Widespread speculation in the Sunday's that there will be a cut in VAT.

Cuts in Vat are to form a key plank of Gordon Brown’s emergency economic rescue package to be unveiled tomorrow.
The temporary reduction in sales tax, currently at 17.5%, will be one of a range of measures designed to stimulate consumer spending.
The Treasury refused to confirm the scale of the cut, to be in force by Christmas. However, under European Union (EU) regulations, Vat cannot be lowered below 15%.
A 2.5% Vat cut would cost £12.5 billion a year, making it by far the biggest element of Brown’s £15 billion-plus “fiscal stimulus”. It will be the first time that any government has cut the sales tax.

says the Sunday Times

Brown and Darling slash VAT in £18bn tax gamble says the Independent

This would take £10 off the average Christmas present bill of £384 and bring welcome respite to the beleaguered high street, where stores have been forced to bring forward the season's sales to get people spending.

The Observer says that

The move by the Chancellor and Gordon Brown won the support last night of Charles Clarke, one of the Prime Minister's most high-profile critics, a sign that the economic crisis is at last uniting Labour and focusing minds on the battle against the Tories. With high-street stores slashing prices to attract customers, Darling will offer help with his pre-Christmas price cut in an attempt to limit the collateral damage from the global financial crisis

The Mail though reports

David Cameron has revived the notorious ‘tax bombshell’ poster campaign credited with handing the Tories their last General Election win.
Conservative strategists have repackaged the iconic image – adding a Christmas ribbon – to ram home the party’s claim that Gordon Brown’s anti-recessionary policies will have to be funded by a sharp hike in taxes.
Conservative strategists have repackaged the iconic image – adding a Christmas ribbon – to ram home the party’s claim that Gordon Brown’s anti-recessionary policies will have to be funded by a sharp hike in taxes.

Many of the papers report that

Drone missile strike kills British 'liquid-bomb plotter'

The alleged British mastermind of an audacious terrorist plot was killed yesterday by a missile strike in Pakistan

says the Telegraph

Rashid Rauf, 27, who was brought up in Birmingham, was killed along with at least four other alleged militants in the attack on the house in the North Waziristan area.
Rauf, who had been on the run after escaping from Pakistani custody last year, had been accused of playing a key role in a liquid-bomb plot allegedly targeting transatlantic airliners in 2006. He had been arrested in Pakistan in August 2006.

The Independent adds

British diplomats in Pakistan said they were awaiting news about yesterday's incident, and Mr Rauf's Pakistani lawyer also said he was unable to confirm or deny the reports of his death. "If the body is not handed over I cannot do that," said Hashmat Ali Habib. Mr Rauf's family declined to comment

The Observer reports that

Somalia sinks deeper into a state of total disintegration

Millions have fled their homes in terror; a raped 13-year-old has been stoned to death for 'adultery'; aid workers have been murdered by Islamist militias. While the world's attention is on the pirates off its coast, the failed African state is being ripped apart by violence.

how minister cashed in on contacts reports the Times

The former transport minister Stephen Ladyman has been using his parliamentary office to lobby officials for contracts for a private company.
Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show that the Labour MP touted for the business on behalf of ITIS Holdings, a transport company that pays him £1,000 a month.
Ladyman used his House of Commons address and e-mail when requesting meetings with officials on behalf of ITIS, which is chaired by a former Labour donor.

The news of the World leads with a Baby P story

THE teenage girl who watched the horrifying torture of tragic Baby P today confesses how her guilt over his plight left her wishing SHE was dead too.
In a moving exclusive interview with the News of the World the devastated 16-year-old bravely confessed: “I’ve felt suicidal. It’s difficult. Part of me wants to suffer. I deserve it.”

The Independent reports that

The number of applications for children to be taken into care has increased dramatically as a result of what experts are calling the "Baby P effect". Legal care proceedings involving vulnerable children being brought to court have risen by nearly a third since details of the tragic case emerged.

Ofsted's child abuse report was misleading reports the Observer

A 'misleading' figure included in a major government watchdog report has led to a false and vastly inflated picture of the numbers of children who die from abuse in England

The Mail leads with an exclusive

A teenager is set to make medical history this week by becoming the world's youngest mother of Siamese twins.
Laura Williams, 18, from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, defied medical advice to abort the girls early in her pregnancy, and will now give birth to Faith and Hope by caesarean section this week.
Only about five per cent of conjoined twins survive the first 24 hours, but because they are joined at the front, doctors say the chances are good in this case

.

Another exclusive in the News of the World

CELEBRITY chef Gordon Ramsay had a 75-minute tryst with his blonde mistress three days ago at a London hotel.
Just hours earlier he had sent lover Sarah Symonds to London’s Soho to buy the sex drug amyl nitrate.
The liaison was the latest in an affair spanning seven years which flies in the face of his carefully constructed family man image.

Police to get 10,000 Taser guns reports the Times

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, is to arm police with 10,000 Taser stun guns in an escalation of the government's fight against violent crime.
Smith will unveil plans tomorrow that will enable all 30,000 front-line response officers to be trained in firing the electric guns at knife-wielding thugs and other violent suspects.
Smith said yesterday that £8m will be made available to all 43 police forces in England and Wales to buy the new 50,000-volt weapons.

The Independent reports that

The number of recruits from ethnic minorities to British police forces has almost halved in the past five years, amid concern about discrimination in the service.
Official figures obtained by the Tories have revealed that the total of black and ethnic minority (BME) entrants into the 43 forces in England and Wales fell from 795 in 2003-04 to 430 in the last financial year, despite concerted efforts to improve relations between the police and minority communities.

The Telegraph reports that

Schools fined for expelling violent pupils

An investigation has revealed that at least £4.4 million in financial penalties have been imposed on schools this year.
Nearly a third of local authorities in England are issuing the fines, ranging from £1,500 to £10,000 per expelled pupil.
Some councils, including Essex, Nottinghamshire, Oldham and Somerset, have collected in excess of a quarter of a million pounds from their schools this year.

Heavy snow causes chaos on roads reports the same paper

Police were called to 68 crashes in the north east as snow and black ice brought treacherous conditions.
Fifty of the crashes occurred between 9pm and midnight on Friday and there were 18 more incidents yesterday.
Other cars were reported to be stuck in the snow that blanketed parts of Scotland and northern England in the first prolonged cold snap of the winter.

Finally the story of the week comes to an end

An estimated 10 million people tuned in last night to witness the end of an infatuation. Unlikely screen idol John Sergeant waltzed off Strictly Come Dancing to the strain of Norah Jones's "Come Away With Me", bringing to an almost elegant end a drama that has seen the BBC bombarded with viewer complaints

reports the Independent