Quit stalling and call election, says David Cameron is the headlijne in the Sunday Times as the qualities continue to speculate about a general election

DAVID CAMERON this weekend challenged Gordon Brown to “stop dithering” and call a general election as the Tory leader unveiled radical tax-cut plans ahead of a make-or-break party conference in Blackpool.
With some ministers now claiming there is an 80% chance of Brown calling a poll for early November, Cameron says in an interview with The Sunday Times that he is “very excited” by the prospect and “really up for it”.
“He should stop dithering,” Cameron said. “He’s got himself into a position where he either bottles it or he has given us a hell of a lot of notice of his intentions. We’ve had lots of time to hunker down and plan the election, which has been good. The machine is really ready for an election.”

The Observer leads with

Cameron meltdown as public urge early vote

The true scale of David Cameron's political crisis is revealed today by an Observer poll that shows the Tory leader trailing badly on nearly every indicator of public opinion. The poll also shows that voters overwhelmingly back a general election within the next year, with the largest number, nearly 40 per cent, wanting a poll within weeks.
Gordon Brown, who is expected to wait at least another week before deciding whether to call a snap election, will face intense pressure to go to the country after the Ipsos MORI poll found that 70 per cent of people want an election by spring. The biggest group of voters - 39 per cent - would like an autumn election, echoing younger members of the cabinet who want Brown to take the biggest gamble of his life and announce a November election when the Commons returns next week. Just under a third (31 per cent) want the election to be held by spring, with only a few (18 per cent) saying he should wait until 2009 or 2010.

And more bad news for the Tory leader on the front of the Independent which reports

Cameron ally sparks immigration row: 'We must listen to BNP voters'

One of David Cameron's most trusted and senior political allies has plunged the party into a race row by claiming that people who vote for the far-right British National Party (BNP) have "some very legitimate views" on immigration and crime.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, fuelled the already highly charged debate about immigration by arguing that it has been "out of control".

Economy could sink Gordon Brown in snap poll claims the Telegraph

rather than reading the political runes, Mr Brown may be better advised to analyse some hard-and-fast economic data. For there is growing, reliable evidence that the UK's strong economy is about to grind to a halt.

The Mirror reports on

Brown blast at druggy celebs

Gordon Brown yesterday launched a ferocious attack on drug-taking celebrities who think they are above the law.
The PM condemned the "unacceptable behaviour" of stars who are role models to millions of youngsters.
Mr Brown spoke out as his allies revealed that he will NOT torpedo this week's Tory conference by calling a snap election

The Telegraph leads with

Labour's secret plans to slash the Navy

The Ministry of Defence has produced a plan to decommission five warships from next April, which would reduce the Navy's capability to the level where it could carry out only "one small-scale operation".
Separate documentation from inside the department suggests that the total number of ships in the Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary could fall from the present level of 103 to 76 in 2017 and only 50 in 2027 — a reduction of more than half.

The Observer meanwhile reports that

MoD attacked over 'insulting' award for soldier

The government is facing fresh claims that it is not looking after horrifically injured troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, after the wife of an injured soldier told The Observer that she had been 'insulted' by an offer of compensation.
Sarah Edwards, married to 25-year-old Lance Corporal Martin Edwards, who suffered brain damage from a roadside bomb in Iraq last year, said she had decided to speak out because the offer of £114,000 was unfair. The sum is less than a quarter of the maximum £500,000 payable under the scheme for civilians injured in crimes or accidents.

Maddy continues to dominate the Tabloid agenda

Exclusive: Disgrace of Madeline cop

Puffing on a cigarette and knocking back beers, the man leading the world's biggest missing child inquiry enjoys yet another long, boozy lunch.
Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral worked as little as four-and-a--half hours a day this week - despite a mountain of uninvestigated sightings of Madeleine McCann on his desk.
The Sunday Mirror has discovered that 252 possible tip-offs about the four-year-old have been reported to Amaral, any one of which might just lead to her being traced. But the vast majority have not even been checked.

MADELEINE McCANN: FIND THE MAID headlines the News of the World

BRITISH cops launched an urgent hunt for a new suspect in the Maddie McCann case — after an astonishing tip-off from the PRINCE OF WALES.
An anonymous email sent to the prince's official website insists three-year-old Madeleine was kidnapped from the Mark Warner Ocean Club holiday resort in Portugal by a disgruntled ex-employee.
The informant named a maid who was sacked from the apartment complex in Praia da Luz and claimed she snatched the child in a crazed revenge plot.

BRING IT ON says the Express

DEFIANT Kate and Gerry McCann last night challenged Portuguese officials to “bring it on” as they faced 40 key questions about the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.
The couple made their stand after it emerged that police had failed to investigate a fresh sighting of a child matching Madeleine’s description in Morocco.
Portuguese police are this week poised to send a legal letter to their British counterparts, listing the questions the couple refused to answer during their lengthy interrogation on September 7 and 8. The McCanns say that as soon as they can answer these allegations they will clear their names.

