The Prime Minister, already reeling from a series of political setbacks, failed to stave off the resignation of Wendy Alexander, his key ally and Labour's leader in the Scottish Parliament.
She announced her decision in an emotional statement in Glasgow following a fierce political row over donations to her leadership campaign. On what became a nightmare day for Labour, the first of Mr Brown's second year at No10, David Marshall, the Labour MP for Glasgow East, announced that he was leaving Parliament for stress-related health reasons.
Labour's donors turn on Brown says the Times
Gordon Brown's leadership faced a new crisis this weekend as some of Labour’s biggest financial backers said he was not up to the job and had botched the handling of the credit crunch.
Key donors who bankrolled new Labour are now reluctant to support Brown, claiming he lacks the qualities required to salvage the party’s fortunes.
— The millionaire businessman Sir Maurice Hatter, who has donated more than £176,000 to the party since 2001, said it was time for a change of leader.
The front page of the Observer meanwhile turns the spotlight on another Labour minister,the paper reporting that
The home secretary is at the centre of the worst race row to engulf the police service for almost a decade as chief constables stand accused of blocking an inquiry into discrimination against Muslim officers.
Jacqui Smith will be asked to intervene tomorrow after the damning revelation that at least 20 police forces refused to co-operate with the first audit into the treatment of Muslim and black officers. Information from those forces that did take part suggested there was routine racial discrimination against them
The Mail on Sunday leads with the headline McSleaze
Labour sleaze came back to haunt Gordon Brown today as the Prime Minister suffered a triple blow to his hopes of political survival.
The Government faced the nightmare prospect of another by-election humiliation as it
was rocked by three damaging new setbacks:
• The resignation of Scottish Labour Party leader Wendy Alexander, sister of Mr Brown's Cabinet ally Douglas Alexander, for failing to declare donations to her leadership campaign.
• The resignation of Glasgow East Labour MP David Marshall – triggering the potentially embarrassing by-election – amid allegations that he wrongly used his Commons expenses to pay members of his family.
• Claims by a Labour politician that more than 100 MPs are using their Commons second-home allowance to dodge capital gains tax.
The situation in Zimbabwe is heavily covered,the Independent takes a new prospective on its front page
the MPs cashing in on Zimbabwe's misery
Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve heads a list of Tory MPs with sizeable shareholdings in companies accused of propping up Robert Mugabe's regime, The Independent on Sunday can reveal today.
Three of David Cameron's frontbenchers are among six Conservatives – and one Liberal Democrat – with investments together worth more than £1m in firms trading in Zimbabwe. The revelations will embarrass the Tory leader, who has sought to take the moral high ground over the crisis in Zimbabwe.
The Times reports that
A baby boy had both legs broken by supporters of President Robert Mugabe to punish his father for being an opposition councillor in Zimbabwe.
Blessing Mabhena, aged 11 months, was seized from a bed and flung down with force as his mother, Agnes, hid from the thugs, convinced that they were about to murder her
Mugabe rush to be sworn in says the Observer
Robert Mugabe is expected to be sworn in as President of Zimbabwe again today after one of the bloodiest and most controversial elections in African history. Zimbabwean officials said that Mugabe had won a landslide victory with most of the count completed in Friday's widely derided presidential run-off.
Officials were reported as saying that, with two-thirds of the count completed, there had been a dramatic reversal of Morgan Tsvangirai's lead in the first round of elections three months ago, giving Mugabe a resounding victory before he heads to an African Union summit to confront growing criticism from the continent's other leaders.
Tsvangirai,we'd share power reports the Telegraph
Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said last night that Robert Mugabe might be allowed to stay on as titular head of a transitional government.
In a major concession, Mr Tsvangirai said it was "not inconceivable" that, with himself as executive prime minister, Mr Mugabe could remain as a ceremonial president.
According to the Independent
A spin doctor behind David Davis and his much-vaunted "freedom" campaign against creeping state surveillance is an influential figure in the worldwide promotion of identity cards, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Kevin Bell is vice-president of Fleishman-Hillard, a global public relations firm representing security companies that have introduced ID cards in the United States and Spain. Opposition to the Government's move to introduce a British ID card is a major plank of the David Davis for Freedom campaign website, which Fleishman-Hillard also set up.
The Times reports that
Baby to be born free of breast cancer after embryo screening
A woman has conceived Britain’s first baby guaranteed to be free from hereditary breast cancer.
Doctors screened out from the woman’s embryos an inherited gene that would have left the baby with a greater than 50% chance of developing the cancer.
The woman decided to have her embryos screened because her husband had tested positive for the gene and his sister, mother, grandmother and cousin have all had the cancer.
Throneline is the front page of the News of the World
THE Queen took the lead from Simon Cowell and his money-spinning Britain's Got Talent to come up with the Royal Aid phone fundraiser.and continues
As she struggled with her fortune down to the last £320 million, palace officials jealously eyed the cash pouring in through telephone votes on hit shows like Talent and X Factor.
They are desperate to plug the £32million black hole in the budget after the Government bluntly refused more cash to stop Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle falling down.
One senior royal source told the News of the World: "The phone-in idea was first born when we were looking at ways to raise cash for the Queen Mother Memorial.
With Wimbledon and Glastonbury dominating the weekend,the papers are full of stories,the Mirror reports that
Amy Winehouse made a chaotic appearance at Glastonbury last night - spitting chewing gum at the crowd, rambling incoherently and attempting to punch one fan.
The 24-year-old singer, who left a private London clinic where she is being treated for the lung disease emphysema, looked confused and unsteady on her feet as she sang for the 170,000-strong crowd.
