Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling may be grateful that a greater calamity has inflicted the country with the England football team failing to qualify last night for the European championships.

The Sun simply has a deflated football on its front page with no headline but its sentiments are easy to determine

I don’t want to discuss my future at the present moment. I am trying to get over that result.”
But his fate was sealed as supporters leaving Wembley chanted “Sack him, sack him.”
James King, 44, an electrician from Barnet, North London, said: “I can’t believe we’re out of the Euros. It’s unheard of. Bring on Jose Mourinho.”

I'LL GET ME CROAT is the front page of the Mirror

Blunder boss Steve McClaren stubbornly refused to quit last night - despite a clamour across the nation for his head.
Legions of fans seething at our feeble Euro 2008 exit bellowed: "McClaren out!" and "You'll be sacked in the morning" as they streamed away from the Wembley fiasco.

What a bunch of losers says the front page of the Star.

Nearly all the front pages have pictures from Wembley last night

End of the Road says the Times

Steve McClaren will be dismissed as England head coach at an emergency Football Association board meeting this morning after a calamitous night on which his team’s European Championship qualifying campaign ended in failure and angry scenes at Wembley.
Barely an hour after a 3-2 defeat by Croatia, which wrecked England’s hopes of playing in next summer’s finals in Austria and Switzerland, McClaren’s employers called a meeting at Soho Square for 8.30am today. The board — headed by Geoff Thompson, the chairman, and Brian Barwick, the chief executive — will vote to terminate McClaren’s £2.5 million-a-year contract, which runs until 2010, and discuss a severance package with his agent, Colin Gordon, before starting the search for his successor. Martin O’Neill, the Aston Villa manager, is the early favourite.

Steve McClaren on brink as England fail says the Telegraph

Elsewhere both the Times and the Guardian continue to lead on what is being called Discgate

Thousands change PIN codes over fraud fears reports the former

Thousands of people changed their bank account PIN codes yesterday as concern grew over the potential criminal abuse of the 25 million sets of personal details lost by Revenue & Customs. Banks and credit reference agencies were flooded with phone calls from child benefit claimants trying to protect details of their personal circumstances.
Many people altered their codes after advice to change any PINs linked to the names or birthdates of children or other family members.

They've got your number: State's hunger for personal data raises security fears says the front page of the Independent

There are increasing fears that Britain could suffer a repeat of the HM Revenue & Customs data loss as the scale and breadth of personal information held by government bodies continues to grow inexorably.
As the police step up their search for the two missing Inland Revenue computer discs containing the banking and personal details of 25 million people, ministers have been warned that the potential exposure to theft and identify fraud could be present for many years to come.

The Guardian meanwhile reports that

Data fiasco forces ministers into ID cards review

Ministers are to look at scaling back plans for identity cards in response to the catastrophic loss of the personal information of 25 million people, including their bank records and addresses.
The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, urged ministers yesterday to review the amount of data they intend to amass on the national identity register, and Labour backbenchers previously supportive of ID cards backed his view.
Gordon Brown will come under further pressure from the thinktank Demos, which will shortly publish a report on privacy. It is expected to urge the government to reopen the debate on ID cards before pressing ahead.

The Mail reports from

Inside the Ministry of Mayhem - where workers wear baseball caps and have no qualifications

The staff wear tracksuit bottoms, baseball caps and scruffy T shirts, many do not have a GCSE and their training is described as "a joke".
Their offices are crammed with unopened post and paperwork spills out of filing cabinets to lie on the floor.
It could be mistaken for the backroom of a mini cab firm. But it is not.
Welcome to HM Revenue and Customs, the Government department charged with handling your most sensitive and private information.

According to the Telegraph

Ministers 'ignored data security warnings'

Gordon Brown has been dragged into the centre of the lost personal data crisis after it emerged that ministers ignored a series of warnings that security procedures in Government departments urgently needed to be reviewed.

The Mail leads with

Diana: Five lovers named as palace aide is quizzed over her affairs

Five men have dramatically named as Princess Diana's lovers.
They included former England rugby captain Will Carling and her police bodyguard, Barry Mannakee.
The list was read at the inquest on the princess as Michael Gibbins, her former private secretary, was questioned about Royal "disapproval" of her private life.

ROYAL'S DISAPPROVED OF PRINCESS DIANA’S LOVERS reports the Express

THE Royal Household disapproved of Princess Diana’s string of lovers until she died, her inquest heard yesterday.
Diana’s relationships with men including Major James Hewitt, rugby player Will Carling, James Gilbey, and bodyguard Barry Mannakee was frowned upon by the Establishment. And the hearing was also told the princess feared her telephone calls were being tapped in the months leading up to her death. Diana’s former private secretary Michael Gibbins told London’s High Court that he detected “disapproval” from within the royal echelons about Diana’s lovers.

