The problems at the home office continue to get a great deal of coverage in the papers,

The Mail leads with

Migrants fiasco doubles in a day as 10,000 illegal entrants could be in security jobs

The scale of the latest immigration shambles could be twice as bad as the Government has admitted - with almost 10,000 illegals cleared to work in security jobs.
Official figures forced out of the Government suggest that one in every four licences given to security workers from outside the EU could have gone to someone with no right to be in Britain.


9,000 illegal workers may have been cleared for security jobs says the Times

The full scale of the potential risk from the failure of security firms to carry out proper checks on their employees surfaced as Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, fought off claims that she had engaged in a “cover-up” of the problem when the information became known to her in July.

According to the Telegraph

Miss Smith said that 40,000 non-EEA (European Economic Area) nationals had been licensed since the SIA started work four years ago. Many work as doormen, bouncers and private security guards but some were even employed by contractors providing guards for the Metropolitan Police.


The front page of the Telegraph says

TROOPS GET A ROUGH DEAL

The covenant between the Armed Forces and the British people is under growing threat from the poor conditions and lack of understanding shown to troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chief of the Defence Staff warns today.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup says the agreement that guarantees forces generous treatment in return for their sacrifices is "under stress".adding

Speaking for the first time on the issue, Sir Jock says that troops who have put their lives in danger on the front line have to accept poor standards of accommodation and a lack of appreciation from the public when they arrive home.

The Guardian leads with


Taxpayer may lose £2bn in bank rescue

Potential bidders for Northern Rock are pressing the government to waive a £2bn interest bill on the stricken bank's outstanding £20bn loan. Their representations to the Treasury mark the opening skirmish of what could prove to be a politically damaging battle for control of the bank.
Bidders are arguing for more lenient lending conditions to Northern Rock in return for safeguarding valuable jobs in the north-east of England. One bidder has already highlighted the benefits of its bid for the job prospects of the bank's 5,500 workers in Newcastle and Sunderland.

The Independent is concerned about plastic bags

London joins national campaign to banish the curse of the plastic bag

British shops hand out a staggering 13 billion every year. But after a decision by 33 London councils yesterday, plastic bags could be soon be consigned to history, unmourned by anyone who cares about cleaning up the environment.
Eighty villages, towns and cities, including Brighton and Bath, have introduced or are considering a ban on them since shops in the Devon market town of Modbury went "plastic bag- free". But yesterday represented the most significant move yet. The capital is now on board.

The latest bird fly outbreak is intensively covered

Deadly flu infects free-range birds is the lead in the Times

Government vets gave warning last night that the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu may already be endemic in the British wild bird population as an outbreak was confirmed on a Suffolk turkey farm.
An urgent inquiry was under way last night to identify the source of the latest outbreak as culling began of the 5,000 turkeys, 1,000 ducks and 500 geese at Redgrave Park Farm, near Diss. Poultry on another two farms feared to have been in contact with the infected farm may be culled in the next few days.

hunt for source of outbreak narrows to lake at stately home reports the Guardian

The acting chief vet, Dr Fred Landeg, said there had been no movements of birds off the Redgrave farm since the incubation of the disease started, probably one week ago. "It is too early to speculate how this virus got to these premises, but the initial character of the virus suggests it is of Asian lineage closely related to strains found this summer in the Czech Republic and Germany. It does suggest the possibility of a wild bird source," he said.
It is understood that the turkeys, which are housed at night, have been allowed to roam around the park and mingle with wildfowl which regularly use the lake.

NIGHTMARE BEFORE XMAS says the Sun

BRITISH farming was caught up in another nightmare yesterday as 6,500 Christmas birds were culled.

Back to familiar territory on the front page of the Express

MADELEINE: POLICE HAVE 100 QUESTIONS

POLICE have drawn up 100 questions they want Kate and Gerry McCann to answer about the night their daughter disappeared, it was revealed yesterday.
Portuguese detectives also want to interrogate members of their family to build up a clearer picture of their background and relationship.
The questions have been drawn up by Paulo Rebelo, new head of the hunt for missing Madeleine, who has undertaken a complete review of the investigation since he took command last month.

Bhutto: 'Contaminated' Musharraf must quit reports the Telegraph

After months of power-sharing talks, the former Pakistani prime minister told The Daily Telegraph that she had definitively broken off negotiations with the military ruler. "It is over with Musharraf," she said. Speaking by telephone from her residence in Lahore, where she was earlier detained behind barbed wire and surrounded by hundreds of armed policemen to stop her leading a mass procession against emergency rule, Ms Bhutto said: "General Musharraf must quit.

Hidden cost of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq 'is twice what Bush claims' reports the Indy

The total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to be $1.6 trillion (£770bn) – double the amount President George Bush says it will cost.
A report entitled The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War says the true cost of the wars is almost double the $804bn the White House has requested for military operations in 2008.

