but also of New Labour, the paper's constituency seemingly that of the 'Londonistan' of mullahs and minarets. The Guardian used to be called the Manchester Guardian; today it might well be called, by fans and foes alike, the Madrassa Guardian.

Nationals on the budget

The budget dominates the headlines today in the nationals.

The Times calls it the hangover Budget

Drinkers and drivers were hit in the pocket yesterday as Alistair Darling used them and a borrowing surge to try to steer Britain away from recession and through global financial storms.

The hesitant debutante says the Guardian

In what one City commentator called a Mother Hubbard package, Darling promised economic stability but offered little hope for Labour MPs that they could go into an election in either 2009 or 2010 with a credible offer of tax cuts, or extra public spending.

The Mail calls him the man with Rose tinted glasses

Alistair Darling took a major gamble yesterday on Britain sailing through a global crisis.
In his first Budget, the Chancellor presented a rose-tinted picture of the economy to disbelieving MPs.He foresaw steady long-term growth, despite City warnings

.

For the Telegraph,the Chancellor

Declares war on family cars

Motorists have been hit by punitive rises in taxes as Alistair Darling targeted the drivers of family cars with a new 'showroom tax'.The Chancellor announced plans that will mean owners of estate cars and people carriers could pay hundreds of pounds a year more to drive on the roads.

Don't drink and drive says the front page of the Sun

Killjoy Chancellor Alistair Darling clobbered drinkers with a SIX PER CENT tax hike on booze.
And he hammered motorists driving typical family saloons with new road tax bands, aimed at cutting carbon emissions.

The Independent on its front page describes

If you want to understand what is happening don't listen to the words; look instead at the numbers. The words were the same as in the previous 10 Budgets, but the person saying those words was different. It was almost as though the new Chancellor was reading out a speech written by his predecessor. Indeed I suspect in large measure that is what happened.

The Express picks up on a comment made in the Commons

SO WHAT!?'

Tory leader David Cameron accused them of imposing the heaviest tax burden in our history.
With a laugh and a shrug, Children’s Minister Ed Balls sniggeringly retorted: “So what?”
Mr Balls then grinned and widened his eyes into a wild stare as the Tory leader rounded on him in disgust, noting for all to hear: “So what, says the Minister for Children.”

Inside in the editorial columns,the Mirror sticks up for Mr Darling,Playing safe and sound saying that

he isn't a politician to take risks when the economy's heading for a rough patch.

and

if Britain emerges next year or the year after relatively unscathed, his Budget will have proved to be a triumph

The Independent describes it as a lacklustre budget in the shadow of Mr Brown,noting that

There were times yesterday when it was hard to believe that there had been a change of Chancellor, so reminiscent of his predecessor's register and cadences was the Budget speech of Alistair Darling.

Dangerously Dull says the Guardian

Neither elegant nor adventurous, it bored MPs and will bore voters, too, who may notice the rising price of drink, but not the flurry of incremental schemes and reviews that accompanied it, nor the big increase in spending on child poverty. The speech was essentially a compendium of Gordon Brown's less interesting phrases - made even less fun by Mr Darling's delivery. Stability (the new prudence) is an estimable ambition, but after Northern Rock and with an economic outlook bleaker than a Beckett play, a commanding performance was called for and Mr Darling did not deliver.

The Times says

it proved to be a sanguine attempt to cope with a dramatic change in the economic climate

but

Still, against the backdrop of a precarious world financial system, a slowing British economy and an overstretched public purse, the modesty of Mr Darling's first Budget provides a welcome dose of dullness for the British economy in these all too interesting times.

The Sun pulls no punches

where have we heard that one before?
Darling trotted out the same line yesterday that we have been hearing in Labour Budgets for 11 long years

and

After 11 years, shouldn’t Labour be delivering rather than promising?

The Telegraph refers to Labour's decade of waste

the sun seemed to be peeping out from behind this thunder cloud as he delivered a distinctly sanguine assessment of the British economy. We hope, but doubt, he is correct

. and describes a

disappointing package of pettifogging measures that push money around the system without striking out in any clear direction.

