For the first time in the few days the papers choose to lead on a variety of subjects.

BBC One controller resigns over Queen row is the lead in the Telegraph

The BBC was plunged into an unprecedented crisis on Friday after a damning independent report into misleading documentary footage of the Queen identified a catalogue of failings at the Corporation and forced the resignation of the controller of BBC1. Peter Fincham, the most senior casualty of the so-called Crownga
te affair, was heavily criticised in the report for showing the incorrectly edited programme trailer which, he claimed, showed the Queen storming out of a photo-shoot in a "huff" when in fact, the footage was actually of her walking in

Heads roll over corporation’s cavalier treatment of Queen says the Times

A three-month inquiry by Will Wyatt, a former senior BBC executive, concluded that the incident revealed “misjudgments, poor practice and ineffective systems”, with BBC employees described as “naive” although nobody “consciously set out to defame or misrepresent the Queen”.

It leads with

Victory for those who risked lives for Britain

Iraqi interpreters and other key support staff who have risked their lives to work for Britain are to be allowed to settle in the United Kingdom, The Times has learnt.
Hundreds of interpreters and their families are to be given assistance to leave Iraq, where they live under fear of death squads because they collaborated with British forces. Those wishing to remain in Iraq or relocate to neighbouring countries will be helped to resettle.

Election speculation though isnt far away

Tories’ inheritance tax promise threatens to derail early election says the same paper

The Prime Minister will make up his mind tomorrow after seeing the final results of internal polling in 150 marginal seats. He remains keen to go for an election and to use the Comprehensive Spending Review — which the Treasury announced would be on Tuesday — as the springboard for a campaign that he would call later that day. But The Times understands that early indications from internal polling are that George Osborne’s announcement on Monday that the Tories would raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million has gone down extremely well in the marginal seats, particularly among women.

MPs in marginals tell Gordon Brown to wait reports the Telegraph

Labour MPs in key marginal seats were wavering last night in their support for a snap general election.
The MPs, many of whom had previously been bullish about an autumn poll, urged caution when contacted by The Daily Telegraph. Several called on Gordon Brown to wait until next year.

Brown spends weekend deciding on election date says the Independent

The Guardian reporting

Brown faces lonely decision after week the tide turned

As he welcomes young guests to Downing Street this afternoon, Gordon Brown is bound to wonder whether his son John, four in a few days time, will be able to celebrate another birthday in No 10.
Tomorrow the prime minister will retire to his study, armed with new polling and a telephone, to read the electoral runes, consult colleagues, and ultimately reach the toughest decision of his career: whether to call an autumn election after little more than 100 days in power.

The paper leads with

I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.
The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

The Independent asks

Why? Six years on from the invasion of Afghanistan on its front page

Six years after a war was launched to overthrow the Taliban, British solders are still being killed in bloody skirmishing in a conflict in which no final victory is possible. Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by the US, Britain and allies, an operation codenamed Enduring Freedom. But six years on, Britain is once again, as in Iraq, the most junior of partners, spending the lives of its soldiers with little real influence over the war.

Paras to lead spring offensive in Afghanistan reports the Guardian

The whole of one of the army's most elite regiments, supported by the RAF's latest fighter bombers, is to be sent to Afghanistan in a military operation unprecedented since the second world war.
For the first time since 1945, all three regular battalions of the Parachute Regiment - about 2,000 troops - will be deployed for combat. The Eurofighter/Typhoon, equipped with new missiles for a ground attack role, will be deployed for the first time in a hostile mission.

Meanwhile the Telegraph reports that

The tide is turning in Basra

When Tony Blair made his valedictory tour of Iraq last summer, he was greeted with a volley of rockets and mortars launched by Iraqi insurgents at the beleaguered British encampments in Basra. By contrast, when Gordon Brown made his first visit as Prime Minister to the country this week, all was calm, and the trip passed so peaceably that he would hardly have known he was travelling in one of the world's most ferocious war zones.

Opposition rejects Burmese leader's negotiation offer says the Indpendent

The party of the detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday dismissed the military junta's purported offer of talks, claiming its pre-set conditions would force her to admit to offences of which she was not guilty.
The country's senior general, Than Shwe, who was ultimately responsible for the violent repression of pro-democracy demonstrations last week, has said he will meet the head of the National League for Democracy (NLD) if she drops her support for international sanctions and abandons her "confrontational attitude". But Nyan Win, a spokesman for the NLD, said: "They are asking her to confess to offences that she has not committed."

The Mail returns to a familiar theme on its front page

New bin bag tax: Households to be charged for filling more than ONE sack

Families who throw out more than one sack of rubbish each week are being forced to pay a controversial "bin bag tax".
In a scheme which could soon be rolled out across the UK, dustmen will be ordered not to collect refuse unless it is left in official colour-coded bin bags provided by the council.
Homes will be given just one free sack every week and must pay 28p for each additional bag - at least three times as much as an ordinary black bag from a supermarket.

With the Diana inquest up and running the Telegraph reports that

Prince William angry at 'aggressive' paparazzi

Prince William has angrily complained about the actions of paparazzi photographers who "aggressively" pursued him and his girlfriend Kate Middleton as they left a nightclub on Friday morning.Clarence House said it was "incomprehensible" that the couple should be chased in their car in the very week that the inquest opened into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

It was the Mail that was party to the story and it chooses not to publish the pictures this morning but runs the story

William and Kate: Dating in public for the first time since break-up

They emerged from a nightclub at 2am on their first public date since their relationship foundered in April.
Onlookers said the prince appeared distinctly over-refreshed while his girlfriend remained bright- eyed and in sparkling form.

