Apart from pictures of a defeated Lewis Hamilton,the papers cannot agree on the main stories this morning.

All the broadsheets go with different headlines

Scotland plans to axe prescription charges is the main story in the Telegraph

The public services ''apartheid" between England and Scotland has widened again as Scottish ministers pledged to abolish all prescription charges north of the border.While millions of patients in England will still be expected to pay for vital medication, prescriptions in Scotland will be available free of charge within four years. adding that

The move was cited as the starkest example yet of the "unfairness" of the current funding arrangement, with English taxpayers forced to pay towards improvements to health care and education available only in Scotland

Parents of fat children to be given a warning headlines the Times

Parents of 5-year-olds are to be sent official warning letters if their child is found to be obese, as part of a national programme to weigh children in schools.
Ministers are bracing themselves for charges that they will stigmatise fat children when they publish proposals next month to tackle rising levels of obesity, The Times has learnt.
Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, is understood to have been persuaded that it is in children’s best interest if their weight is brought formally to the attention of their parents.

Asylum-seekers 'are left to starve' in Britain reports the Independent

Thousands of people are forced to spend years living in abject poverty on the streets of Britain's cities after fleeing persecution in their own countries, an independent asylum inquiry has heard. The destitute have no access to help from the state as they have not been granted asylum, yet they prefer to stay in Britain rather than return home because they fear of being tortured or killed.

Whilst the Guardian reports that

Election that never was cost Labour £1m

Gordon Brown's decision this month not to call a general election has left the cash-strapped Labour party with a bill approaching £1m, the Guardian has learned.
By Saturday October 6, when the prime minister decided not to go ahead with the election, party officials had sanctioned hundreds of thousands of pounds of expenditure on booking hoarding sites, literature and recruitment of staff, and were at an advanced stage in setting up a media centre to handle daily press conferences.

The Mirror leads with

Immigration set to increase Britain's population by a third

The UK population will increase by a third, to 81million, in the lifetime of children born today, experts predict.
They say the rise, fuelled by immigration and higher birth rates, will put enormous strain on schools, hospitals and other public services.
The forecast of a 21million increase by 2074 comes from economics professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge University.

The Telegraph also returns to its old stomping ground

Gordon Brown's jobs vow could break EU law

Gordon Brown's high-profile pledge to find an "extra 500,000 British jobs for British workers" is likely to be illegal under European law, according to a parliamentary study released today.The promise was a key plank of the Prime Minister's "vision" to win over delegates at the Labour conference and Trades Union Congress adding that

a report by the impartial House of Commons library says that European law stipulates that workers from EU member countries must "enjoy equal treatment" when applying for jobs under European treaties signed by Labour.

The Sun claims an EPIDEMIC LOOMS

BRITAIN is dangerously exposed to a global flu pandemic because ministers have not bought life-saving face masks for NHS staff, it was claimed last night.
The Government has not acted despite pledging to start buying them for doctors and nurses TWO YEARS ago.
Meanwhile countries like America, Australia and France have stockpiled tens of millions.
The Tories last night accused ministers of taking risks with the lives of thousands of health workers.

Both it and the Mirror lead on the sporting weekend

NICE TRY says the paper

LEWIS Hamilton blew his big race last night as the pressure finally got to the supercool rookie – then was almost crowned Formula 1 world champion on a TECHNICALITY.
The 22-year-old capped an agonising weekend for British sport as Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen pipped him to the title by winning in Brazil.
Hamilton, who needed to come second in the final Grand Prix of the season to become champ, finished a lowly SEVENTH.

Lewis Hamilton driven to despair says the Times

The British driver was given hope of a dramatic reprieve when the FIA, the world governing body of motor sport, looked into possible technical breaches but more than six hours after the race, Hamilton learnt that he had indeed finished the season behind Kimi Raikkonen, the new champion.
It would have been yet another twist to Hamilton’s extraordinary rookie season in Formula One but after long deliberations the stewards concluded that the result should stand.

That's the hat-trick ... Hamilton the latest English sporting loser says the Guardian

So there will be no sportsman on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square this week. A dismal few days for English sport were brought to an anti-climactic conclusion when a series of errors and a piece of mechanical misfortune kept the trophy out of Hamilton's hands.

Meanwhile the front page of the Mirror returns to Paris where it tells of the

Princes' World Cup bender

Prince Harry gluged vodka straight from the bottle as England's rugby stars partied to forget the disappointment of World Cup final defeat.
He and elder brother William also knocked back plenty of beer and bubbly during a six-hour bender which finally ended at 6am yesterday with sozzled Jonny Wilkinson stumbling out of a club under a blanket to avoid waiting photographers.
The wild night out included watching a sexy routine by pom-pom dancers with William and Harry joining in the hollering and whooping as the four girls performed.