And finally the Guardian reminds us of another lost opportunity

For a moment it seemed as if the chancellor had grasped the Stern review's conclusion: that the cheapest option is to face up to the threat and address it at once. Sadly, Mr Darling did not keep pulses racing. He followed his call for immediate action with a lumbering reminder about the worthwhile review of a far-off carbon target - set for 2050.Any serious hope that the budget might give a lead on the environment died the moment Mr Darling postponed a small rise in fuel duty, which simply caught up with inflation

Papers line up over the Euro Debate

Nothing divides the National press more than the European Union and thsi morning is no exception as Parliament votes not to have a referendum on the European treaty.

The usual suspects line up on both sides.

The Mail with a front page headline

A shaming day for democracy

The British people were finally denied a say on the EU constitution last night after a momentous day in the Commons.
MPs voted against holding a referendum on the biggest shift of power to Brussels for at least a decade.
This was despite pledges from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats that voters would have the chance to decide the issue.

Its leader describing the Day that Democracy died

The Sun says the Eu referendum is Brown bread

The “listening PM” ignored the demands of nine out of ten British voters and denied them the say he promised.
Mr Brown broke Labour’s 2005 general election pledge as he ordered his foot soldiers to reject a referendum.
However, 29 of his MPs rebelled and voted for a national poll.
Mealy-mouthed Lib Dems also broke their pledge to give the nation a say on the Lisbon Treaty.

And its editorial describes

it was cowardice that made Gordon Brown break his word over the EU Treaty referendum.
He reneged on his promise to hold one because he was scared of losing.
As a result, Mr Brown demeaned himself and damaged democracy

The Telegraph hasn't given up hope

Referendum campaigners admitted they had suffered a setback. But they refused to give up and said they were pinning their hopes on the House of Lords taking on the Commons and backing a referendum.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said after the vote that he hoped peers in the Upper House would reverse the Commons vote and ensure Labour and the Lib Dems honoured their election promises to hold a referendum.

Whilst affiriming in its leading article that

In an unworthy display of political cynicism, the Government ordered its own MPs to vote against one of the manifesto pledges on which they were all elected.

The Mirror supports the Prime Minister describing how Gordon Brown wins historic victory on EU treaty

The PM told the Tories: "When will you wake up to the fact that 3.5 million jobs are dependent on our membership of the EU, that 700,000 companies are trading with Europe, that 60 per cent of our trade is with Europe?"

Its editorial telling us that

Eurosceptics last night suffered a devastating defeat from which they will never recover.
By rejecting a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon by 63 votes, the House of Commons passed a point of no return

The Independent describes

Victory for the Government in last night's vote on whether there ought to be a national referendum on the Lisbon treaty was the right result adding that

it should be quite clear to the objective observer that this treaty does not represent a shift in Britain's relationship with the European Union worthy of a referendum, no matter what the die-hard Eurosceptic lobby maintains.

Readers say yes,the Sun says no

I thought that the Sun this morning was quite interesting in reporting that 99% of people in the Uk want the death penalty restored.


ALMOST 100,000 Sun readers unite today to call for the return of the death penalty.
Monster Mark Dixie, Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright and the teenage killers of hero dad Garry Newlove have sickened the nation in recent weeks as details emerged of their vile crimes.
All received jail sentences. But as the clamour grew for the return of capital punishment, The Sun on Saturday dared to ask the burning question: “Do we really want it back?”

The paper reporting that

a staggering 99 per cent of the 95,000 readers who responded to our You The Jury poll said the Government SHOULD reintroduce it.

Yet turn to its editorial and the paper doesn't agree with its 95,000 readers

The Sun does not believe in capital punishment. It will not be brought back on a wave of public emotion, however much we sympathise with it.
Emotion cannot dictate a nation’s system of punishment.
Retribution is only one element. Punishments must also deter others and protect the innocent by taking offenders out of circulation.

Playful maverick or evil dictator

Yesterday's newspapers were quickly out of date by the time news broke that Castro was stepping down.

They have made up for it today.The question is what does the coverage show of their stance on Castro and world events.