The Guardian carries the story that

Scotland in 2017 - independent and flush with oil, says Salmond

Alex Salmond has predicted that Scotland will win independence from the UK within the next decade, gaining the freedom to set its own taxes and laying claim to most of the oil reserves in the North Sea.
The nationalist leader's surprise assertion yesterday overshadowed a last-minute crisis over his minority government's first budget, which is due to be unveiled today, as the SNP tried to brush off bruising opposition attacks on his administration's failure to deliver fully on pre-election promises.

The discovery of a body under a house in Kent attracts much press attention

The pit sand tomb says the front page of the Sun

COPS found a skeleton in a SANDPIT at a former home of Peter Tobin.
Ex-neighbours of the 61-year-old told how he dug the 6ft deep pit.
Police fear the remains are that of Dinah McNicol, 18, who vanished 16 years ago.
One neighbour in Margate, Kent, said: “Tobin dug a hole which must have been about 6ft deep – telling everyone it was a sandpit for his son.

Killer Peter Tobin linked to fate of eleven more victims as police find body reports the Times

A convicted sex offender and killer is being linked to the deaths and disappearances of up to 11 young women and girls across the country after detectives found a skeleton at one of his former homes.
Peter Tobin, 61, is suspected of carrying out a series of murders when he travelled across Britain while working as an odd-job man from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.

Childminder is sent to jail for baby's manslaughter reports the Guardian

A professional childminder who shook an 11-month old baby girl so violently that her neck "snapped back and forth" was found guilty of manslaughter yesterday.
Keran Henderson, 43, had been looking after Maeve Sheppard at her Buckinghamshire home in March 2005 when she lost her temper. The court heard that the registered childminder then shook the baby, causing her to lose consciousness. Maeve was rushed to hospital with brain injuries, but died a few days later


The Independent reports on the latest entrant to the London major contest

Paddick joins mayoral race with calls for Blair to quit

Brian Paddick, the former senior Metropolitan Police officer, joined calls for his former boss, Sir Ian Blair, to quit as the force's commissioner as he launched his campaign to become the Mayor of London.
Mr Paddick, who stood down as one of the Met's deputy assistant commissioners earlier this year, spoke out as he was confirmed as the Liberal Democrat candidate to challenge Ken Livingstone, the Labour Mayor.



Binge drinking 'puts 21 children in hospital EVERY day'reports the Mail

Twenty one children a day are taken to hospital after binge drinking and teenagers are being treated for alcohol-related liver diseases formerly seen only in the elderly, it was revealed.
The Alcohol Health Alliance coalition says drink kills more people than breast and cervical cancer and MRSA together, with rates for cirrhosis of the liver doubling since 2000.

Wasted youth: Binge drinking violence on rise says the Mirror

The binge-drinking culture is fuelling an increase in violence and killer diseases among younger people.
Many are "preloading" - having a few drinks at home before hitting town with their mates - and finish up downing more in a single night than they should in a week.

Charles calls for return to traditional teaching says the Telegraph

The Prince of Wales called for a return to traditional teaching methods yesterday to give children a "proper appreciation of the world we inhabit".Prince Charles said there was a need to "recapture some of the timeless principles of teaching" amid fears pupils were losing vital knowledge of subjects such as English, history and science.

As the Tutankhamun exhibition opens in London,the Sun says

ITS TUTS OUT FOR THE LADS

THE 3,000-year-old treasures of Tutankhamun were unveiled in Britain yesterday — after a pharaoh wait of 35 years.

Blaze of splendour and museum spat over Tutankhamun at the 02 reports the Guardian

One of the most talked about exhibitions of the year, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, opens tomorrow in a blaze of gloriously preserved artefacts. But tensions between the Egyptian lenders to the exhibition and the British Museum threaten to overshadow the show, which sees astonishing objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun displayed in Britain for the first time since 1.7 million people queued at the British Museum 35 years ago.

Different museum problems in the Indy

Spanish minister orders inquiry into museum's handling of 'Guernica'

Pablo Picasso's anti-war masterpiece was shown in galleries across Europe and the world without any damage being done. But now back in Spain, it seems Guernica may have come to some harm.
Spain's culture minister, Cesar Antonio Molina, has ordered an investigation into possible "irregularities in the movement" of the huge black-and-white canvas. Mr Molina told the Spanish parliament he had ordered the inquiry following claims in the Spanish daily ABC about the way Guernica had been handled in May 2006.

Finally the Sun is tops when it comes to puns today reporting that

MUCCA IS TALKING CARP

HEATHER Mills’s protest website has flopped – proving as popular as one on carp fishing.
Sir Paul McCartney’s estranged wife launched the internet rant at the media.
But Lady Mucca, 39, has once again failed to win public sympathy. Figures released by internet monitors Alexa, reveal her site was only the 242,174th most viewed in the UK – around the same as specialist carp.com.