The papers continue to cover the honours for cash story this morning along with the latest crisis in the Middle East .The Times leads on the report that

Downing Street aides and Labour officials involved in the cash-for-honours inquiry are being investigated on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, The Times has learnt.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has advised detectives to look into suspected attempts to hamper the nine-month investigation. Some e-mails and documents have yet to be handed over to the police while others have apparently “disappeared”. Some individuals are suspected of colluding over evidence.

The Telegraph reports that

Lord Levy, the man at the centre of the cash for honours investigation, will be with Tony Blair in Israel today on the latest leg of his Middle East peacemaking trip as detectives prepare to question again some of the Prime Minister's most important allies.
The Labour peer, who has been arrested and questioned twice by police officers conducting the most serious political corruption inquiry for 70 years, has played a key role behind the scenes in organising Mr Blair's crucial talks today with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli premier.

Whilst in the region itself

A university student was killed and 15 others injured, including a 10-year-old girl, in day long skirmishes between Fatah and Hamas supporters, sparked by the call from Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian national authority, for early elections.

The Times headlines

President's HQ under fire as threat of poll sparks violence

The Indy brings us up to date on the Pm's worldwind tour of the region

Tony Blair made his fourth and final pre-Christmas, morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq yesterday, only hours after masked men staged a mass kidnapping in Baghdad.
The Prime Minister has visited the British contingent in Basra every Christmas since the Iraq war began in 2003. This time, he combined the trip with visits to Turkey, Egypt, Baghdad and Israel, but pointedly bypassed Syria.

The Guardian's Patrick Wintour comments that

Blair gets up close to his distant goals

No one can accuse Tony Blair of not going the extra thousand miles for peace, leaving the grey bureaucracy of the EU in Brussels on Friday afternoon, heading for Ankara, followed by the heat of Cairo. Before this long-planned tour in search of moderation in the Middle East is over, Mr Blair will also have visited the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Israel and the West Bank. Yesterday was devoted to Mr Blair's political nemesis, Iraq.

The Guardian has a different lead story

Corruption inquiry into asylum bias

The Home Office is investigating allegations that a representative of Uganda's ruling party secured a job in the immigration service and blocked the asylum applications of political opponents.
John Guma-Komwiswa, of Bermondsey, south-east London, has been suspended from his post of senior caseworker pending an internal corruption inquiry by a specialist unit which is collaborating with police. He denies attempting to discourage or thwart the asylum bids of political opponents.

Whilst the front page of the Indy leads on the outbreak of another hospital superbug

A nurse and a patient have died from a deadly new strain of MRSA after a superbug outbreak at a hospital.
The Health Protection Agency said three other nurses in the West Midlands hospital were among eight people who contracted the new, more lethal strain of MRSA, four of whom have infections including boils and abscesses. Two have died.

The Suffolk murders are still high on the agenda,the Indy reports that

Police officer on list of suspects in hunt for Ipswich killer

The Times reports that

Dealers who sold heroin and crack to the Ipswich murder victims can speak to police without fear of prosecution for drugs offences, the detective leading the hunt for the serial killer said yesterday.

The Mirror reveals that

DETECTIVES hunting the Ipswich Ripper believe he is hooked on bondage and extremely violent sex acts.
The maniac may have been well known to the five murdered prostitutes - having paid each large sums in the past to satisfy his perverted S&M obsession. Murder squad officers are questioning a handful of men but are especially anxious to speak to a Scotsman in his 50s who drives a large black car and may live locally. They have been told he paid Ripper victim Paula Clennell up to £350 a time to beat her with a cane - and once left her badly injured.

The front page of the Sun has an exclusive on the case

I've lost my babies to strangler

HEARTBROKEN Sam Jefford told last night of his anguish at losing both girlfriend Anneli Alderton — and the couple’s unborn child.
Speaking for the first time since three-months-pregnant Anneli’s naked body was found a week ago, he recalled his shock at hearing she was dead.
Sam, 21, sobbed: “It’s all too much. The past few days have been a waking nightmare.

