The boom is officially over. Growth in the economy ground to a halt in the second quarter of this year, thus ending the longest period of expansion in British economic history. The bust may not be far behind: many economists now believe an outright recession – two successive quarters where the economy shrinks in size – will follow later this year, a period of contraction that could extend well into 2009
The Times says
The economic standstill in the second quarter of the year came after a revision of figures wiped out the meagre 0.2 per cent growth reported earlier. It is the lowest reading since 1992, when the country was in the throes of the last recession.
In a symptom of how people are struggling to make ends meet, it has emerged that Asda is now regularly seeing a sharp fall in sales in the third week of the month as people run out of cash before pay day. The supermarket said that it was offering its biggest price cuts to coincide with this time.
The Telegraph leads with the story that
Married couples will be offered new tax breaks as one of the priorities of a Conservative government, the shadow chancellor George Osborne has declared.Mr Osborne says that encouraging marriage is essential to building a strong society and argues that it is right to reward marriage through the tax system.
It had previously been thought that the shadow chancellor was against encouraging marriage - in disagreement with the party's leader David Cameron.
The Mail meanwhile reveals that
Banks were accused of 'milking' nearly £3billion extra cash from homeowners and blaming the credit crunch.
High Street lenders have made the money by raising their mortgage rates and fees over the past year, even though interest rate cuts have made it cheaper for some of them to borrow money.
A new study calculates that the country's five biggest banks - Halifax, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland - are raking in £2.8billion more from mortgage borrowers compared to last year.
It leads with Jacqui Smith under fire
Jacqui Smith was under fire for failing to sack the private contractor which lost personal data on thousands of criminals.
The Home Secretary said PA Consulting - which has won Government contracts worth £240million since 2004 - broke the rules on secret data.
But Whitehall officials made clear it will continue to be paid vast sums of taxpayers' money.
Partial Russian pullout angers west reports the Guardian
Russia last night claimed to have completed its long-awaited withdrawal from Georgia, after a day which saw mile-long columns of tanks and armoured vehicles pulling out of their forward positions and heading back north to Russia.
Russian forces began pulling out of Gori yesterday afternoon. At 8.30pm (local time) last night Georgian police forces finally entered the town after the last Russian tanks rumbled out. The main east-west highway across Georgia reopened for the first time in nine days.
Last night, however, both the US president George Bush and French president Nicholas Sarkozy accused Russia of failing to "comply" with the ceasefire deal, after Moscow said it intended to leave behind 2,500 troops on Georgian territory.
We will not be the next on Russia's hitlist, vows defiant Ukraine reports the Times
Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, was in a fierce and defiant mood yesterday as he urged Nato to respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia by moving quickly to expand the frontiers of the alliance eastwards.
In an exclusive interview with The Times Mr Yushchenko asserted that the fundamentals of international politics had changed. Ukraine had to do everything in its power to ensure it was not going to be next on the Kremlin hitlist.
The Independent reports that
Afghans accuse coalition forces of killing 76 civilians in air strike
Seventy-six civilians, most of them women and children, were martyred today in a coalition forces operation in Herat province," the statement said.
Coalition forces bombarded the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province on Friday afternoon, the ministry said. Nineteen victims were women, seven were men, and the rest were children under 15, it said.
Most of the papers report that Three suspected terrorists have been arrested over internet threats to kill the Prime Minister.The Telegraph says that
Two men were arrested at Manchester airport last week as they prepared to leave the country and a third, the brother of one of the other men, was detained in Accrington, Lancashire where he worked as a security guard.
Counter-terrorism sources said the arrests related to a statement which appeared on an Arabic language website called al-ekhlaas.net, which often carries messages from senior members of al-Qaeda
Drug giants accused over doctors' perks is the lead in the Guardian
The Guardian can reveal the scale of pharmaceutical company sponsorship following an examination of the registers of gifts and donations to doctors that all hospitals are required to keep. They show considerable largesse - from drug companies regularly picking up hefty bills for travel to international conferences in Europe, Asia and America, to specialist nurses' salaries, and weekly sandwich lunches for hospital staff training sessions.
