Sales surge masks growing gloom over New Year slump is the headline in this morning's Guardian

Consumers are defying fears of an economic slowdown and say they remain confident about their personal financial circumstances, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It comes as retailers reported a strong start to the sales, with millions of customers seeking bargains amid heavy discounting online and on the high street.
The poll findings and the shopping frenzy suggest that City concerns about the economic outlook have not yet filtered through to voters, despite the credit squeeze and worries over falling house prices.

The sales feature on the front page of the Mirror under the headline

£1m a minute

Britain was gripped by sales fever yesterday as bargain-hunters spent a record £1million a minute.
Millions of shoppers cashed in on some of the biggest discounts ever seen - with prices slashed by up to 80 per cent.
Thousands started queuing before dawn on a day that saw frantic buyers splash out a record £500MILLION.

Buy now, sell later - how Britain spent Boxing Day says the Independent

Major high street stores were offering price cuts of up to 70 per cent to try to attract shoppers fearful of an economic downturn in the new year. More than 3.6 million shoppers took to the high streets to take advantage of the record price cuts. Kevin Hawkins, the director general of the British Retail Consortium, said that despite better than average sales over Christmas, fuelled by early discounts, retailers were desperate to recoup disappointingly low Christmas profits, especially on white goods.

festive buyers face payback time says the Times

Debt charities are gearing up for the busiest January on record as the financial hangover from an expensive Christmas kicks in. The Consumer Credit Counselling Service and Credit Action, two leading debt charities, predicted that they would receive more calls from borrowers worried about their finances this January than in previous years.

Both the Telegraph and the Independent lead with bad news for Gordon Brown

Donorgate police 'to press criminal charges' says the former

The scandal over the Labour Party's £670,000 illegal donations will return to haunt Gordon Brown in the New Year as criminal charges may be imminent, according to an authoritative Whitehall source.
The Daily Telegraph can disclose that those leading the investigation into the so-called "donorgate" affair will complete their inquiries as early as the end of next month.
The source has said that Peter Watt, who resigned as Labour's general secretary, may be facing criminal charges over his role in the worst fundraising controversy since Labour took power in 1997.

Whilst the Independent leads with

Labour revolts against Brown

Gordon Brown faces a humiliating parliamentary defeat over plans to allow police to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge.
A survey of Labour MPs by The Independent has uncovered a growing insurrection. Only 34 votes are needed to defeat the detention plans and at least 38 MPs – enough to wipe out Mr Brown's Commons majority of 67 – are vowing to oppose controversial moves to extend the existing 28-day maximum detention period.

Only third of MPs back tougher anti-terror law reports the Guardian

The findings indicate Brown may have badly misread the mood of parliament by tabling plans to extend the period of detention in terrorist cases to 42 days, subject to stronger judicial and parliamentary oversight.

Both the Times and the Express lead with the news that

Allergy to medicines 'is killing thousands'

Nearly 3,000 patients have died in the past three years as a result of taking medicines intended to help them, official figures show.
Thousands more have been hospitalised after suffering harmful side-effects or serious allergic reactions to prescription drugs and other medications.
Almost half of the deaths occurred last year, while the number of reported adverse drug reactions has increased by 45 per cent over a decade. Growing numbers of patients taking aspirin and other medications for chronic illness such as heart disease could be fuelling the trend, experts suggest.

Driving age 'rising to 18' reports the front page of the Mail

The driving age will effectively rise to 18 in a major overhaul of how young people are prepared for the road.
Learners will still be granted their provisional licence from 17, but will need a year to pass a beefed-up test.
It means the minimum age at which a new driver could realistically go out on his or her own will be 18. adding

The move follows a Daily Mail campaign, backed by the insurance industry, road safety campaigners and motoring groups, to raise the formal driving age to 18 to help cut accidents caused by young drivers.

Meanwhile the paper reports

What ban? 300,000 hunt supporters turn out to say tally-ho!

A record number of hunt supporters attended Boxing Day meets across the country, rural campaigners claimed last night.
More than 300,000 turned out for the start of 314 registered hunts on the busiest day in the calendar.
The continuing popularity of the 400-year tradition highlights the Government's spectacular failure to kill it off when it banned hunting with dogs three years ago.