Murray's a winner - but not yet a hero reports the Guardian
Though Andy Murray overcame the occasionally stubborn challenge of German Thomas Haas at Wimbledon yesterday to advance to the fourth round of the tournament for the second time, 'Andymonium' has yet officially to break out in SW19. Partly, this looks like a question of flags. Outside Centre Court there was not a Union Jack to be seen except as a detail on the caps of a contingent of Aussies 'jeez mate-ing' loudly about paying forty-eight quid for a tray of Pimm's.
This evidence of the slow disintegration of the union seemed to be gathering pace by the big screens. Nobody was making their way to Murray Mound; Henman Hill, it seems, will be forever English. Perhaps there was something in the air: forget Scottish independence, this week has seem something of an assertion of devolution for the Home Counties. First there was the by-election at Henley in which the party of the Scottish Prime Minister was outflagged by the BNP; now there was this comparative apathy toward the progress of Murray - a living embodiment of the Midlothian question. (It seemed somehow symbolic that as he took to the court, Labour's Scottish leader, Wendy Alexander, 'bring it on' challenger to Alex Salmond, resigned her post.)
Meanwhile the Mirror leads with
Guy Ritchie has vowed to fight and save his troubled marriage to Madonna for the sake of their son Rocco.
The film director has pleaded with Madonna to reconsider splitting up because he is terrified he will see less of his boy
More marriage split in the Mail which reports
The BBC's golden couple Adrian Chiles and Jane Garvey split after 10 years of marriage
Mr Chiles is living apart from his wife of ten years and sources close to the pair suggest their difficulties may have been fuelled by his sudden ascent to the upper tier of BBC presenters.Mr Chiles has apparently been left stressed and with little time for his wife and two young daughters.
Since they married in 1998, both Mr Chiles and Ms Garvey have seen their careers flourish
The Sunday Express reports that Moors killer Brady has grave photos.Accoding to the paper
MOORS murderer Ian Brady has a chilling set of photos showing the grave of Keith Bennett, the only one of his five victims whose body has never been found.
He taunted the police chief in charge of the inquiry by showing him the snaps, then claimed they were of no importance, it emerged yesterday
The Telegraph reports that
Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, has issued a stark warning that America must invest now in the space agency Nasa, or surrender leadership of space exploration to Russia and China. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Aldrin revealed that he intends to lobby Barack Obama and John McCain, the two US presidential candidates, in an effort to ensure they find sufficient funds for Nasa's goal to establish a permanent base on the Moon and then send a manned mission to Mars.
The last-chance saloon: Can anyone save the great British boozer? asks the Independent
Formidable landladies, sticky carpets, dodgy jukeboxes, personalised tankards hanging behind the bar above an archaically sexist "topless woman" peanut dispenser – just some of the well-worn attributes one could once safely associate with the traditional British boozer. But not any more – because the old-fashioned pub is well on its way to extinction
The Observer reports
Britain's most eminent psychiatrist has launched a powerful attack on the state of Britain's acute psychiatric care system, saying many inpatient units are unsafe, overcrowded and uninhabitable, adding: 'I would not use them, and neither would I let any of my relatives do so.'.
Professor Dinesh Bhugra, new president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, will use his inauguration on Wednesday to deliver a damning verdict on the system. He will reveal the findings of a major report into problems faced by the service and launch a three-year manifesto to achieve a better deal for patients
The Mail reports that
Disability benefits are costing taxpayers an extra £3.1billion a year under Labour - and a major factor is a massive rise in the number of claimants who are drug addicts and alcoholics, according to newly released documents.Over the past ten years, the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) budget has soared from £5.7billion to £8.8billion a year - enough to build 20 new 'super hospitals'.
And papers released under the Freedom of Information Act disclose that the number of drug addicts and alcoholics claiming the £60-a-week payment has risen five-fold, from 3,000 in 1997 to almost 17,000 last year.
According to the Telegraph
Government in line to make millions from selling Ministry of Defence land for eco-towns
The Sunday Telegraph can report that the Treasury stands to make about £275million through land sales, because six out of the 15 shortlisted sites are on property either sold or earmarked for sale by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Critics claim the Government is forcing the unpopular eco-towns on the public to make more money from the land and say the process by which the final locations are to be selected is flawed, because ministers will have a vested interest in choosing the MoD sites.
The number of smokers successfully quitting has soared because of the smoking ban in England, which celebrates its first anniversary this week.reports the Observer
Research shows that almost 235,000 people managed to stub it out with help from the NHS in the nine months from April to December 2007 - a rise of 22 per cent on the year before. The figures, in a Department of Health report to be published next week, are being used as evidence that the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces has been a success
Anglicans form 'new church' in gay clergy row says the Times
The Anglican Church faces what is in effect a schism this weekend after the declaration last night of conservative evangelicals to create a “church within a church”. The new body, called the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, will have its own bishops, clergy and theological colleges.
Details of the fellowship were announced in Jerusalem last night at a summit of conservative Anglicans, the Global Anglican Future Conference
Finally the Telegraph reports that
A Briton selling his 'entire life' online following the break-up of his marriage has agreed a £200,000 fee.A Briton selling his 'entire life' online following the break-up of his marriage has agreed a £200,000 feeadding
Speaking after agreeing the fee, Mr Usher insisted he had "no regrets" at making an apparent loss.
He said: "I am relatively pleased but I thought it would go a bit higher, if I'm honest.
"But I've no regrets. What's done is done and I'm looking forward to sorting this all out."
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