Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Immigration and Diana are the familiar themes this morning.

Both the Mail and the Express lead with the news that as the Mail says

Labour's justification for mass immigration was torn to shreds by experts last night.
Their landmark study - the most authoritative carried out by a parliamentary committee - also demanded a cap on new arrivals.
Under the headline Immigration the great lie it continues


•Dismiss Ministers' "preposterous" assertion that migrants boost the economy by £6billion a year;
•Reject Government claims that foreigners will help to defuse the pensions timebomb;
•Demolish the "fundamentally flawed" Downing Street argument that migrants fill vacancies in the economy;
•And warn that migrants will force up house prices by 10 per cent in the next two decades.


We must cap immigration says the Express

Peers, including two former Chancellors and several other Cabinet ministers, delivered a blow to the Home Office by concluding that record immigration had led to "little or no impact" on economic well-being.


The Guardian says

Home Office ministers were last night trying to head off a big row over immigration as a House of Lords committee endorsed Conservative calls for a limit on non-European migration. The report from the economic affairs committee, published today, says its six-month inquiry could find no evidence to support the government's claim that a high level of net immigration has generated significant economic benefit for Britain


The Times leads with the Diana inquest story

Diana death 'conspiracy' thrown out by coroner

In a landmark day in the six-month inquests, the coroner told the jury that there was no evidence to support claims by Mohamed Al Fayed that the couple were killed in an Establishment plot.
Summing up after hearing more than 250 witnesses, Lord Justice Scott Baker said that the Harrods owner’s claims were so manifestly without foundation that even his lawyer was no longer pursuing them. The hearings had heard not a shred of evidence to support them, he added.


The Telegraph adds

The coroner also called the Princess's former butler, Paul Burrell, a liar following the publication of comments he made to a friend in which he admitted including "red herrings" in his evidence.
The 11-member jury panel will retire later this week to consider its verdicts on how the Princess and Mr Fayed died.


The paper leads with the story that

Labour donor avoids £27m tax

Lord Sainsbury, the former minister and Labour's biggest financial backer, transferred £340 million worth of shares last night in a move that experts claim will save him more than £27 million in tax.
The supermarket heir moved his shares in the company on the eve of the Government's controversial changes to the capital gains tax (CGT) regime


The speculation about the Zimbabwe election is covered in most of the papers,the Independent reports

Senior figures in Zimbabwe's opposition were in hiding last night as a tremendous power struggle played out in the wake of weekend elections in which President Robert Mugabe's government appeared to have been defeated.
Official results from the state-appointed electoral commission were issued yesterday, with almost theatrical slowness, as factions within the ruling party and the security apparatus scrambled for any alternative to conceding defeat
.

Zimbabwe on a knife edge says the Times

From the deserted streets of Bulawayo to the fetid slums of Mbare, Zimbabwe was waiting on tenterhooks last night to discover the fate of President Mugabe as he appeared to be heading towards election defeat.
With official counts trickling out of Harare, the clamour grew for the authorities to tell the people what they already knew from their own polling stations: that for the old tyrant, the writing was on the wall.


The Guardian leads with the news that there are

Demands for crackdown on biofuels scam

The EU is being urged to take action to stop a biofuel trading scam that exploits US agricultural subsidies and undermines the fight against global warming.
Up to 10% of biofuel exports from the US to Europe are believed to be part of the rogue scheme reaping big profits for agricultural trading firms.
The "splash and dash" scam involves shipping biodiesel from Europe to the US where a dash of fuel is added, allowing traders to claim 11p a litre of US subsidy for the entire cargo. It is then shipped back and sold below domestic prices, undercutting Europe's biofuel industry.


Free school meal for every pupil says the front page of the Mirror

A radical plan to give free school meals to all children could become the centrepiece of Labour's next election manifesto.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls is said to be keen on the proposal, which would be a key weapon in the government's war on child obesity.


Homophobia rife in British society, landmark equality survey finds reports the Guardian

Britain's 3.6 million lesbian, gay and bisexual people see themselves confronted by huge barriers of prejudice at every level of society, according to the first authoritative poll of their views.
The poll, commissioned by the equality charity Stonewall, which said some public bodies were too "smug" about their record on discrimination, indicates that the schoolyard is the most entrenched bastion of prejudice.