According to the Mail

Portuguese detectives plan to send a legal letter to their British counterparts outlining more than 40 questions they insist the parents of Madeleine McCann must answer.
The British police will then decide how and where the questions will be posed.
The move has been ordered by prosecutor Luis Bilro Verao, who issued a public statement earlier this month saying there was not enough evidence against Kate and Gerry McCann to order a fresh grilling about the little girl's disappearance.

The paper leads with the story of

Big Brother Britain: Government and councils to spy on ALL our phones

According to the paper

Officials from the top of Government to lowly council officers will be given unprecedented powers to access details of every phone call in Britain under laws coming into force tomorrow.
The new rules compel phone companies to retain information, however private, about all landline and mobile calls, and make them available to some 795 public bodies and quangos.
The move, enacted by the personal decree of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will give police and security services a right they have long demanded: to delve at will into the phone records of British citizens and businesses.

There is much analysis of the situation in Burma

The Observer reports on

How Junta stemmed a saffron tide

After early optimism, a sense of hopelessness now exists in Rangoon. Communication to the outside world has been largely cut and, according to diplomats in the region, up to 200 protesters are dead. The official death count from the government is nine. But no one believes the government.
The maroon-clad Buddhist monks from the monasteries at Moe Gaung, Ngwe Kyar Yan and elsewhere, who marched in their thousands to give impetus to a new generation of Burmese protesters challenging decades of military rule, are locked up in prison or behind their monastery gates. Their monks' cells have been smashed, stained with their blood and looted. Those who escaped have taken off their robes and sought refuge disguised as laymen.

Troops reclaim the streets as monks pray for a miracle says the Independent

In the end, a week was all it took. In that time Burma has gone from ethereal dreams of freedom to a vicious new reality in which protesters are chased off the streets and Buddhist monasteries are sealed away behind barbed wire. The saffron revolution has been sat on hard, the only way the Burmese generals know.

‘Blood’ rubies bankroll Burmese junta reports the Times

Some of Britain's leading jewellers have been accused of propping up the military dictatorship in Burma by trading in "blood" rubies sourced from the country.
Asprey, Cartier, Leviev and Harrods are selling the gems in their central London stores, with some items costing as much as £500,000.
Rubies from Burma are among the most sought after in the world and experts claim the military junta makes tens of millions of pounds each year from the lucrative trade.

According to the Telegraph

Police to think twice about rescuing drowning

Police officers have been warned not to hold out a hand to drowning swimmers, and to think twice before throwing a lifebelt, in case they are pulled into the water themselves.The health and safety rules issued by one force, which state that an officer on the bank of a lake or river should not offer help to a struggling non-swimmer, raise fresh concerns over a "risk-averse culture" in the emergency services. Even a life belt must not be thrown without a "dynamic risk assessment" being carried out. Where possible, rescues should be left to other emergency services.

The Independent reports that

Two British tourists injured in bomb attack on Maldives

The home-made bomb exploded in the capital, Male, at 1.30pm local time, at the heart of its main tourist attraction, the Sultan Park. The British couple, Christian Donelan, a security consultant from Rotherham, south Yorkshire, and Jennifer Green, both 32, suffered the brunt of the explosion. The Donelans were believed to be on their honeymoon having married in Italy two weeks ago. Mr Donelan has had surgery to burns on his arms and legs, and his wife was said to have been more seriously injured.

According to the Times

US airbase bomb plotter on run in UK

A KEY suspect in the alleged plot to mount an attack in Germany on the scale of 9/11 is on the run in Britain, German security officials disclosed yesterday.
Scotland Yard counterterrorism detectives are hunting the man, who escaped from Germany after a plot to explode bombs at Frankfurt airport and a US airbase. The collective power of the bombs would have exceeded those in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005.

The news of the world exposes

TOON SPIES

An exclusive from the paper reveals

how a spy was paid to carry out a series of far-reaching illegal SURVEILLANCE and SABOTAGE operations at Newcastle United that will rock football.
Security consultant Brian Tough was ordered to TAP PHONES of unhappy managers and players—and even take SECRET FILM of England legend Alan Shearer that could be used against him if he tried to leave the club.
The spy—on a £40,000 a year retainer plus cash bungs for top secret operations—also spills the beans on how he BUGGED:

According to the Express

TRUCKERS THREATEN FUEL PROTESTS

TRUCK drivers last night threatened a fresh wave of fuel protests as new tax rises nudge prices at the pump towards £1 a litre.
A 2p-a-litre hike in duty – announced by Gordon Brown in his last Budget – comes into force tomorrow pushing average prices to 97.74p per litre.
The AA estimates this will generate more than £1.6million a day for the Chancellor, on top of the £43million per day he already receives in tax on petrol.
The first above-inflation increase since the fuel protests of 2000 brought the country to a grinding halt comes as oil prices hit record highs of more than 80 dollars a barrel.

