After a day of torrential rain across England the weather takes the cash for honours and Harry Potter off the front pages

MIDSUMMER MONSOON headlines the Mail

Torrential rain and thunderstorms have swept across Britain, flooding hundreds of homes and bringing chaos to the roads and railways on the first 'big getaway' of the summer holidays.
Parts of England were drenched with three times the monthly average rainfall in just a few hours.
Emergency services were inundated with calls from drivers trapped on flooded roads. During the peak of the downpours - when four inches of rain fell in an hour - the 999 system went into meltdown.
Yesterday's torrents were the second to hit Britain in a month.

The Telgraph carries a picture of a dark Picaddily at noon

Heathrow flights cancelled in holiday washout

Travellers trying to leave the country as the school summer holidays began suffered as 141 flights were cancelled at Heathrow airport and hundreds more were delayed. Some holidaymakers were forced to stay in hotels last night while others queued to get tickets on rescheduled planes.
An inch of rain fell in an hour in some areas yesterday adding to a July rainfall that is expected to make it the wettest on record. The Met Office said Brize Norton in Oxfordshire was worst hit when 4.84in (123mm) of rain fell, followed by Pershore, in Worcestershire with 4.8ins (122mm).

Families to foot bill for £2.5bn floods headlines the Times

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners will be hit with higher household insurance premiums as a second wave of flash floods gives insurers their biggest ever claims bill.
As a summer of appalling weather brought another day of travel chaos yesterday, analysts said that household insurance rates were expected to rise sharply for the first time in more than a decade

DELUGE WILL LAST UNTIL AUGUST says the Express

Forecasters warned July looks set to be the wettest on record, and that there is no prospect of normal summer weather until August.Experts at the World Meteorological Organisation predict the wet weather could even last until winter.

SAVE ME says the front of the Sun

A TERROR-stricken driver trapped in rising flood-water is rescued by a mystery hero — as savage storms pounded the country.
Onlookers said the Mitsubishi Shogun 4x4 had struck a SUBMERGED car abandoned under a bridge in 6ft of water.
The driver appeared to freeze in fright before the rescuer tore off his shirt, swam across and hauled him through the sunroof.
One witness in Tredworth, Gloucs, said: “There were about 20 people just standing around and no one seemed to know what to do. Then this bloke appeared.”

AN INCH OF RAIN AN HOUR says the Mirror describing

AN eerie darkness descended over swathes of the UK yesterday as torrential downpours spread the flooding misery.
Monsoon-like outbursts, often punctuated by thunder and lightning, saw some areas get as much as five inches of rain in one day - twice the average for the whole of July.
Brize Norton, in Oxon, was worst hit with 121.1mm in five hours - almost an inch an hour and three times its July average.
Southern and South West England bore the brunt of the bad weather, which swept up through France - to the dismay of schoolchildren who had just started their summer holidays.

The Independent leads with

Heathrow: The world's least favourite airport

As millions of holidaymakers seek to escape Britain's miserable summer by flying abroad this weekend, a perfect storm of delays, under-investment and environmental protest is brewing over Heathrow airport.
Today, the world's busiest international airport will open its doors to the first of 10 million passengers who will pour through its terminals in the coming crucial eight-week period, amid warnings of renewed travel chaos and reeling from the departure of its chief executive. Tony Douglas, who left his post a month after admitting Heathrow was "bursting at the seams" , leaves behind an airport that is the subject of growing criticism from airlines and passengers over delays caused by security checks and the slow modernisation of its creaking infrastructure by its owners, British Airports Authority (BAA)

The same paper reports on yesterday's announcement that nobody will face charges over the cash for honours

End of investigation greeted with relief and recrimination

Tony Blair and his allies have reacted with a mixture of relief and anger after the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that no charges would be brought over the "cash for honours" affair.
Mr Blair, whose last 15 months as prime minister were dogged by Scotland Yard's investigation into whether four Labour financial backers were offered peerages in return, said it had been a "terrible, traumatic time" for people questioned by the police.

Honours: Blair aides attack police inquiry says the Guardian

Labour anger over Scotland Yard's conduct of the collapsed investigation into cash for honours burst into the open last night when one of Tony Blair's closest allies accused the police of using media leaks during the inquiry "to create a false impression of Tony Blair and undermine the public trust in the government".
The allegation was made by European commissioner Peter Mandelson, a close friend of Mr Blair. Police were also accused of "disgraceful treatment" of some Downing Street aides by former No 10 director of strategic communications Benjamin Wegg-Prosser.


Relief swiftly turns to anger as MPs confirm that police will be questioned says the Times

The parliamentary inquiry into the cash-for-honours affair will resume in the autumn to consider how to make party funding more transparent and avoid similar police investigations, The Times was told last night.
Amid bitter recriminations between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over the decision to bring no charges against any of the suspects, it emerged that John Yates, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is to be called before MPs to explain himself. He will be asked why he took so seriously the complaint that was originally levelled by the Scottish National Party, which many politicians have denounced as a stunt.

Meanwhile the Mail says

Lord Cashpoint is laughing now, but Yard chief may hand his key findings to MPs' inquiry

Sources say that Assistant Commissioner John Yates is ready to hand key findings from his inquiry report to MPs on the Commons Public Administration Committee, who have been conducting a parallel investigation into claims that peerages were traded for donations to the Labour Party.
The latest twist in the cash-for-honours affair emerged as the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that no one would face criminal charges over the scandal.
Senior CPS lawyer Carmen Dowd said there was insufficient evidence to put anyone on trial for selling honours and an alleged attempt to cover up the scandal.

