The kidnapping of 5 British nationals from Baghdad features heavily in the papers.


Five Britons kidnapped in Baghdad ambush is the front story in the Guardian

Urgent attempts were under way last night to free five Britons kidnapped from a government building in central Baghdad by gunmen wearing Iraqi police uniforms.
The seized Britons included four security guards working for a private firm and a financial expert who has been advising the Iraqi government.
They were taken just before noon at the finance ministry in what appeared to be a carefully planned assault, involving cars and uniforms intended to give the impression that it was a government-sanctioned operation.
According to one witness account, a group of gunmen stormed into a hall where a western adviser was giving a lecture, led by a man in a police major's uniform and shouting: "Where are the foreigners?" The gunmen then rounded up five Britons and left.

Five Britons snatched in Iraq could be handed to Al Qaeda headlines the Mail

Britons kidnapped in Iraq could end up in the hands of Al Qaeda, it was feared last night.
Special forces were put on standby for a rescue mission within minutes of the daring daytime abduction.
It raised the spectre of a repeat of the harrowing videos in which Britons Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan pleaded in vain for their lives.
One official said Britons were seen as "prized targets" by the terror group.

The Times says

Whitehall was facing the prospect of a lengthy hostage stand-off last night after five Britons were kidnapped in central Baghdad in one of the most brazen abductions of Westerners since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Those seized, a computer consultant and his four security guards, were taken in daylight by dozens of armed insurgents dressed in the fatigues of Iraqi police commandos.
The Cobra emergency committee, with representatives from MI6, the SAS and the Metropolitan Police, met at the Cabinet Office yesterday to consider options for gaining the release of the five men.
Tony Blair, on a trip to Libya, said: “We will do everything we possibly can to help.”

The Indpendent reports from that Libya trip

Blair bids farewell to a continent with mixed feelings about his contribution

On ornate gilded chairs in a desert tent, Tony Blair sat down with Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for talks at the start of a week-long trip through Africa which many are billing as the Prime Minister's "farewell tour".
But, as Mr Blair landed in Tripoli, his official spokesman was denying that the tour was nothing more than a photo-opportunity aimed at raising the Prime Minister's profile for a future American after-dinner audience before he steps down at the end of June.
Despite his spokesman's denials, Mr Blair is likely to avoid the difficult capitals that might mar his legacy picture album. And among the journalists accompanying Mr Blair and his wife, Cherie, on a specially chartered British Airways aircraft is a team from Men's Vogue magazine.

Gaddafi is very easy to deal with – we get on pretty well, says Blair says the Times

In a drab tent in the stony Saharan desert, Tony Blair renewed his unlikely alliance with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi yesterday, and dangled the prospect of selling weapons to his former enemy.
The Prime Minister was driven in a convoy of cars, police motorcycles and two battered buses to a barren spot of desert near Sirte, close to where the Libyan leader grew up.
On arriving at an encampment buffeted by a blustery wind, he was ushered into a large canvas tent. Seated on a gilt armchair was his host: the man once dubbed the “Mad Dog” and whom Mr Blair helped to bring in from the cold.

The continuing row over Grammar schools in the Tory party is the main story in the Telegraph

Cameron tested as rebel quits over grammars as the paper reports

In the first walk-out of Mr Cameron's tenure, Graham Brady left his job as Europe spokesman saying the way in which the Tory leader had ditched traditional Conservative policy "undermines the [grammar] schools in my constituency which continue to achieve excellent results for children of all abilities from all social backgrounds".
There were Tory fears that other frontbenchers who disagree with Mr Cameron over the touchstone issue of grammar schools may follow suit.

Tories are the real 'heirs to Blair' on NHS, says Osborne according to the Mail

The Conservatives are the true "heirs to Blair" when it comes to reform of schools and hospitals, George Osborne will insist today.
In a provocative speech, the Shadow Chancellor will claim the Conservatives are more in favour of the Prime Minister's plans to give public service chiefs greater freedom to run their own affairs than Gordon Brown.
"This growing consensus between the current Prime Minister and the Conservative Party does not appear to include the next Prime Minister

CRIME BUT NO PUNISHMENT says the Express

SHOPLIFTERS and drunken yobs will be allowed to escape justice – so long as they promise to be good in future, it emerged last night.
They will not even have to pay a fine if they agree to behave for as little as three months.Thieves, vandals and even louts throwing fireworks will be let off having to pay penalty notices when caught if they accept a so-called Acceptable Behaviour Contract and keep to it.

The Indy leads with an appeal

Inuit leader: stop expansion of Stansted airport

One of the most prominent members of the Inuit community will today plead for an end to the expansion of Stansted Airport and deliver a devastating critique of the link between Britain's cheap flights culture and the effects of climate change on his people.
Aqqaluk Lynge will present evidence of the increasing loss of Inuit villages and hunting grounds across the Arctic. His testimony will be given to the public inquiry opening today into plans to dramatically increase the number of passengers using London's third airport.
The Government and British Airports Authority (BAA), the owner of Stansted, argue that expansion of the aviation industry is vital to the UK economy. BAA is seeking to raise the number of flights leaving Stansted by 80,000 to 264,000 a year and increase the number of passengers from 25 million to 35 million a year.

