What the papers say

Journalist Mike Philpott reviews Friday's morning newspapers.

Violence and politics are once again top of the agenda.

Several papers carry a front page picture of a female police officer looking around for assistance as a colleague lies unconscious in the street.

The picture is accompanied in both the Sun and the Mirror by the one-word headline - Madness.

Other papers have photographs taken behind the lines of rioters. Some are seen preparing to hurl petrol bombs.

The Irish News quotes Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly, who accused the police of turning a peaceful protest into a riot.

Orangemen angered

But it also carries the words of the MP for the area, Nigel Dodds, who said the trouble was orchestrated by republican thugs.

Looking at the wider picture, the paper claims, under an exclusive tag, that many Orangemen in Londonderry have been angered by the Order's refusal to talk to residents' groups and that a major split is developing.

In a leader, it comments that the organisation is already effectively engaged in consultations with the Parades Commission.

The paper says the Orange Order knows that if there is to be any hope of resolution in the Drumcree issue, talks with nationalists will have to follow shortly.

D-Day for talks

The order has a simple choice, it says. It can turn its back on dialogue and push itself closer to the loyalist paramilitary groups, or it can negotiate an outcome that still leaves it with a significant role in mainstream Unionism.

The News Letter and the Irish Times agree that this is D-Day for the political process.

And, according to the News Letter, it's as good a day as any for a show of statesmanship.

What is needed, says the paper, is the kind of moral courage that might be worthy of all those who have sacrificed their lives.

By tonight, it says, we will know if our future is in the hands of statesmen or political rabbits whose actions are driven by fear of the ballot box.

Untenable

The Irish Times says it is painfully obvious to all that there can be no soft landing this time.

It concludes that the position of republicans on decommissioning is untenable in the current circumstances, where all the other pro-Agreement parties are willing to work for a compromise.

The Times reports under its main headline that the government is facing a twin attack over its handling of parliament.

The paper quotes the former Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, who has called for changes in the committee system to stop ministers manipulating the Commons.

It also reports on what it calls a growing backbench revolt because Labour MPs feel excluded from the government and ignored by ministers.

Immigrant row

The Independent calls for an end to what it describes as "control freakery" by Tony Blair and his colleagues.

It talks of the Cabinet having a stranglehold on democracy.

There is more trouble for Labour in the Daily Express, as it reports on comments by one of its MPs, Ann Cryer, who said immigrants should be allowed into Britain only if they speak English.

The Telegraph quotes a Conservative politician in Bradford as saying that the idea was one of the most ridiculous he had come across.

And the Star comments that Mrs Cryer might be able to pass an English test, but she would be better off leaving the country.

Finally, the Mail devotes a full page to the fact that this is Friday the thirteenth.

Appropriately, that page is 13. The paper notes that the ill-fated Apollo 13 spacecraft was hit by the explosion that crippled it at 13:13 Houston time on 13 April 1970.

But the paper says other cultures do not understand our fear of the number.

In some eastern societies, four is the unluckiest number, while in Kenya people don't like numbers ending in seven.