The papers are quick to pick up on the latest revelations from the Liberal MP,Lembiik Opik,the Indy tells us

Lembit Opik, the Liberal Democrat MP with front-bench responsibility for Wales and Northern Ireland, has extended his brief to cover what are euphemistically termed "Ugandan affairs".

The Sun reveals

THE mother of Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia says she loves her daughter’s new politician boyfriend Lembit Opik.
Mum Margrit revealed the Lib-Dem MP, 41, has stayed over with the pop star’s family several times.
Margrit, from Rye, East Sussex, said: “Lembit visited us. He is a very nice man. They make a lovely couple.

The other story of the weekend was the final of X factor,the Telegraph looks at the financial implications

Simon Cowell, the pop businessman and judge on The X Factor talent show, had two reasons to celebrate last night as his production company shared in a £2.8 million phone voting windfall and he signed a new contract with ITV.
Eight million viewers voted at 35p a time in the show's final on Saturday night, with 60 per cent of them backing 21-year-old Leona Lewis to make her the first female winner of The X Factor and hand her a £1 million record deal.
Cowell, 47, said: "Leona has an opportunity, I think, to become a major, major worldwide
star."

And the Mirror tells us

RUNNER-UP Ray Quinn has been signed by Simon Cowell to release a swing album recorded in the same studio Frank Sinatra used.
He will travel to Los Angeles next month to make the disc.

The Star headlines that

SEXY X FACTOR winner Leona Lewis is quitting Britain for the States to launch a £50m international career.Leona told the Daily Star exclusively that she is off to the USA where she believes she will be as big as Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.

The Guardian reports on the wedding of the weekend

Ali Baba Matt Lucas parties with his Prince Charming

For the couple's civil partnership ceremony at Home House , Lucas, 32, was dressed in a navy blue corduroy velvet suit and rose-patterned tie while McGee, 30, a television producer, wore a dark grey suit with black piping.
The happy couple emerged shortly after 3pm and briefly posed for pictures before retreating to rejoin their friends and family. More than 100 onlookers spilled out on to the road, blocking the oncoming traffic, and four police officers were deployed to control the crowds.
They refused to answer questions about the ceremony but Lucas, beaming and radiant, did offer: "The ceremony went very well. It was lovely. We had lots of good wishes from the public, thank you very much."

The Mail regails us with more Xmas cheer

Britain gears up for the 'merriest' Christmas in history

Britons are headed for a Christmas marred by unprecedented levels of drunkenness in homes and pubs and a wave of thuggery on the streets, experts have warned.

The Telegraph warns that

Tis the season for a food fight

Fights could break out in supermarkets and stores on Christmas Eve — the busiest shopping day of the year —because Sunday trading regulations mean that retailers can only open for six hours, experts predicted yesterday.

Charlie Brooker writing in the Guardian has a theory


Christmas isn't the most magical time of the year. Just the most frenzied.

"My theory is that time is packed into year-sized units that it doesn't quite fit into, which is why it starts being compressed some time around November and becomes hopelessly crushed right about now. To put it another way, it's like writing something on a piece of paper and running out of room as you get to the margin so you have to scrunch all the letters together at the end, except instead of letters it's hours and seconds, and it's not you writing it, but the Lord of Time, a meticulous bearded deity who sits on a glittering throne somewhere up Mount Olympus, surrounded by clocks and calendars and bits of paper with the word "time" written on them. And an angel strumming a harp, just so you know it's part of heaven I'm talking about."

The Express leads on two stories,the first not suprisingly that

Diana predicted her own death

PRINCESS Diana was convinced that she would be murdered, and repeatedly expressed her fears to her closest friends, the official report into her death has revealed.In the two years before she died in Paris, the Princess regularly alerted confidants over her conviction that her days were numbered.

And secondly on an entirely differing subject it headlines that

Rosehips: The new food to beat ageing

Experts say the red berries reduce the inflammation caused by many illnesses associated with growing old. Rosehips are one of the richest natural sources of vitamin C and generations have sworn by their health-giving properties.