Less atention today on the inquest,the Mirror though reporting on

Princess Diana guard's Iraq escape

Princess Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees has taken a private security job in war-torn Iraq to get away from her inquest.
The lucrative work is hugely dangerous. But Rees - horrifically injured in the Paris crash that killed Diana, Dodi Fayed and chauffeur Henri Paul - is so desperate to avoid reliving the tragedy he is happy to take risk his life.
His wife Ann, 37, said yesterday: "He doesn't want anything to do with the inquest. All he wants is to forget and get on with his life. It was a long time ago and he doesn't like to think about it."

Facing jail, a ‘wanton’ cyclist in pavement death smash reports the Times

A cyclist who collided with a pedestrain, who later died, is facing jail after admitting “wanton and furious” cycling yesterday.
Peter Messen, 28, was cycling on the pavement at 25mph. He struck 41-year-old Gary Green last April as he reached the bottom of a hill in Stenalees, Cornwall, at a speed that witnesses described as “like a bat out of hell”.
Mr Green, who was loading his car outside his home for a trip to Venice, had just stepped back on to the pavement when Messen collided with him on his mountain bike.

Less translation, more English lessons, Blears tells councils reports the Guardian

Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, will today announce a £50m investment to help local authorities boost integration and the creation of specialist teams to tackle tensions in communities sparked by changing patterns of migration.
The money - up from £2m this year - is to be channelled over three years to groups which promote integration, rather than towards bodies which represent a single ethnic or religious identity. The change in approach is to be accompanied by guidance to local authorities that they should only spend money on translating documents into foreign languages where necessary, and put a much greater emphasis on teaching English.

Welcome to Britain... but don't eat the fish: Immigrants get DOs and DON'Ts pack reports the Mail

Migrants will be given information packs warning them not to drink-drive or steal fish from rivers.
The pamphlets will set out a series of rights and responsibilities to help arrivals "get to grips with what is expected of them, from national laws to local traditions".
Government officials said the advice would also set out guidelines on social norms such as tolerance and understanding of other faiths and communities.

The Telegraph reports that

£200 on council tax to pay for NHS

The average council tax bill will rise by £200 over the next three years - double the rate of inflation - as Gordon Brown announces an extra £1.4?billion a year for the NHS.Bills will increase by five per cent a year under confidential assumptions prepared for Tuesday's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), The Daily Telegraph can disclose. By 2011, the average bill will reach £1,500 - more than double the level in 1997.

Train link to create 90,000 jobs and build a City of the future reports the Times

Crossrail, the plan approved yesterday to build mainline rail tunnels under London, will generate a wave of investment in dozens of new office towers accommodating 200,000 workers.
The £16 billion project, to be completed by 2017, will be the biggest expansion of the capital’s transport system for 40 years, carrying 70,000 people an hour from Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Kent directly into Canary Wharf, the City and the West End.
It will result in a huge expansion of London’s commuter belt, cutting journey times by half an hour from dozens of towns in the Home Counties. The line’s 38 stations will bring an additional one-and-a-half million people within 60 minutes of London’s key business areas. The 74-mile (118.5km) route, from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, will also underpin development of tens of thousands of new homes in the Thames Gateway area east of Docklands.

McCanns plea to talk as cop case collapses says the Mirror

The shambolic Portuguese investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance has ground to a halt.
Sources close to the inquiry yesterday admitted detectives have exhausted the evidence they wanted to use to bring charges against the four-year-old's parents Kate and Gerry.
And there is little hope of finding groundbreaking new clues - or the body they admit is crucial if the flimsy case they have built against the McCanns is to get to court.

The Guardian reports that

US court orders woman to pay £109,000 for music downloads

When Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old from Minnesota, downloaded Rhythm is Gonna Get You by Gloria Estefan on a free filesharing website, she couldn't have realised how prophetic the title was. This week, in the first case of music piracy to reach a federal jury, she was ordered to pay $9,250 for that song alone to the record company whose copyright she had infringed.
She had to pay the same figure for each of a further 23 songs she downloaded, including the equally apt Run Baby Run by Sheryl Crow and Reba McEntire's One Honest Heart. The total damages against her came to $222,000 (£109,000), the largest judgment to date against a consumer of illegal downloads.

The Indy reports that the

Adventurer's 13-year global odyssey nears end

Barring a last-minute calamity, the British adventurer Jason Lewis will finish his 13-year, self-powered, round-the-world odyssey at breakfast time this morning. Completing the last three miles of the epic voyage from Greenwich Yacht Club past the Millennium Dome to the starting point of the Meridian Line, he will pedal his trusty 26ft wooden boat, Moksha, home on a rising tide.


Finally the Indy reports that

Widdecombe to retire from the Commons and spend more time walking her dogs

Parliament will never be the same again. Ann Widdecombe, the fiery, one-woman campaign bandwagon, is among the MPs who are preparing for retirement at the next general election.
However, like Mark Twain, talk of her political demise is premature. She told friends at a private party at the Commons to mark her 60th birthday that if Gordon Brown called a general election next week, she would carry on for one more term.
The Conservative MP for Maidstone, who has become a household name for her outspoken views, her appearance on ITV's Celebrity Fit Club, her series of five sex-free novels and her website, the Widdy Web, is ready to retire to Dartmoor where she plans to spend her time writing and walking her dogs.