The Mail leads this morning with the story that

Police are failing to investigate almost four in every ten crimes, it was revealed last night.
The offences include sex attacks, violent robberies, harassment, burglary and drug incidents.
Instead of being pursued, the cases are simply filed away by officers who do not consider they can be solved.

the paper adds that

Victims' groups have condemned this practice of 'screening out' offences - but it is alarmingly widespread. The Met, the country's largest force, decided that 51 per cent of crimes were not worth full investigations as there was little chance of catching the culprit.

There is a police theme to many of the stories

The Times stays on the topic of the police,it says that

The appointment of Britain’s top policeman has been rushed forward to next month amid heightened concerns about a leadership crisis at Scotland Yard, The Times has learnt.
The choice of the new Metropolitan Police commissioner, which was not expected until March, is being fast-tracked after the antiTory outburst by the force’s antiterror chief, Bob Quick.

The Guardian says that

Britain's most senior counterterrorism police officer was under pressure last night to stand down from the investigation into the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green after he accused the Conservative party of a "corrupt" attempt to derail his inquiry.
As senior figures in the Metropolitan police said that Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick's outburst had left the force "shellshocked", the shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, called on Quick to reflect on whether he could credibly continue to head the Green investigation.

Whilst the same paper reports that

Police officers were called to deal with violence in schools more than 7,000 times in the last year, according to figures revealed by the Conservatives today.
The Tories asked each police force in England how many times they were called on to school premises for an attempted or actual violent crime.

There are a variety of headlines this morning

Voters revolt over taxes says the Independent

Voters are turning their back, for the first time in more than a decade, on Labour's promise to spend more on public services because of the prolonged economic downturn, a poll for The Independent suggests today.
Those polled reject the higher taxes planned by Labour and support the lower spending promised by the Conservatives, the ComRes poll finds.

Government buildings emit more CO2 than all of Kenya is the lead in the Guardian

Unpublished findings of an energy efficiency audit of 18,000 buildings including ministerial offices, police stations, museums and art galleries reveal that the 9,000 buildings audited so far produce 5.6m tonnes of CO2, with one in six receiving the lowest possible energy efficiency rating.

The Telegraph concentrates on the economy

Shops will embark on their biggest ever pre-Christmas sales in a desperate bid to raise cash in the last 48 hours before December 25.Retail experts have predicted that the discounts, which have already reached an unprecedented level this year, will hit a new peak as stores attempt to win over last minute shoppers.
Zavvi, the troubled music and books retailer, started its clearance sale on Monday, while Tesco announced another wave of discounts, cutting 70 per cent off some of its clothes.

and on the same theme,the Express leads with the news that

DEFIANT families are determined to turn their backs on their worries to beat the economic crisis.
They are still managing to splash out hard-earned money to go on a feel-good break away from it all.
Clever holidaymakers are increasingly making the great escape to more exotic locations because of the pound’s weak value against the euro. Figures ­released yesterday showed that bookings for traditional European hot spots such as Spain and Greece are dropping off rapidly.

An Xmas theme in the Mail which is not happy about the television over the festive season

If you expect festive cheer from your favourite soap this week, you'll be disappointed.
For TV writers have been doing their best to give us the bleakest Christmas on record.
A corpse in a lake, the attempted strangling of a pensioner, a baby abduction and the return of a notorious killer and drug addict, will feature in some of the most popular shows.

and the Independent reports that this could be Last rites for Christmas TV?

It's the biggest day of the year for television schedulers, but Thursday could be the last Christmas Day on which everyone in Britain watches the same programmes at the same time. As the boundaries increasingly blur between technology, telecommunication and media companies, and mobile phones and laptops can be used to watch videos, the television industry is preparing for unparalleled change.

We'll be parents again says the Sun

THE parents of tragic youngsters Arron and Ben Peak yesterday vowed to rebuild their shattered family — by adopting a child.
Phil and Amanda Peak lost Arron, ten, and Ben, eight, when drink-drive goalkeeper Luke McCormick rammed the family car off the M6. This is their first Christmas without the boys.
Amanda, who cannot have any more kids of her own following a hysterectomy, said: “Obviously nothing would replace the boys – they were my boys.

The Times reports that Britain gets ready for an Iraqi pullout

British commanders have been forced to plan for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq after the country’s parliament failed to vote on a resolution that would allow British troops to stay beyond the end of the year.
The Speaker of the Iraqi parliament suspended moves to approve the resolution after a group of MPs called for his resignation. The resolution failed to pass for a second time on Sunday and its passage after a third reading is now in doubt.

Meanwhile the Independent reports on a forgotten kidnapping

They have been held hostage in Iraq for nearly 19 months, largely forgotten in Britain because of an official government policy to discourage publicity.
But yesterday relatives and friends of five British men, who were kidnapped from the Iraqi finance ministry in Baghdad in May 2007, broke ranks with the Foreign Office in a bid to push the plight of their loved ones to “the top of the political agenda”.

Pope: Saving world from homosexuality like saving rainforests reports the Telegraph

In comments at the Vatican that are likely to provoke a furious reaction from homosexual groups, Benedict also warned that blurring the distinction between male and female could lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.
In his address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, he described behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work" and said that the Roman Catholic Church had a duty to "protect man from the destruction of himself".

According to the Guardian

More than a quarter of science teachers in state schools believe that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science lessons, according to a national poll of primary and secondary teachers.
The Ipsos/Mori poll of 923 primary and secondary teachers found that 29% of science specialists agreed with the statement: "Alongside the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory, creationism should be TAUGHT in science lessons

The Mail reports on the

Sex film fears of Miss Asia model who 'leapt 150ft to death from married lover's luxury apartment'

A model is feared to have leapt to her death from her boyfriend's luxury apartment after discovering he was married.
Sahar Daftary, 23, suffered fatal injuries after falling from the 12th-floor balcony following an acrimonious break-up with her lover, a property developer.
Moments earlier he had made a desperate 999 call to say he needed help, but by the time police reached the waterfront building she had plunged 150ft.

Finally the Times reports that

A man who completely lost his sight after brain damage has astonished scientists by negotiating an obstacle course without his cane, in a powerful demonstration of an eerie phenomenon known as “blindsight”.
The man, known only as TN, was blinded by strokes on both sides of his brain which left him unable to see and devoid of any activity in the brain regions that control vision. He uses a stick to detect obstacles, and has to be guided around buildings. However, TN was known to exhibit blindsight, a strange ability some blind people have to detect things that they cannot see.