The Independent is the only paper which chose to lead with the story.Its front page headlining

Adios, Castro: Fidel is a relic of a vanished age and fossilised revolution adding that

In his declining years Mr Castro has become, for better or worse, a listed global monument, a relic of the vanished age of Kennedy, Khrushchev and superpower brinkmanship, and of national liberation wars led by revolutionaries in dusty military fatigues. Nearly half a century on he is still wearing the fatigues, even though the revolution had fossilised into a regime sustained primarily by the economic siege imposed by Cuba's giant neighbour to the north.

Its leading article describes the "Departure of a dictator who had outlived his times"

Fidel Castro is an autocrat who, at 81 and in poor health, has just squeaked into the group of graceful farewells.

adding that

Fidel Castro had a model for Cuba's development, and he pursued it single-mindedly. For very poor Cubans – the majority – Communism was not the unalloyed blight it was in more developed countries elsewhere. Behind the barricades and the fierce anti-Western rhetoric, Fidel Castro brought a measure of social progress.
In later years, however, he was a leader conspicuously outpaced by the times, atrophied in the categories of class struggle and the Cold War. As such, however, he came to seem less threatening, for all the needless deprivations suffered by the population. With his fatigues and trademark beard and cigar, he had presided long enough to see Communist Cuba return as retro-chic. Curious outsiders, we forecast, will now rush to see Fidel's Cuba before it passes. We hope they go with open eyes: for the positives, but also for the many, many negatives which Cuba will be so much better off without.

The Guardian describes

an extraordinary half-century in which Cuba gained greater fame than its size would otherwise have commanded, thanks to a leader who painted his revolution in vivid colours and who survived the varied animosity of 10 US presidents.

adding that

his resilience in itself secures him a place in history. But it cannot disguise the fact that his Cuba was undemocratic, sometimes cruel and by its own terms a failure on most measures other than longevity. He did not create an equal or prosperous society

The Telegraph says

The welcome decision by Fidel Castro to stand down after nearly 50 years as Cuba's president and commander-in-chief should be an occasion for quiet optimism so far as the country's future is concerned

. whilst reminding us of

the effectiveness of the fearsome security apparatus he established to suppress the slightest hint of opposition to his regime, which resulted in thousands of political activists being paraded before the revolution's firing squads or sentenced to lengthy jail terms

.

The Times to the point reminds us

he has written a deluded 1,000-word resignation letter, published at midnight and prompting ritual tributes from his remaining friends on the wilder shores of Marxism. But the wider world should be under no illusion that he has wrecked his country. And the US, against which he defined it, should seize this moment to end a policy of non-negotiation that has failed utterly

.

Papers round on the "troublesome priest

No prizes for the winner of the msot column inches this morning.It goes to the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams whose comments about sharia law have been roundly critised in most of the press.

For the Sun it's What a Burka its leader telling us

he’s a dangerous threat to our nation. He says the adoption in Britain of parts of Islamic Sharia law is “unavoidable”. If he believes that, he is unfit for his job.
Williams says the idea of “one law for all” is “a bit of a danger”.
With that one sentence he destroys his authority and credibility as leader of the Church of England.
He also gives heart to Muslim terrorists plotting our destruction.

The Mail says that "Archbishop should tend to his own flock"

This is a deeply troubling line for our most senior prelate to take. By arguing against a single law for everyone, he strikes at the heart of our constitution. By suggesting an accommodation with sharia law, he is shattering the strict division that is centuries old between the church and the courts.

For the Mirror

The Archbishop of Canterbury has stirred up a hornets' nest with his assertion that Britain must accept the introduction of some form of Islamic sharia law.
Britain is a liberal democracy, where people are relatively free to live their lives as they wish within commonly accepted constraints.
If members of any community voluntarily wish to live by personal rules that do not conflict with our fundamental values, they're welcome to do so.
But Dr Williams has created the impression that some groups should be able to opt out of British society.

But it is not just the tabloids that are taking the negative stance

The Telegraph calls it an inept intervention but adding that

The problem lies, rather, in the status of the messenger and the timing of his intervention. If there is a case for the creation of sharia courts, it would be better made by a joint group representing the three Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam

.