The Telegraph speculates that

Birds may have caused Kent plane crash

The Kent plane crash that killed five people may have been caused by birds flying into its engines within seconds of take-off.
Investigators were examining the possibility of a "bird strike" on one or both engines of the private Cessna jet, which crashed in Farnborough on Sunday afternoon


THE remaining three bodies were removed from the wreckage of the plane last night – as tributes poured in for the victims
. says the Sun

The paper leads with the news that there is

Fury across the Mersey

LIVERPOOL chiefs last night vowed to crack down on thug fans who allegedly attacked Everton ace Phil Neville in a spite-filled Mersey derby.
Police are probing claims by Everton bosses that the 31-year-old defender was punched in the back as he took a throw-in.


Staying with football,most of the papers report that

The England head coach, Fabio Capello, is to be investigated for allegedly withholding evidence in a trial linked to Italy's 2006 Calciopoli match-fixing scandal.
After giving evidence to a Rome court yesterday Capello, who was the coach of Juventus at the time the scandal erupted, was criticised by the state prosecutor, Luca Palamara, for hiding behind "I don't remembers" and "I don't knows


The Independent leads with

The great depression according to the paper

We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.
Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.


al-Maliki humiliated as gamble to crush Shia militias fail reports the Times

At the Sadr Office in the centre of the massive slum in northeast Baghdad, home to 2.5 million impoverished Shias, the receptionists greeted visitors with sweets to mark their victory over Nouri al-Maliki, the increasingly isolated Iraqi Prime Minister, who directed the assault on Shia rogue militias in Basra, the lawless southern oil city. “This is for victory over Maliki,” one said with a grin. “The fighting ended on our terms.”


Supreme court threatens Islamic party's government in Turkey reports the Guardian

Turkey was thrown into crisis yesterday when the country's supreme court moved to oust the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and close down his political party, the country's biggest and most successful.
The 11-judge court, a bastion of the secularist establishment, decided unanimously to hear a case calling for the closure of Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) as well as banning the prime minister and president from politics for five years on the grounds that they are trying to impose Islamic law in the overwhelmingly Muslim country of 70 million.


Politicians under fire,

London 2008 and Harriet Harman decides she has to wear a stab-proof vest ... to tour her own constituency! reports the Mail

The famously politically-correct deputy leader of the Labour Party, known to her detractors as Harperson, faced ridicule yesterday for the personal security measures she took on the mean streets of Peckham, South London.
But her decision to wear the body armour was also seen as a sad reflection of a modern Britain where police feel they have to offer VIP guests "protection".


Nick Clegg has had sex with 'no more' than 30 says the Telegraph

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has spoken unusually frankly about his romantic past, admitting to sleeping with "no more than 30" women and revealing how he fell in love at first sight with wife Miriam.
In a no-holds-barred interview with magazine GQ, Mr Clegg recalled being "pretty gobsmacked" on first meeting the Spanish senator's daughter when they were both studying in Belgium.


More serious issues in the Times which reports

Backbench rebels threaten Gordon Brown with battle over detention plan

Gordon Brown was facing a two-month battle last night to avoid defeat over his attempt to gain the power to detain terror suspects without charge for 42 days.
As the Prime Minister attempted to steady Labour’s nerves about its electoral prospects and an economic downturn at a meeting of the parliamentary party last night, one backbencher predicted that he would be forced to turn to the Rev Ian Paisley and his nine Democratic Unionists to get the detention proposals through.


The Independent reports that

Boris Johnson pledged yesterday to sweep away the "superannuated Marxist cabal" installed at City Hall by Ken Livingstone, as he launched his campaign to become Mayor of London.
The Tory candidate let himself off his self-imposed leash temporarily as he launched a tirade against the advisers appointed by Mr Livingstone, who has been accused of surrounding himself with friends and cronies on the public payroll during his eight years as Mayor.


Finally spot the April fool jokes,the Sun reports

WOMEN can now have an injection that gives better orgasms by making their G-spot swell.
The G-Shot uses collagen to dramatically boosts the sensitive area to the size of a 10p coin and a quarter of an inch high.


The Mirror has video of

a colony of rare penguins takes to the air - proving they can FLY.
The incredible snap for a new BBC nature series, Miracles of Evolution, shows the birds zooming across the sea hunting for food.
They launch themselves down steep icy slopes with an upward curve to get the momentum to take off.


And according to the Independent

His name has long been synonymous with abuse, asterisks and four-letter words, but Gordon Ramsay has had a dramatic change of heart on swearing. In a move that will have diners choking on their oven-roasted Bresse pigeon, he plans to ban foul language in all his restaurants, whether in the kitchens or the dining areas.

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