Divided nation: How the elections have fractured the political landscape of Britain





is the verdict of the Independent this morning as the papers report on Thurday's elections .


Britain emerged from Thursday's elections as a divided nation after the Scottish National Party (SNP) became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, Labour lost ground in the south of England and the Tories failed to make a major breakthrough in the North.
A dramatic election in Scotland saw the SNP win a knife-edge victory last night over Labour by 47 seats to 46, inflicting Labour's first significant defeat north of the border for 50 years. The poll was overshadowed by a fiasco in which up to 100,000 ballot papers were disqualified amid confusion among voters and problems with a new electronic counting system.
Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, claimed he had the "moral authority" to govern and that Labour did not. "Scotland has changed for good and for ever," he said, adding: "Labour will never again be able to assume a divine right to rule Scotland." He promised an independent judicial inquiry into the voting scandal.





Amid the chaos, Scotland takes historic step is the headline in the Guardian





One of the most dramatic and chaotic post-war British elections reached a climax last night when the SNP became the largest party in Scotland, pipping Labour by one seat, and putting the country on an uncertain course towards independence.
Nineteen hours after the polls closed, and results had see-sawed, a disconsolate Labour conceded that the SNP had secured 47 seats to Labour's 46, a desperate setback for Gordon Brown in his backyard as he prepares to take over the premiership.





Brown reeling amid ballot chaos says the Telegraph





It was a highly symbolic defeat for Labour, which took a beating from voters across Britain in the final electoral verdict on Tony Blair's decade at Number 10.It was also a body blow for Mr Brown, who regards Scotland as his political power base, after he had taken a central role in Labour's unsuccessful campaign to halt the nationalist advance.



Last night the Chancellor appeared to attempt to distance himself from Labour's setback.
While other cabinet ministers, including John Reid, the Home Secretary, and Hazel Blears, the party chairman, gave television and radio interviews, Mr Brown issued a press release in which he promised that Labour would "listen and learn" the lessons of its defeat.








Labour’s election calamity is how the Times describes it





Gordon Brown was preparing last night to take the Labour leadership after his party lost its half-century of dominance in Scotland to the Nationalists and hundreds of council seats in Middle England to David Cameron.





Adding





Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, told The Times that he would not be standing against Mr Brown and would serve in a Brown government if asked.
“I am not going to run in the leadership election. I was ready to run. I was considering running. I think I would have had the support to be nominated and be able to run,” he said. But there would have been the possibility of division around personalities that would be damaging. “There is not the appetite for that kind of contest in the party at the moment,” he said.





Cameron's giant leap forward says the Mail





David Cameron's Conservatives were given their strongest hopes yet of winning the next general election yesterday after Labour suffered a historic national collapse.
Breakthroughs in the North of England and triumphs against the Liberal Democrats in the South delighted the Tories.
Their 40 per cent share of the vote would translate at a general election into a majority of about 20.
But it was a political disaster for Gordon Brown in his own backyard that stunned Westminster, as the SNP ended Labour's 50-year grip on power in Scotland.


TORIES FAIL TO INCREASE VOTE SHARE says the Mirror

DAVID Cameron tried to put a brave face on Tory election results yesterday as his hopes of a landslide failed to materialise.
He made gains in council seats but his share of the national vote "flatlined" on 40 per cent with Conservatives failing to clinch a breakthrough in the North of England, Scotland and Wales.
Major cities such as Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester are still without any Tory councillors.
Labour was punished across England losing more than 450 seats and control of eight councils.
The feared bloodbath didn't happen and the Party's total vote share rose to 27 per cent - one point higher than 2006.

Jocks sock it to Gordon Brown says the Sun

FUMING Gordon Brown was dealt a hammer blow last night after Labour lost control of Scotland.
Scots Nationalists pipped Labour by just ONE SEAT in elections for the Edinburgh Parliament.
The SNP, which wants to break away from Britain, won 47 seats to Labour’s 46.
Losing its Scottish fortress to the SNP was an embarrassing disaster for Labour.
SNP chief Alex Salmond rubbed salt in the political wounds when he claimed: “Scotland has changed for good and forever.




The election results are knocked off the front pages of the red tops by the tragic news in Portugal





WHO TOOK OUR MADDY says the front page of the Mirror

A HUGE hunt was going on last night for three-year-old Maddy McCann, feared snatched from her holiday flat.
Maddy is believed to have been taken as she slept in the complex on Portugal's Algarve as her doctor parents ate at a bar 120ft away. Her scent was picked up by a police sniffer dog. But it petered out after 400 yards.
Yesterday, 24 hours after the young child vanished in quiet Praia da Luz, anguished parents Gerry and Kate, both 38, of Rothley, Leics, begged for her return.
A friend said: "Kate rang us totally hysterical, saying Maddy was abducted. They're devastated."