The Guardian says

Rowan Williams has a knack for creating problems where none yet exist. Prodding, however thoughtfully, the humming nest of multiculturalism and the law, the archbishop has provoked a predictable media storm that in the short term will only obscure his intention of promoting cultural cohesion - as well as confirming his critics' frustration with his apparent lack of common sense. His arguments, mildly and carefully expressed, will simultaneously stoke tabloid fears and infuriate those who believe that the state should be as far from religion as possible.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has made a grave mistake says the Times

Dr Williams did something yesterday that was far from sensible. He said that the adoption of parts of Sharia in Britain looked “unavoidable”, and called for “constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law”, over issues such as resolving marriage disputes. Muslims should not have to choose, he said, between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.

NYT selects its democratic for 2008

The New York Times has come out in favour of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

In its editorial this morning,the paper says

The Times’s editorial board strongly recommends that they select Hillary Clinton as their nominee for the 2008 presidential election.

adding

By choosing Mrs. Clinton, we are not denying Mr. Obama’s appeal or his gifts. The idea of the first African-American nominee of a major party also is exhilarating, and so is the prospect of the first woman nominee. “Firstness” is not a reason to choose. The times that false choice has been raised, more often by Mrs. Clinton, have tarnished the campaign

Feral Youths and Kebabs

If you want a discussion about crime in the Uk pick up the papers.Opinions ranging from it was different in my day to don't balme the kids via lets all blame the government

The Sun leads the way with its front page letter from a Dr Stuart Newton who describes the current situation as being the 2008 equivilent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

It tells its readers to

to heed the rallying call of former school head Dr Stuart Newton – and fight to take back our streets, towns and parks from the violent young thugs terrorising Britain.

urging them to

fill in the coupon on Page Five of today's Sun newspaper and send it to PM Gordon Brown,

Its leader saying

POLITICIANS wring their hands. Police chiefs complain their hands are tied.
The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith admits she would not feel safe walking through London late at night.
Yet the problem of violent youth crime just keeps growing with convictions and cautions up by more than a third in only three years.
For all the politicians’ empty promises it takes Sun reader and ex-headmaster Dr Stuart Newton to hit the nail on the head with his plea for action today.

The front page of the Mail focuses on the comments of the Home Sec under the headline

Skewered a reference to kebabs in Peckham

Jacqui Smith suffered a barrage of criticism yesterday after admitting she would not feel safe walking the streets after dark.
Opposition MPs said the Home Secretary had made an "admission of failure" to the millions of shift-workers who have no option but to brave the threat of violence.
Aides of Miss Smith compounded her gaffe with a desperate attempt to undo the damage by claiming she had recently popped out in the evening to "buy a kebab in Peckham".

Although according to the paper which tracks down the kebab shop owner who said

She came in during the early evening. We were a bit busy so I can't remember the exact time, but it was just turning

The papers Melanie Philips says

It will take more than weasel words to make the streets feel safe, Ms Smith

adding

for her to say, without any apology, embarrassment or shame, that London's streets are effectively no-go areas for women at night is to add the insult of insouciance to the injury of Britain's disorderly public spaces.

Tony Parsons writing in the Mirror says

There is much that can be done immediately - zero tolerance for carrying any weapon, ensuring that men with murder in their hearts are not wandering the streets on bail, and letting a life sentence for murder mean exactly that - you will rot in jail until the day you croak, not that you will be out by your 30th birthday

. and looks to the past

The youth of the past were no angels. But they were afraid of the law.
They were afraid of the courts, they were afraid of their fathers, they were afraid of their teachers, they were afraid of losing their jobs.
They would not have killed Garry Newlove, or even beaten him, out of pure naked self-interest. They had too much to lose.

Amongst the qualities there is a lot less coverage,Philip Johnson writing in the Telegraph asks Crime is falling? Tell that to our children

Jacqui Smith was right about one thing yesterday, when she said she would be too afraid to walk around Hackney in east London after midnight. That was the most honest and sensible statement from a Home Secretary about crime in recent years. She then went and spoiled it by claiming that crime had fallen, that people were safer than they have been for 10 or 20 years, and that once everyone was convinced of this "truth", we would praise New Labour for making us all so much more secure.