Hunt supporters claim legislation has backfired says the Guardian

Three years after the Hunting Act was introduced - supposedly signalling the end of hunting with hounds - supporters claimed that more than 250,000 people attended Britain's 314 meets. The Countryside Alliance said the level of support, which was disputed by animal welfare campaigners, proved the ban had become irrelevant

Police officer dies attending domestic incident says the Telegraph

The 48-year-old collapsed outside the property in Brinkburn Gardens, Wembley and was rushed to hospital by ambulance but was pronounced dead on arrival.
It is understood that the married father-of-three collapsed after another officer was allegedly assaulted inside the house around 5.45pm yesterday afternoon.

COP BEATEN TO DEATH says the Sun

HORRIFIED neighbours told last night how police officers wept after a colleague was beaten to death at a suburban home.
The uniformed cop was attacked after he answered a 999 call to a domestic row between a man and a woman.
He staggered out of the semi-detached home in a quiet cul-de-sac in North London and collapsed on the pavement.

Gran stabbed to death over Xmas dinner reports the Mirror

A caring gran was stabbed to death with her carving knife as she prepared to slice turkey for dinner on Christmas Day.
Valerie Twyman, 62, was cooking for her 24-year-old grandson Maxwell when viciously attacked.
Horrified relatives found her in a pool of blood in the kitchen after they called round because she did not answer their phone calls. Maxwell, who lived with Valerie after being kicked out by his parents in August, was last night being quizzed by police over the bloodbath

Anguish of Lord Ahmed after M1 death crash horror reports the Mail

Labour peer Lord Ahmed was in shock last night after a head-on crash in the fast lane of a motorway that left a man dead.
He was driving his gold Jaguar X-type on the M1 on Christmas Day when he smashed into a car that had spun out of control and come to rest facing the wrong way.
Other vehicles following behind him crashed as they tried to take evasive action in the darkness

The Sun leads with

MADDIE BLITZ ON MOROCCO

GERRY and Kate McCann hope their blitz on Morocco will provide the breakthrough they have been praying for in their hunt for missing Madeleine.
Despite a massive campaign highlighting the seven-month search for their daughter, experts believe many in the north African country still lack the crucial information they need to help trace her.

Madeleine: Private detectives hunt for British barman known as DJ Shifty, accused of grooming an under-age girl for sex reports the Mail

Part-time barman and disc jockey Christian Ridout, 32, allegedly sent the British girl obscene text messages when he worked in an expats' pub 200 yards from where Madeleine disappeared.
When the 12-year-old's mother discovered the explicit messages, Ridout - also known as DJ Shifty - left Portugal in a hurry.

News from abroad and the Indy reports that

Villagers buried alive by landslides in Java

Villagers on Indonesia's main island of Java had just finished cleaning up after floods caused by days of torrential rain when a landslide struck. Sixty-one people were buried alive, in the worst incident of its kind in the area for a quarter of a century

After 52 hours alone in jungle, girl calls to say: 'Hi, dad, see you soon' reports the Guardian

For 52 hours Francesca Lewis was alone, her arm and neck broken or fractured, lost in the jungle with no food and lying amid the debris of a plane which had crashed into the side of a remote volcano, killing the three other people on board.
Yesterday the 12-year-old had been reunited with her family - injured and somewhat confused, but "miraculously" healthy after her incredible ordeal in Panama. It appears that she had escaped death only by leaping or being thrown from the plane as it crashed; while recovering in hospital she was wearing a neck brace and had one arm bandaged.

The Telegraph reports from where

old presents go to die

The Chinese town of Guiyu is the graveyard of Christmas past.
It is where presents - game consoles, laptops, mobile phones - come to die.
It is also where they are reborn. In this giant scrap-yard, so dangerously polluted that its children are being clinically poisoned, the electronic objects of desire, a million tons of them a year, are broken apart, melted down, and washed in acid to be recycled into a new flood of imports for Christmas future.

Finally

BBC wins Christmas Day ratings battle says the Telegraph

EastEnders was the biggest draw with 13.9 million people tuning in for the second half of a double bill, making it the most watched show of the year so far.
The programme, which focused on the discovery of Stacey Branning’s affair with her father-in-law, attracted 55.3 per cent of the total audience share, according to overnight viewing figures.
The Dr Who Christmas special starring Kylie Minogue as a waitress on the Titanic came second with 12.2 million viewers compared with 8.7 million last year.