What the papers say

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

One of the most startling stories appears not on a front page but in the letters page of the Guardian.

Three medical specialists write to the paper to say that the evidence given to the Hutton inquiry does not establish that Professor David Kelly committed suicide or that he bled to death.

They argue that the inquest should reopen and re-examine the cause of death

The broadsheets are all concerned primarily with the threat to Tony Blair, facing into a vote on his plan for top up university fees and the report of Lord Hutton into Mr Kelly's death.

"Blair stares defeat in the face," reads the lead in the Times.

The Guardian says Blair is "20 votes from safety" and that John Prescott was trying desperately to find a form of words on Monday that would "buy off the rebels".

Preparing children for that reality is the major responsibility of educators, but ultimately favours the change because it promises to preserve what is good and improve the rest News Letter

Beside that, the paper reports that the source for the claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, now says that the information was untrue.

This source was a London based group of Iraqi exiles.

The Financial Times predicts a knife edge vote for Mr Blair on Tuesday but says "there are signs that more rebels are moving towards the government's position".

The Independent not only numbers the rebels but provides mugshots of them to fill the front page.

The tabloids hardly seem to notice that the prime minister is on the brink of collapse.

The Star fronts with an fuzzy sequence of pictures lifted from reality TV show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

They show one of the contestants, glamour model Jordan taking a dip.

The Mail leads with "The Merchants of Death", a father and son who sold thousands of guns to criminals.

And the Express leads with the "Panic as the Big Freeze Bites".

Locally, the big story is the scrapping of academic selection and the continued absence of any clear substitute.

The News Letter is not impressed with education minister Jane Kennedy.

'Total shock'

The headline on the front page does not so much summarise the story to follow as declare the paper's disdain: "Jane Fails Her 11-plus exam".

The editorial argues that selection takes place in life - whether by individual choice or force of circumstance.

"Preparing children for that reality is the major responsibility of educators, but ultimately favours the change because it promises to preserve what is good and improve the rest," the paper says.

The Mirror similarly declares Jane Kennedy a failure on an inside page story and says the new proposals have divided Northern Ireland.

The Irish News, like the News Letter, carries a large picture on the front page of the devastating crash at Mallusk on Monday, when two men were killed in a car which crashed into a warehouse wall.

The paper's lead story is the grief of the families.

They are described by Father Aidan Troy, who visited them, as in "a state of total shock".