What the papers say

Journalist Malachi O'Doherty takes a look at what is making the headlines in Tuesday's morning papers.

"Go and vote", urges the News Letter headline, echoing the prime minister's advice issued yesterday. "The decision now is for the people of Northern Ireland".

The picture beside this - Joey Dunlop and the news that a Dublin film maker is working on a movie about his life.

The Irish News leads with a report that emergency contraception - the morning after pill - is to be available on Sundays at the Brook Advisory Centre in Belfast, for those who have been reckless on Saturday night.

He is the man who, through arrogance, vanity and sheer bloody stupidity put the lives of British and American troops at risk in Iraq The Sun on Jacques Chirac

And two letters from readers ask the Catholic Church to explain why Margaret Thatcher was honoured by the Pope for services to the community.

Two leaders, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac, take up all the broadsheet front pages.

Their happiest moment together features in the Times, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, as Tony presents Jacques with a portrait of little Leo, though the Telegraph goes in close enough for a good look at Leo, cropping the adults out of the picture.

The Guardian says that Number Ten officials pleaded with the papers to use the picture discreetly, for security reasons. They haven't.

The Independent leads on the differences between the two men over the invasion of Iraq, going so far as to say that Chirac wrecked a planned show of unity between them.

The Sun is appalled that Chirac, or le Worm as it calls him, inspected the Grenadier Guards on Monday.

"He is the man who, through arrogance, vanity and sheer bloody stupidity put the lives of British and American troops at risk in Iraq," says the paper.

"Chirac is not fit to set foot on the same soil that President Bush graced last week."

The Times leads on a demand by medical experts for a ban on smoking in public places while the Guardian leads with what it calls "an unexpected and draconian attempt to choke off the flow of legal aid to asylum seekers.

The Mail and Sun front pages are taken up with a picture of the cut and charred football shirts of Jessica and Holly, the two Soham girls Ian Huntley is charged with murdering.

Team's 'victory parade'

Huntley has now admitted cutting the clothes from the girls at the location at which they were buried.

The same images are on the front of the Express, but there the lead story is that the England rugby squad are at the centre of a major anti-terrorist operation as a victory parade in their honour is planned.

From the front of the Irish Times, David Trimble looks out a paint spattered window at party headquarters.

And the Mail is impressed with The Machine, a new security device which will see through our clothes.

The paper says human rights groups are concerned about a device that will lay bare the men of terror because it will effectively strip the rest of us before the eyes of security staff and police.

Not to worry, say the police, it is no threat to your health - just to your modesty.