The Mail reports on the

Grandmother 'terrorised' to death after bank wrongly hounded her for £16,000

Widowed Beryl Brazier, 61, drowned in a pond after months of living in fear of bailiffs turning up on her doorstep.
Yet the £15,670 was owed to US-owned GE Capital Bank by a man she had never met - who lived some 200 miles away.
Mother-of-four Mrs Brazier owed the bank just £400.

Buffoon Boris to New York mayor: Help! says the Independent

He has managed to convince the Conservative Party to support his roller-coaster campaign to be London Mayor, but now Boris Johnson has to persuade the rest of Europe's biggest city to follow suit.
The scarecrow-haired chat-show veteran will today address the Tories at the start of the long march to what he hopes will be victory in the London mayoral election next May, with a pledge to get serious.
And he will use as his inspiration one of the world's most successful local politicians, who just happens to be following him on to the party conference platform in Blackpool.

New girl stars in raunchy Fanny Hill for BBC reports the Telegraph

It is one of the most notorious novels ever written and was banned in Britain for more than 200 years for its pornographic content. But now the infamous Fanny Hill: Or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is set to scandalise again, thanks to a two-part adaptation for television by the BBC.Within the opening 10 minutes, the 15-year-old Fanny, played by the 22-year-old unknown Rebecca Night, is being seduced by a woman in a brothel.

Staying with broadcasting,the Mail reports that

BBC Oxbridge snobs stop radio star presenting Today programme 'because he is an Essex boy'

BBC Five Live's award-winning presenter Peter Allen has been snubbed for a job fronting Radio 4's flagship Today programme "because he is too much of an Essex boy".
Friends of Allen – who left school at 18 to work for his local newspaper and did not go to university – believe he is a victim of "Oxbridge snobs" who control the BBC.
Allen, a passionate Tottenham Hotspur fan and golf enthusiast, presents Five Live's drive-time show, where he has won plaudits for his punchy interviewing.

The Observer reports that

Landmark footage shows Dylan's evolution

The story is the stuff of legend, passed down by word of mouth through three generations of Dylan fans. But the images have never been seen. All this will change next month, though, when music history will be made as reclaimed footage of Bob Dylan's fabled performances at the Newport Folk Festivals in America is broadcast.
The filmed sequences from the three key years 1963, 1964 and 1965 have been released from a Dylan film archive for the first time and will demonstrate the bodyshock delivered by the young singer's arrival on the folk music scene. The footage also shows the extraordinary change that took place in his performance style. On 14 October, BBC4 viewers will at last be able to witness the power of his quiet initial appearance in front of an eager crowd and to contrast it with the confidence of the rock star who takes to the same stage with an electric guitar in hand in 1965.


Muslim checkout staff get an alcohol opt-out clause says the Times

MUSLIM supermarket checkout staff who refuse to sell alcohol are being allowed to opt out of handling customers’ bottles and cans of drink.
Islamic workers at Sainsbury’s who object to alcohol on religious grounds are told to raise their hands when encountering any drink at their till so that a colleague can temporarily take their place or scan items for them.
Other staff have refused to work stacking shelves with wine, beer and spirits and have been found alternative roles in the company.

£35M Lotto winner now a recluse reports the Mirror

Britain's biggest Lottery winner has spent barely any of her fortune, lives like a recluse and now looks thoroughly miserable after splitting from her boyfriend.
And far from having a glamorous makeover, single mum Angela Kelly, 40, who scooped £35,400,000 on EuroMillions seven weeks ago, looks heavier and dowdier and is sporting a bad frizzy haircut.

BECKS: My guilt over dad reports the News of the world

DAVID BECKHAM is haunted by guilt and believes it is HIS fault that his dad suffered a near-fatal heart attack.
The ex England skipper is so distraught he has been praying with wife Victoria in a chapel at the hospital where Ted, 59, is recovering.

Finally the Observer reports on

Stop!

A London council wants to remove traffic lights from busy roads. This might be a motorist's dream - but health and safety officers don't agree. Who will win the fight?

The paper continues

Now a counter-revolution has begun. Its unlikely centre, a few miles from the world's first ill-starred signal, is the solidly Conservative council of Kensington and Chelsea.
Taking its lead from recent high-profile experiments in the Netherlands and Germany, the council wants to begin removing traffic lights. It is part of an audacious campaign by the council to forge modern 'shared streetscapes' where eye contact between motorists and pedestrians and simple common sense replace a 'clutter' of bollards and barriers, traffic lights, street signs and speed cameras.