Bruce Anderson writing in the Independent takes a rather different approach,commenting on the rape of a girl in North London

One's first reaction is that hanging is too good for her attackers, who should be condemned to lifelong forced labour, plus a monthly flogging. But the five rapists are also youngsters. Can we be sure that they were all born to be monsters? Is it not more likely that some of them were turned into monsters by an upbringing designed to produce feral anthropoids, not human beings. It is probable that those young males never knew love and discipline, and that the vacuum was filled by the brutal bonding of a street gang. If infants are nurtured by wolves, they are unlikely to turn into Romulus and Remus.

adding that

The rapists must be held responsible for their crimes. But they cannot be blamed for their childhoods. Modern Britain did not only fail the girl. It failed the five youths. That crime did not have one victim; it had six. As the rapists will come to understand during their long years of captivity, the criminal usually ranks high in the list of his principal victims

Coverage of the Newlove verdict

The ending of the trial of those accused of killing Warrington Father Garry Newlove has attracted much press attention this morning,with most of the paper focusing on the comments of hos widow and the fact that one of those found guilty had just been released on police bail.

Interestingly though only a couple of paper this morning choose the theme for their leader columns

Shame of our society says the Mirror

The senseless murder of Gary Newlove was truly shocking.
That he had beaten cancer 15 years earlier only to be killed by three yobs adds to the feelings of outrage.
When a father cannot leave his house to speak to teenagers he suspects of vandalising his car, then something is terribly wrong with our society

The Sun says

POLICE catch criminals. Courts punish them.
That’s the bargain between citizen and state. We call it justice.
But justice means nothing when decent parents are murdered on their doorstep by drunken thugs.

adding that

a growing pattern of negligence and complacency is putting safety at risk

Views or news?

I do have concerns from time to time about the direction of the Independenr.Editor Simon Kelner's strategy that it shoud be a viewspaper and not a newspaper has led to the publication drifting towards the personal agenda's of its correspondents.

Last week as the other papers were focusing on the US primaries,the paper used its front page to attack George Bush over his Middle East policy.


Today it returns to the same subject,in an article by Claire Soares

President George Bush is under pressure from human rights groups to use his visit to Saudi Arabia today to seek the release of the pioneering blogger Fouad al-Farhan, who has been jailed without charge for more than a month.
The human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, are urging the president to raise Mr Farhan's case with King Abdullah today. They also want him to appeal for the release of an Egyptian blogger, Abdel Karim Suleiman, the first to be jailed in Egypt, when he meets President Hosni Mubarak at Sharm-el-She-ikh on Wednesday. The Egyptian blogger is serving a four-year sentence for insulting President Mubarak.

Yes it's an important issue to report,but on the front page? with so much other news around.It is not going to sell newspapers to the floating buyer.Those intersted will surely read it on line.

What the papers say on Bhutto's death

The quiet period for news between Xmas and New Year has been blown away with yetserday's assassination in Pakistan and this mornings newspapers are filled with reports and analyis on the events in Rawalpindi.

The leader writers across all the papers are focusing on the events

Let democracy be Bhutto's memorial says the Mail

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto once again exposes the gaping fault lines which lie below the surface of political life in Pakistan.

Nation on the brink says the Mirror

In the difficult days ahead, President Pervez Musharraf and his generals will be tempted to put off the polls and launch a crackdown.
Musharraf must follow Ms Bhutto's brave example and find the courage to avoid a retreat into military rule.

Benazir's fight must go on says the Sun

let us remember that Bhutto, while a formidable force for good and a powerful ally, was not her divided country’s only potential saviour.The path to democracy is often painful. It took three decades of bloodshed before peace finally came to Northern Ireland.
Bhutto’s death may be the awful price Pakistan must pay to achieve the same end.

