The Telegraph,the Mail and the Express all lead with the same story this morning

Nine million face 'green' road tax increases says the Telegraph

More than 9 million motorists face road tax increases of up to £245 under the Government's "green" car tax plans, the Treasury has admitted.Nearly half of all drivers will be hit with significant rises in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), while fewer than one in five will see any benefit from the reforms, according to official data.
The figures directly contradict Gordon Brown's claim in the House of Commons that most drivers will actually gain from the changes.

The Mail says

In the Commons last month, Gordon Brown said: 'The majority of drivers will benefit from it.'
But in an apparent contradiction yesterday, Treasury minister Angela Eagle admitted to MPs that from April 2010 it will cost more to keep 43 per cent of all cars on the road – some 9,423,450 vehicles.

adding

Labour backbenchers say the problem could match the outcry over the abolition of the 10p tax rate. More than 50 have signed a Commons motion urging a rethink.

GORDON Brown’s great car tax grab will leave nine million motorists out of pocket, the Government finally admitted last night.
The startling figure was four times higher than previous estimates and threatens to send Labour’s poll ratings plummeting even lower.

says the Express

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that

Plans for national road pricing should be abandoned, because higher fuel prices are already forcing drivers to cut congestion and emissions, according to the head of the AA, Britain's biggest motoring group.
Figures published yesterday showed that pollution from new cars is dropping faster than at any time in the last decade, as motorists swap even family cars for smaller models.

Both the Independent and the Times lead with the news that

A devastating report on the state of Britain's maternity services has concluded that they put the lives of women and their babies at risk

The Independent adds

The first national inquiry into maternity care by the Healthcare Commission, the NHS watchdog, has revealed a critical shortage of midwives, obstetricians absent from wards, a lack of beds and poor continuity of care. These have contributed to high death rates in some units and threaten the long-term health of mothers and their babies in others.

The Times says that

More than half — 56 per cent — of neonatal units closed their doors to newborns in the six-month period to March 2007, in some occasions for more than three months. The average length of closure was two weeks, meaning that vulnerable babies would be shuttled between hospitals until one was found to take them.

Iran's test luanching of missles gets a lot of column inches

Defiant Iran tests missiles to show strength in face of US warnings reports the Guardian

The Revolutionary Guard air force commander, Hossein Salami, said the test was not routine but a demonstration of resolve as pressure grows on Iran to curb its nuclear programme. "We warn enemies who threaten us with military exercises and empty psychological operations that our hand will be on the trigger and our missiles will always be ready to launch," Salami said. He added that Iran had thousands of missiles ready to be launched against "pre-determined targets

The Telegraph says

Nine missiles were reported fired in the tests at a secret location in the Iranian desert, according to Iranian television which broadcast footage of the plumes of smoke left following the launches.
The launch included a reportedly improved Shahab-3 missile, which officials said could reach targets up to 1,250 miles away, as well as the 100-mile-range Fateh and the medium-range Zelzal which can reach 125-250 miles.

According to the Independent

Global net closes on Mugabe's gang

A draft UN resolution named Robert Mugabe and 13 of his henchmen as the main culprits behind the campaign of violence in which scores of opposition supporters have been raped and murdered, and hopes of democratic salvation for the southern African nation have been wrecked.
The men named by the UN include generals, such as the army chief, Constantine Chiwenga, who is credited with persuading Mr Mugabe to launch a military campaign against the opposition rather than negotiate an exit package in the wake of his defeat in the first round of elections in March.

Bush to G8: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter' says the Independent

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.
As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

The Times reports on Jackson's 'crude' comments on Barack Obama

The Reverend Jesse Jackson has issued an apology for disparaging and crude remarks in which he claimed Barack Obama is "speaking down to black people" by telling them they need to take responsibility for their own lives.
His comments were intended to be private but were picked up by a Fox News microphone on Sunday which, he believed, was switched off. The apology was issued just hours before the cable TV channel confirmed it planned to broadcast the words, at least one of which was being bleeped.

Many of the papers report on Gordon Brown's comments that he has compared himself to the disturbed anti-hero Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's classic Wuthering Heights.

The Prime Minister likened himself to Bronte's dark, brooding vengeful character who died a broken man haunted by the ghost of his former lover whose body he exhumed twice.
The comparison was made in an interview in New Statesman magazine which was designed to soften the image of Mr Brown.

The Independent reminds us

His origins, like his other name, are shrouded in mystery. He comes, literally, from nowhere. Orphaned, homeless, starving and filthy, he is discovered (aged seven) in the streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw, owner of Wuthering Heights, who, for reasons that remain inscrutable, takes him home and fosters him. Heathcliff is the classic alien intruder who destroys everything around him. Ellen the maid says he might be of Indian or Chinese descent. The critic Terry Eagleton speculated that he might be a feral Irish boy, on the run from poverty on the Dublin streets. Whatever, he repays his benefactor's kindness with hostility, until he forms a bond with six-year-old Cathy and they grow up in passionate amity on the barren moors

The Times reports that

Half of all British servicemen say they want to quit

The first survey to assess attitudes across the Armed Forces reveals unprecedented levels of concern over equipment, morale and pay.
The research was conducted by the Ministry of Defence and involved more than 24,000 military personnel.
It found that the sense of overcommitment means that 47 per cent of soldiers and army officers think regularly of handing in their resignations.

Is this Britain's worst family? asks the Mail

A mother whose notorious family were dubbed the worst in Britain for amassing close to 250 criminal convictions was facing jail yesterday over an £85,000 benefits swindle.
Dawn Shackleton, a 47-year-old serial shoplifter, boasted of holidays in the Mediterranean, owned a 52-inch plasma television and yet claimed she was short-changed by the state.
Even when she and her three children were evicted from their home after a 10-year campaign of terror against neighbours she insisted that it was they who were the real victims.

Smirk of hate is the lead in the Sun which picks up the story that

OSAMA Bin Laden’s freed deputy swaggers along a street — SMIRKING on the 7/7 bombings anniversary.
Lawyers for hate preacher Abu Qatada, 47 — out of jail under “house arrest” — battled to BAN the photo after we captured him at large in London on Monday.

adds the paper

yesterday The Sun succeeded in getting a judge to wipe the smile off his face.

The Telegraph reports that

British Airways and BAA were warned of Heathrow Terminal 5 chaos

Union leaders told members of the House of Commons Transport Committee that no consideration was given to the views of those working at the terminal, who were well aware of the potential glitches in the system.
Steve Turner, civil air transport national secretary for the Unite union, said a number of concerns were raised with BA and BAA, the airport operator, before the shambolic opening of the £4.3 billion facility in March.

The Guardian reports that Terminal 5 is still losing 900 bags every day

Trade union officials said T5's baggage handling system still needed improvement and travellers on connecting flights have a one in 12 chance of being separated from their luggage. Iggy Vaid, senior shop steward at the Unite union and a former T5 baggage handler, told MPs that 932 bags miss their onward journey from the terminal on a daily basis.

The Mirror reports that

Granny Teresa Clarke finally passes driving test after 27 years and 450 lessons

the gran, 62, can throw away her L plates - after spending almost HALF her life trying to pass her test.
When Teresa had her first lesson in 1981, Charles was yet to wed Diana and she might have heard Adam and the Ants on the car radio

.


Finally shades of a French Watergate? The Independent reports

A vitriolic political row has exploded in France after the defeated presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, accused President Sarkozy's "clan" of being "linked" to a break-in at her flat.
Mme Royal's words, on the main nightly news programme of the state-owned television channel France 2, came close to a direct accusation of a "Ségogate" – a break-in at the home of a senior opposition leader inspired by the President.