Turkey bombards northern Iraq reports the Guardian

The Turkish army stepped up its bombardment of the Iraqi side of the border after the rebels ambushed a military unit inside Turkey, hitting 11 different areas close to towns and villages, Kurdish officials said. In a separate incident in south-eastern Turkey, one person died and 17 were injured when their minibus was hit by a roadside bomb allegedly placed by the PKK.


Turks mull invasion of Iraq after PKK ambush reports the Independent

The likelihood of a Turkish military attack on northern Iraq has increased after Iraq-based Kurdish guerrillas killed 17 Turkish soldiers and took others prisoner in a cross-border raid.
The Turkish soldiers died when rebels from the PKK movement blew up a bridge in Hakkari province, three miles from the border with Iraq, as a 12-vehicle military convoy was crossing it. In another incident, a mine killed one and wounded at least eight others when it exploded under a minibus. Turkey said 32 rebels were also killed in fighting.

According to the Telegraph

UK troops to fill Nato's boots in Afghanistan

The Government is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan to make up for the expected withdrawal of other Nato forces, a spokesman for the organisation has said.Britain already has 7,700 soldiers fighting Taliban insurgents in Helmand province, at a time when senior Army officers complain that there is a serious overstretch in the armed forces.
There are fears that the Canadian and Dutch governments may withdraw their forces because of growing political pressure.

Benazir Bhutto calls on the world says the Times

Benazir Bhutto has asked Britain and America to help to investigate the most deadly suicide bombing in Pakistan to date, which struck her convoy at midnight on Thursday, casting a deep shadow over her return to the front line of Pakistan politics.
The former Prime Minister, speaking to The Times at her family compound in Karachi, said that she had no confidence in the official investigation. She blamed “elements within the Government” but not President Musharraf for the twin blasts that killed 140.

Back to the Uk and the Express gives the latest Maddy installment on its front page

MCCANN FRIENDS FACE NEW PROBE

FRIENDS of Kate and Gerry McCann face new interrogations by detectives about the night their daughter disappeared, it was revealed last night.
Portuguese police have drawn up an official request for the group who holidayed with the couple to be formally interviewed.
Investigators believe members of the party – dubbed the Tapas Nine – may have helped the couple dispose of their daughter’s body and covered-up the crime.

Did two hired assassins snatch weapons inspector David Kelly? asks the Mail in its book installment this morning

the crusading MP Norman Baker felt sure there was something more to his death - and gave up his front-bench role to investigate the case.
In the Mail he revealed extraordinary evidence that he believes proves Kelly did not take his own life and was instead murdered by Iraqi dissidents. Here, he reveals how the murder may have been carried out . . .

Drivers to use hard shoulder reports the Telegraph

Drivers on the busiest motorways are to be allowed to use the hard shoulder to help ease traffic congestion.Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, will this week point to the success of a pilot scheme on the M42 in the West Midlands.
She is expected to say on Thursday that the scheme will be extended to other motorways

The Mirror reports that

Men who use callgirls to be prosecuted

Men using prostitutes will be prosecuted if a planned change in the law gets the go-ahead.
At present, it is legal to send for a call girl or visit a brothel but illegal to run one or solicit sex in the street.
But MPs want to end the misery of girls forced into selling themselves, the spiral of drugs and violence - and the huge profits raked in by criminal gangs.

The Independent reports that

Minister to tell MPs 'no evidence' to support change in abortion law

The 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act will be marked this week with a fresh battle over the issue.
On Wednesday, Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health minister, will tell a Commons committee investigating whether the law needs to be changed that she has had no scientific evidence to support a lowering of the upper time limit for abortion from 24 weeks.
"We know that people hold incredibly strong views on either side of the argument, but Dawn will tell the MPs that she has seen no evidence for a change in the law," said one official, ahead of the Human Tissues and Embryos Bill's long passage through Parliament.

Figures reveal 1,300 prison officers guilty of misconduct over six years reports the Guardian

More than 1,000 prison officers in England and Wales were found guilty of misconduct between 2000 and 2006 for offences including improper sexual relationships and endangering the safety of their jails, figures obtained by the Guardian reveal.
Prisons where guards were disciplined most frequently for bad conduct are Birmingham, Manchester, Risley in Cheshire, and Belmarsh and Brixton in London.

Finally the Times reports that

Scrabble champ skitters off for a night on the tiles

Paul Allan, a former international decathlete, was crowned British Scrabble Champion yesterday, after a prodigious show of wordplay that probed the more obscure backwaters of the English lexicon.
Mr Allan, the favourite, beat Stewart Holden 462-366 in the last game to win the national championship final 3-1 at the Cavendish Conference Centre in London.
Amassing a total score of 1,908 points, words from Mr Allan’s repertoire on the day included “bum”, “fatwa” and, rather appropriately, “genii”.