Pakistan is a more dangerous place says the Telegraph

In such circumstances, Gen Musharraf, who resigned last month as army chief but remains president, may decide to postpone or cancel parliamentary elections due on January 8.
If they are held, with Miss Bhutto murdered and the other political heavyweight, Nawaz Sharif, disqualified from running, they could well be rigged to favour the general's party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q).
The situation may deteriorate to the extent that the army decides once again to intervene, this time removing the author of the 1999 coup, Gen Musharraf.

A killing that reverberates far beyond Pakistan says the Indy

As the urgent words of tribute and warning showed yesterday, however, Ms Bhutto's assassination will reverberate far beyond her native land. The United States, and to a lesser extent Britain, had encouraged Ms Bhutto to return in the expectation that she would be Pakistan's next Prime Minister. They envisaged her as a moderating and pro-Western force in a country where Islamic extremism is never far from the surface. They hoped an electoral mandate would bring stability. At a time when the Taliban are advancing in Afghanistan, violence still plagues Iraq, and Iran's intentions are uncertain, new volatility in the region can be in no one's interests. Benazir Bhutto might not have been able, as she aspired, to save Pakistan for democracy, but now she will not have the chance.

On the withdrawal from Basra

With the beginning of the end as far as British troops withdrawing from Iraq,what are the papers saying.

Well the Indepedent,a critic of the war from day 1 says 'We are not handing over a land of milk and honey'

This was not a victory, certainly not for the British, but not for the Iraqis either. For security reasons, the ceremony took place not in the city of Basra proper, but at the airport encampment to which the British had withdrawn three months earlier. The control that the British were handing over to the Iraqis was a flattering way to describe a security muddle contested by rival militias

All the troubles in the world is the Guardian's leader noting that

Victory has been declared before in Iraq. Notoriously, George Bush landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier six weeks after the opening air strike on Baghdad and announced the end of major combat operations. Behind him, a banner declared "Mission Accomplished". That was in May 2003. Up to 85,000 Iraqi deaths, nearly 4,000 US deaths, and 174 British deaths later, Iraq's national security adviser Dr Mowaffak al-Rubaie was at it again. He said yesterday that Britain's handover of Basra to Iraqi forces was a historic day that marked a victory for Iraq.

Basra is first step to leaving Iraq altogether says the Telegraph

the only losers are the terrorists who have claimed to be resisting an "occupation", and who will find it much harder to justify shooting at the representatives of their own democratic government. but noting

This is not to say that Basra is on the way to becoming a second Basingstoke. The region remains unsettled.

Finally the Mirror,another that was against the war says Beginning of the end

As our troops shelter in their heavily fortified airport base, it reminds us what a catastrophic error the invasion was.

Incompetence,incredible,unbelievable

Once again the papers make grim reading for Gordon Brown this morning,with words sucha s scandal,crisis,sleaze all dominant.

In for particular critisism is deputy leader Harriet Harman who according to the Times

was under growing pressure in the sleaze row engulfing Labour last night as she was forced to pay back £5,000 given to her by a property developer who has secretly bankrolled her party to the tune of £600,000.

and

was in further difficulties after she refused repeatedly to say if she had in fact solicited the money from the intermediary, Janet Kidd, rather than having had it offered to her. The Times has learnt from other donors to Ms Harman’s campaign that her team actively sought funding from them because they were on a list of people giving to Labour.

The front page of the Mail asks

HOW MUCH WORSE IT WILL GET citing

• Prime Minister admits donations broke the law
• He orders £600,000 to be repaid to secret donor
• His No.2 Harriet Harman is left clinging to her job

And the paper's opinion columns are not generous

Tainted cash says the Sun

Harman was apparently so desperate for cash to pay off her campaign debts that she threw caution to the wind.
The funding fiasco is going to cost cash-strapped Labour £650,000 in repaid donations.
It may yet cost Harriet Harman her job.

So much for Labour's pledge of honesty says the Mail

Isn't it hard to avoid the conclusion that Labour is corrupt to the core?

A control freak leader is beginning to look as if he's not in charge says the Times

Does the Labour Party take us all for fools? asks the Telegraph

incredibly, this was happening at the very time the Metropolitan Police were crawling all over the Labour Party, pursuing their ultimately fruitless investigation into the cash for honours scandal.