Russian missile test adds to arms race fears reports the Guardian

Russia yesterday threatened a new cold war-style arms race with the United States by announcing that it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of penetrating American defences.
Russia's hawkish first deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, said the country had tested both a new multiple-warhead intercontinental missile, the RS-24, and an improved version of its short-range Iskander missile.
He said the missiles were capable of destroying enemy systems and added: "As of today Russia has new missiles that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems. In terms of defence and security, Russia can look calmly to the country's future."

Missile is threat to the West says the Sun

Russian president Vladimir Putin issued a fresh warning that the shield would turn the continent into a “powder keg”. He added: “We consider it dangerous to stuff Europe with new weapons.”
The RS-24 missile was fired at 10.20am, 500 miles north of Moscow.
Less than an hour later it hit its target 3,700 miles away to the east.
The missile launches multiple nuke warheads which are difficult to intercept.

It leads though with Big Brother fever

SOCCER ace Kieran Richardson’s gorgeous cousin will join a lap dancer, a political protester and a cleaner entering the Big Brother house tonight.
Charlie Richardson, 20, is one of 12 desperados plucked from obscurity.
Viewers will not find out the other housemates’ full identities until tonight. But The Sun can tell you Big Brother 8 will feature the show’s OLDEST ever contestant, a member of the Women’s Institute and a nanny.
The Sun can also reveal that one intelligent housemate could read from the age of TWO.

As does the Star

ROO'S BIG BRO SHOCK

BIG Brother bosses are bidding to sign Wayne Rooney’s boob-flashing cousin.Saucy Scouser Natalie Rooney, 17, would be a huge ratings winner.But last night insiders were sworn to secrecy over the final line-up on the show, which begins its 13-week run tonight.All they would reveal was that there would “definitely” be a relative of a Premiership football star inside the house.Natalie stunned her cousin by baring a breast at Coleen McLoughlin’s 21st bash.

And the Express

EX-LAP DANCER IN BIG BROTHER HOUSE

Whereas the Telegraph tells of another reality show

Reality show kidney swap 'is in bad taste'

The Dutch broadcasters of a reality show in which chronically ill contestants battle to win a life-saving kidney from a terminally ill cancer patient have faced international condemnation.The producers say the programme will help to raise awareness of the ordeal of waiting for an organ donor.
The Big Donor Show, made by the same company behind Big Brother, has provoked calls in the Dutch Parliament for it to be banned from being broadcast on Friday.
But BNN, the public service channel broadcasting the reality TV programme, says the idea for De Grote Donor Show came from the terminally ill woman who is offering her organs to raise awareness over transplant waiting lists.

The Times reports on more phone in troubles

Blue Peter phone-ins banned after double con

Blue Peter will be banned from holding phone-in competitions after a BBC review found that it had conned thousands of children into taking part in a contest they had no chance of winning.
Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, delivered a report on the operation of premium-rate services to the BBC Trust yesterday.
It detailed how, when the telephone system failed during a competition, a panicked researcher plucked a child from a Blue Peter studio “focus group” and fed her the correct answer. She was featured as the winner of the competition.
Blue Peter producers covered up the incident. At a production meeting three days later the researcher was congratulated for her “quick thinking”, the report said.

The same paper reports on the

Sharp rise in young drink-drivers

The number of young motorists involved in drink-drive accidents is increasing, despite expensive publicity campaigns about the risks, police have warned.
Fears that the message is not getting through to younger motorists were borne out in figures produced yesterday by the Department for Transport (DfT), which is planning another publicity drive in the summer.

An MG is reborn at Longbridge. Now the long march begins reports the Guardian

It was billed as the rebirth of a once great car plant and the relaunch of one of Britain's most beloved brands. At noon yesterday, the first MG sports car, an eye-watering orange, rolled off the newly restored assembly line at Longbridge to stirring marching music.
But after the great and good had been whisked away, and the remnants of the tickertape parade swept up, many were left wondering if they had really witnessed a glorious manufacturing renaissance. Or had they witnessed merely the beginning of yet another tortuous chapter in the troubled history of the British car industry, in an area of Birmingham that has had more than its fair share of false dawns?


Finally the Independent reports that

As Britain's rich get richer, supply of butlers dries up

During the Edwardian heyday of the gentleman's servant, the number of butlers never exceeded the number of masters. But a nouveau riche assault on Britain's once rigid class structure has led to something of a crisis in the supply and demand of household man-servants.
The Guild of Professional Butlers is now reporting an explosion in the numbers of super-rich households who want to be waited on hand and foot.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, "butling" was an antiquated and dying profession, but today there simply are not enough butlers to go round, said Charles MacPherson, the vice-chairman of the International Guild of Professional Butlers. "If we doubled the number of butlers, they wouldn't be without work," he added