The Telegraph reports that

Britain almost out of troops, memo reveals

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt has told senior commanders that reinforcements for emergencies or for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan are "now almost non-existent".
In the memorandum to fellow defence leaders, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) confessed that "we now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected". The "undermanned" Army now has all its units committed to either training for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, on leave or on operations.

Ashamed and racked with guilt, the wounded soldier abandoned by his country reports the Indpendent

Lance Corporal Mark Dryden is racked with guilt and ashamed. The source of his guilt is that he saw a soldier he greatly respected die beside him. The source of his shame is that he is an amputee, in his view, an unsightly embarrassment.
Almost two years after he lost his arm in the roadside bomb, which killed fellow fusilier, Sgt John Jones, in Basra, he has yet to have a working prosthetic fitted. He feels abandoned by the Army, the country, and the government he served for 12 years.

Blow to Cameron as Tories come third in byelections reports the Guardian

The Conservative inquest has begun into yesterday's embarrassing result in the Ealing Southall byelection, which has exacerbated concerns about the party's performance.
The third-place finish is a personal blow to David Cameron, who toured the west London constituency five times with political newcomer Tony Lit. The Liberal Democrats also squeezed the Conservatives into third place in Sedgefield, left vacant by Tony Blair's departure and retained by his former aide Phil Wilson.
Gordon Brown's success in his first electoral test as prime minister increases speculation he may call an early election, although Labour's majorities were substantially cut - from 18,457 to 6,956 in Sedgefield, and from 11,440 to 5,070 in Ealing Southall.

Right-wing Tories demand changes after defeat says the Indy

MPs and activists demanded that Mr Cameron ditch his "heir to Blair" style after the party failed to make a breakthrough in Southall, despite a high-profile campaign that even put "David Cameron's Conservatives" on the ballot paper.
They issued a stark warning to Mr Cameron's high command after yesterday's poll results showed that the party failed to break out of third place, while the second-placed Liberal Democrats gained ground in an election that saw Labour's majority cut to 5,000.

CAM'S REVERSE MIDAS TOUCH says the Mirror

It leads with an exclusive

BARRYMORE ECSTASY SHOCK

A SHOCKED clubber told yesterday how he had to drag a distraught lad of 17 from Michael Barrymore after the troubled star tried to force feed him an ecstasy tablet.
Angry Gavin Topley stepped in after the college student protested to "spaced out" Barrymore: "No, I don't want it! I've had enough."
Gavin, 25, said: "Barrymore was like a man possessed. He couldn't seem to take no for an answer.
"He tried to force the tablet into the boy's mouth. Next thing, he was trying to drag him to the toilets. I was furious he could behave in such a way to someone so young.

The Express suprisngly doesnt lead with the weather but the story that

'I SAW THE KIDNAPPER TAKE HER'


POLICE have uncovered details of the escape route taken by missing Madeleine McCann’s abductor, it was revealed yesterday.
The sensational new development came at the end of a week of intense activity in which police sources said the 78-day-old investigation had reached “a critical stage”.A new witness has reported seeing a man rushing past the tiny Nossa Senhora church in Praia da Luz towards the seafront at around 9.30pm on May 3, just after Madeleine was snatched from her bed at the Ocean Club resort.

The Guardian reports

Father and uncle given life for 'honour' murder

The father and uncle of a young Kurdish woman began life sentences last night for arranging her "barbaric and callous" murder to restore their family's "honour".
Ari Mahmod, 51, recruited a gang of thugs who tortured, raped and strangled his niece Banaz Mahmod, 20, before cramming her body into a suitcase and burying it in a pit, where it lay for three months. The brothers had decided Ms Mahmod was to be killed because she had fallen in love with a man they felt was unsuitable.

The Times reporting that

She was raped and murdered after contacting police four times saying that she feared for her life. She was garrotted but took half an hour to die as Hama stamped on her neck to “get the soul out”. Her body was crammed into a suitcase and driven to Birmingham, where it was buried in a back garden in January last year.
Two investigations have begun to see if more could have been done to prevent her death. Five police officers face the threat of disciplinary action as a result of the trial.

Finally to that book

Harry Potter review: Is all well in the end? says the Telegraph

In the first few pages Voldemort announces again: "I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be."
We know what's going to happen, but we've had to wait to see exactly how it will take place and how it will turn out.

J. K. Rowling was expected personally to give 1,700 people their first taste of the book as she read extracts of the final Harry Potter book at a moonlight signing at the Natural History Museum. Queues stretched for hundreds of metres outside Waterstones in Piccadilly, Central London, as fans awaited the witching hour – one minute past midnight – when they would be able to take their first look at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. says the Times

HARRY POTTY reports the Mirror

In chaotic scenes, Potter-mad readers sat in shops and on pavements as they devoured the opening pages. More than 1,000 fans had queued in torrential rain outside Waterstones' flagship store in London. As she got the first copy, excited Saskia Haitjema, said: "I'm going to start reading it right away. I'm so happy."

In 1m homes today, Harry Potter and the deathly silence says the Mail

Almost ten years to the day since the boy wizard zoomed in on his Nimbus 2000, his fate was revealed last night at one minute past midnight.
Or, for the purists who refused to flip to the end, after several hours of furious reading.