The Guardian asks

What bit of doing things by the rules does the Labour party not understand? Party funding has not exactly been out of the political news these last few years. Every elected politician and every party official knows that the subject has become super-sensitive. Parliament tightened up the law very significantly in 2000. Part IV of that new law set out detailed rules about who can make donations to political parties and how parties must deal with them. These include a ban, in section 54 of the 2000 Act, on the concealment of a donor's identity, and a requirement, in section 56, for parties to take all reasonable steps to check out their donors. Lest there should be any doubt, the Electoral Commission has issued regular advice and guidance to the parties on the subject.

A similar theme in the Independent

Is it not extraordinary that, after Mr Blair got into so much trouble, a senior Labour official appears to have tolerated other ways in which a donor could retain his anonymity? Not surprisingly, the resignation of the party's general secretary has prompted questions about whether others also knew what was happening

Only the Mirror stands up for Gord

We have just one message for Gordon Brown - stay strong.

A wave of unrelated, if cumulatively damaging events beyond the Prime Minister's control, are testing his mettle.
But we should never forget the dreadful Labour funding row is not his fault - in fact, he rejected a donation to his leadership campaign fund.

Do newspapers or can newspapers influence opinion?

The Palace of Westminster is understandably fascinated by the way in which media tycoons such as Mr Murdoch appear to have more influence on public affairs than any individual member of the legislature

says Dominic Lawson writing in todays Indy.



Dominic also gave evidence to the House Of Lords committee and tried to make the point that

it is not self-evident that the political line taken by newspapers is a decisive influence on public opinion.

He harks back to the time before columnists when

There was a time when there was very little opinion in newspapers, aside from that expressed by the editor through the dominant leader column – and many senior staff journalists would be solely employed in endlessly debating what should appear in it.

and that

even when that collective voice is at its loudest and most hectoring it cannot change the policy of the government of the day, if that government is completely determined to stick to its chosen path.

Are the days of the fourth estate over then?

Between a rock and a hard place.

The nationals this morning have launched into Alstait Darling's handling of the Nothern Rock crisis.

The Mail,Telegraph and Times telling us how the bank is frittering away tax payers money

The Sun's leader talks of the

fiasco is fast becoming Labour’s “Black Wednesday.”
The difference is that the 1992 devaluation crisis freed Britain from the euro and paved the way for a record 15 years of growth.
The £3.3bn price tag then was peanuts compared with the tens of billions taxpayers stand to lose today — with nothing in return.
So far it’s £24bn — £900 for every single taxpayer.

Darling caught between a rock and a hard place says the Telegraph

There was a welcome, if rare, sighting of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Dispatch Box yesterday. His near-invisibility in recent weeks is a little puzzling, given that he is presiding over the gravest financial crisis since our ejection from the exchange rate mechanism on Black Wednesday, 15 years ago.

Vince Cable who is fast gaining a reputation over the crisis writes in the Guardian that

The reputation for economic competence was hard won. It is now being lost, very fast. The immediate cause is Northern Rock. I will not rehearse again the arguments about who said and did what to whom and who was to blame for the original crisis. But in extending a loan to the mortgage bank, currently £24bn in addition to the less controversial £18bn deposit guarantees, a series of disastrous errors have been made.

Let the City solve its own problems says the Mail leader reminding us that

When times are good, a major British bank can make profits of over £1million per hour, all year round. It's not unusual for employees to pick up Christmas bonuses worth 50 or even 100 times the average worker's total annual earnings

.

So it continues

Why, though, should taxpayers be expected to shield hugely profitable banks when times are uncertain in the City?

Avoid this meltdown says the Mirror

The health of the British economy is tied up with the future of Northern Rock.

Chancellor Alistair Darling holds in his hands our jobs and incomes - plus the mortgages of millions of people.
It's easy for Tory shadow George Osborne to shout from the sidelines but he's failed to come up with a solution.
What we need are cool decisions to avoid an economic meltdown