Sundays assess Potter power

It seems the fictional schoolboy wizard, Harry Potter, could be working his magic on the Labour Party by the time of the general election, according to the Sunday newspapers.

The Independent on Sunday reports that the Chancellor Gordon Brown has made a personal appeal to the millionaire author J K Rowling, asking her to lend her support to his party's campaign.

The newspaper says that if the "publicity coup" comes off it could embarrass William Hague, who named Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as his book of the year.

The Sunday Telegraph, which also carries the story, says "the biggest prize of all" would be if Rowling allowed the image of Harry Potter to be include in party posters.

But, it says, the author is "known to be her own woman" and her publishers want her to remain neutral.

'Royal soap opera'

Prince Andrew is taken to task by the Sunday Mirror, which devotes its front page to what it bills as an exclusive report that the Queen is "furious" about her son's behaviour during his holiday in Thailand.

In its comment column, the paper says Her Majesty is right, and that by visiting sleazy bars the prince has shown little regard for his family's reputation.

The Sunday Times, in its leader column, says "Buckingham Palace should be concerned" at the direction that the royal soap opera is taking.

Prince Andrew's holiday is just the latest episode to prompt unsympathetic coverage in the tabloids over the past two weeks, and the paper believes that "there is simmering anger about the Royal Family, a greater tendency to ask: 'What are they for?', than at any time since the death of the Princess of Wales".

Vaccine campaign

The Sunday Express leads on claims that the MMR vaccine, or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, was not properly tested before being launched.

It says trials only lasted four weeks and that children were used as guinea pigs.

Fears that the vaccine is linked to autism and epilepsy have led many parents to refuse to allow their children to be inoculated.

The paper is launching its own campaign for parents to be offered three separate injections as an alternative.

Massacre 'ordered'

Documents smuggled out of China, revealing how the country's leaders ordered the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, are published in the Sunday Telegraph.

The paper's columnist, Alasdair Palmer, says the account of the discussions of Communist Party officials exposes what Tony Blair appears unable to recognise - that China is controlled by one of the world's most repressive regimes.

Palmer accuses the government of "caving in cravenly" to "a bloodthirsty bully" in its efforts to befriend China, blinded by the thought of the money to be made from this new market.

He says Mr Blair "must make clear to the bullies of Beijing that their methods are repulsive", or he will be demonstrating contempt for Labour's "ethical" foreign policy and for human rights.

Rail joke

Finally, the Sunday Telegraph's cartoonist, Matt, pokes fun at the company which runs our railway network.

Today, Sunday 7 January, he shows us a worker at a railway station pinning up a notice reading: "Railtrack wishes all its customers a very Happy Christmas."