The Times reports that

Stansted runway plan scrapped in favour of Heathrow growth

The Government has abandoned its commitment to making Stansted the first airport to gain a new runway and is focusing instead on almost doubling the number of flights at Heathrow. Today it will present a new plan to build a third runway at the country’s biggest airport by 2020.
Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, has given the clearest indication yet that the plan to build a second runway at Stansted will be abandoned.

The Guardian reports that

Afghanistan 'falling into hands of Taliban'

The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into Taliban hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.
Despite tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid poured into the country, the insurgents, driven out by the American invasion in 2001, now control "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries", the Senlis Council says in a report released yesterday.

Taliban control half of Afghanistan, says report says the Telegraph

The Senlis Council claimed that the insurgents controlled "vast swathes of unchallenged territory" and were gaining "more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people".
It said that the Nato force in the country needed to be doubled to 80,000 front-line soldiers who should be allowed to pursue militants into Pakistan.

Student faces jail for acting as a scout for jihadist cell reports the Times

A Pakistani student who ran a terrorist cell recruiting disaffected Muslims from northern England to join a holy war against Coalition forces in Afghanistan was warned by a judge yesterday that he faces six years in jail.
Abdul Rahman, 25, once a sales assistant for Primark, acted as a “vital link”, putting the ideology of extreme Islamic philosophy into practice on the remote battlefields close to Pakistan’s northwest border.


British girls guilty of trying to smuggle drugs out of Ghana reports the Independent

Two teenage girls from London are facing up to three years in a Ghanaian jail after they were found guilty yesterday of attempting to smuggle cocaine from Ghana to the UK.
Yetunde Diya and Yasemin Vatansever, from Islington, north London, were arrested in July at Kotoka airport in Accra as they waited to board a British Airways flight to London. Officers found 6.5kg of cocaine inside two laptop bags the girls were carrying.
The two 16-year-olds will be sentenced on 5 December and could face three years in a girls-only juvenile detention centre in Accra. Their families said they were "deeply disappointed" at the verdict and would launch an appeal.

Many of the papers carry the story

Frame claim over Meredith The Sun reporting that

THE freed suspect in the Meredith Kercher murder probe yesterday claimed he was framed by her flatmate Amanda Knox – because he is BLACK.
Congolese bar owner Diya Lumumba was arrested after Knox, 20, told police he was in Meredith’s room in Perugia, Italy, on the night she died.
But Lumumba, 38, hit back at the American, dubbed Foxy Knoxy, saying: “Why did Amanda blame me? “I don’t think I can forgive her.

Boy, 5, drowns with father who tried to rescue him reports the Mail

A father and his young son drowned yesterday after being swept out to sea in front of their family during a holiday in Spain.
Symon Howlett, 32, was taking photos of his two sons when a 10ft wave dragged them off the rocks they were standing on and into the sea.
Mr Howlett leapt into the raging waters and managed to drag the elder son, nineyearold Thomas, to safety.
But when he dived back in to rescue fiveyearold Jay, they were both swept away as the boys' "hysterical" mother Deborah looked on from the shore.

Pay rise medics 'get lazy' reports the Mirror

Hospital doctors have been slacking since they received a bumper pay-out, it was claimed yesterday.
Consultants' salaries rose from £86,746 in 2003 to £109,974 in 2005, says a report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
But over the same period fewer patients were seen and the average working week dropped from 51.6 to 50.2 hours.

Councils turn backs on care for older people says the Guardian

Nearly three-quarters of local authorities in England are rationing social services to exclude tens of thousands of vulnerable people from help with the basic tasks of daily living, official figures revealed last night.
The charity Mencap obtained information showing the worsening plight of people who cannot wash, dress, prepare a meal or go to the shops unaided.
It said the problem affected older people and adults with learning disabilities in areas where cash-strapped councils have decided they can no longer afford to provide services to everyone in need.

WATER COMPANY FACES FRAUD CHARGES reports the Express

Water company Severn Trent is facing criminal charges over claims it gave false information to the industry's regulator.
Severn said it faced Serious Fraud Office (SFO) action over three offences relating to data on leakages submitted between 2000 and 2002, although no individual will be charged.


Finally many of the papers carry the story of

Salmon wiped out in attack by shoal of killer jellyfish The Times reporting that

After the summer floods and freak weather comes a new jolt to our ecosystem: more than 100,000 salmon wiped out by jellyfish off the coast of Northern Ireland in a single attack.The attack took place last week at Glenarm Bay and Red Bay, Cushendun, off the scenic coastline of Co Antrim and has put the future of the Northern Salmon Co in jeopardy. “We are still assessing the full extent, but it’s a disaster,” said John Russell, the company’s managing director.
The salmon died from their wounds and from the stress of the jellyfish stings. At one stage staff tried to reach the cages in three boats, but such was the density of the jellyfish they struggled to get through and arrived too late to make a difference.