The Sun has an exclusive interview with Jade Goody
BRAVE cancer battler Jade Goody told The Sun last night she may never live to watch her two young sons grow up.
Big Brother’s Jade, 27, broke down and wept uncontrollably as she admitted: “I’m fighting for my life.” She will undergo a hysterectomy next week after specialists said she would have DIED within three months without urgent treatment for her cervical cancer
'My human rights have been breached' says the Mail as
Gary Glitter finally arrived in Britain yesterday – claiming he was the victim of a ‘show trial’ and that his human rights were breached.
The shamed pop star paedophile was given VIP treatment at Heathrow and smirked as he was fast-tracked through the airport with a six-strong police escort.
He avoided the cameras and even ducked out of a court appearance, sending a lawyer in his place to argue he should not have to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register
The Times reports that After the gold and the glory, honours await Britain’s Olympians
It is what most people think, and nearly everyone expects it, but last night Gordon Brown actually said it: Britain’s gold-medal winners should be honoured for their successes in the Beijing Olympics.
His uncharacteristically unguarded remarks came as Team GB’s tally of golds rose to 18 with a victory by Tim Brabants in the men’s 1,000-metre kayak event.
The Prime Minister, who is a keen sporting enthusiast, was asked whether the stars would be honoured and, unusually, appeared to pre-empt a future honours list. He said: “The country will want to see our athletes honoured. The country will want to celebrate our successes and give them permanent recognition.”
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that
The shipping forecast, a new version of the national anthem sanctioned by the Queen and the most famous footballer on the planet will herald the start of the London Olympiad tomorrow when the capital briefly takes centre stage in Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium.
As China's games officially draw to an end with a closing ceremony certain to be epic in scale and execution, London has just eight minutes to mark the official handover of the Olympic flag.
The Telegraph reveals that Britain's top universities 'favouring the poor'
An investigation by The Daily Telegraph reveals five out of 20 elite institutions in the UK make lower grade offers to sixth-formers from poor-performing schools and deprived homes.
The London School of Economics, Bristol, Nottingham, Newcastle, and Edinburgh all allow staff to choose students with worse grades.
Overall, almost two-thirds of the elite Russell Group - which represents research-intensive universities - attach weighting to candidates' schools, home postcodes and whether family members also attended university as a tiebreaker during the application process.
The Express leads with the news that
Actress Helena Bonham Carter was in mourning last night after four relatives died in a crash on a safari holiday.
A minibus carrying the victims spun out of control and rolled over when a tyre blew out.
Four other members of the star’s family were also involved in the accident at 4pm on Wednesday in a remote area of the bush six hours’ drive from Johannesburg in South Africa
New documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the official complacency that allowed the Russian spy to be sprung from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966.says the Independent
Forty-two years after his dramatic escape from British custody, the startling truth about one of this country's most notorious spies is revealed in secret Home Office documents and personal letters written by the MI6 double agent while he was on the run. In heart-felt correspondence with his mother, George Blake tells of his future plans for his family while security service memos expose the total intelligence failure leading up to his break-out and the subsequent British helplessness in trying to establish his whereabouts
According to the Times
Airlines have mounted a ferocious price war in a desperate attempt to fill empty seats during autumn and winter.
Despite claiming for months that fares would have to rise to recoup lost profits on soaring fuel costs, British Airways and other big airlines have dramatically reduced fares. In some cases, the price of economy tickets on long-haul flights has been cut by more than 40 per cent.
Finally the Guardian reports that
A homeless former chef who continued to breach an Asbo forbidding him from sleeping in Gatwick airport was jailed for 15 months yesterday after a judge lost patience with him when told he had been caught shoplifting CDs and had admitted stealing baggage.
Anthony Delaney, 43, started living at the south terminal in 2004, sleeping, eating and showering there in scenes redolent of The Terminal, the movie starring Tom Hanks. Having been banned from the site, in 2004 Delaney was given the antisocial behaviour order, which banned him from Gatwick. But he continued to defy it
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