TAKEN WHY SHE SLEPT says the Mail





The distraught parents of missing three-year-old Madeleine McCann were clinging to hope that she was still alive last night.
As a desperate hunt continued in the Algarve, her mother relived the horrific moment she discovered her daughter had vanished from her bed while she and her husband were in a restaurant only 40 yards away.





Whilst the Sun pleads





LET HER COME HOME TO MUMMY AND DADDY





The parents of the three-year-old were “distraught” when they discovered she had disappeared from their rented apartment while they dined nearby.
Sniffer dogs were brought in by detectives today to comb the area.
The Sun has put up a £10,000 (15,000 euros) reward in a bid to help find little Madeleine and printed posters looking for information in Portugal.





The same paper reports on the





'Evil' student killer gets life





A CONVICTED sex offender was today found guilty of raping and murdering Polish student Angelika Kluk and hiding her body in a church.
A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh took three-and-a-half hours to convict Peter Tobin, 60, of the sexually-motivated killing in September last year.
Miss Kluk, 23, suffered severe head injuries and multiple stab wounds, before her bound and gagged body was dumped beneath the floor of St Patrick’s Church in the Anderston area of Glasgow.
Tobin was jailed for life and ordered to spend a minimum of 21 years behind bars before being considered for release.





Sex attacker who evaded police is jailed for rape and murder of student reports the Times





Speaking at the end of a six-week trial that has gripped Scotland, Judge Lord Menzies told Tobin: “In all my time in the law I have seen many bad men and I have heard evidence about many terrible crimes. But I have heard no case more terrible than this one.”
The judge said that Tobin, who worked at St Patrick’s Church in Anderston, Glasgow, had shown “utter contempt and disdain for the life of an innocent young woman . . . You are, in my view, an evil man”.





UN scientists warn time is running out to tackle global warming says the Guardian





Governments are running out of time to address climate change and to avoid the worst effects of rising temperatures, an influential UN panel warned yesterday.
Greater energy efficiency, renewable electricity sources and new technology to dump carbon dioxide underground can all help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the experts said. But there could be as little as eight years left to avoid a dangerous global average rise of 2C or more.
The warning came in a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published yesterday in Bangkok. It says most of the technology needed to stop climate change in its tracks already exists, but that governments must act quickly to force through changes across all sectors of society. Delays will make the problem more difficult, and more expensive.





Climate change can be halted, UN concludes is how the Indy reports the story





Global warming is solvable, United Nations climate change experts said yesterday, in a landmark judgement running counter to increasing pessimism about the most serious threat facing the world.
The greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, whose emissions growth is causing the atmosphere to warm, can be brought under control, said the economists of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - but only if governments act decisively.
Existing and emergent technologies, ranging from renewable energy and nuclear power to carbon capture and storage, will be adequate to make the reductions in emissions essential if the world is to avoid catastrophic rises in global temperature, they asserted in a new study. And this can be done at comparatively low cost - provided the right incentives are put in place.





According to the Telegraph





Obama gets security help amid plot fears

Barack Obama has been placed under round-the-clock protection at his own request, raising fears of a white supremacist plot to halt his bid to become America's first black head of state.It is the earliest that the US secret service, which safeguards the president, vice-president and other dignitaries, has provided protection to a presidential candidate

The Times reports on the

President who frittered £600,000 on clothes as his people starved

Frederick Chiluba, the former President of Zambia, has been found guilty by a British High Court judge of plundering £23 million from his people.
He used the stolen money to indulge his taste for clothes, jewellery, cars, luxury homes and handmade high-heeled shoes to boost his 5ft height.
His people, meanwhile, were struggling to live on an average of 50p a day.
Chiluba spent at least £600,000 on designer clothes bearing his FJT monogram, representing his names Frederick Jacob Titus, Mr Justice Peter Smith said after a two-year legal battle and a four-month trial. “The most telling example of corruption,” he said, “was the clothing acquired by FJT”.

The Star leads with a report that

Roon and Ron in poison terror.According to the paper

MANCHESTER United stars are being terrorised by sick letters packed with “poison”.Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo have both received the threatening letters stuffed with a white powder.Manager Sir Alex Ferguson and two other unnamed United stars have had similar hate mail.The letter to Fergie, 65, contained the menacing message: “Why did you open this letter you silly bastard? You’ll be dead in 20 minutes.”Insiders say the packages have spread fear around the club, even though tests have shown the powder to be harmless.

Finally the Express bucks the trend with its lead this morning

THE EASY WAY TO BOOST YOUR BRAIN

WIGGLING your eyes from left to right helps to boost your memory...and it doesn’t cost a penny.
Scientists say the eye movement fires up both the left and right hemispheres of the brain at the same time.And they believe this is the key to improving our ability to remember things like whether we locked the front door or turned the oven off. Dr Andrew Parker, who carried out the research, said that only 30 seconds of moving eyes from left to right could produce results.