Papers ponder pre-budget report

Most of Friday's papers indulge in speculation about what could be in store in next week's pre-budget report.

The Sun says help is on the way for struggling homeowners. Banks will "cut customers some slack" and give them longer before seeking repossessions, it claims.

The Daily Mail says Alastair Darling is "exasperated" by the banks and may use "a nuclear option" to force them to lend to small firms and families.

Whatever the contents of the report, the Financial Times says grimly, it must deal with "a mammoth shock to the economy" - the combination of rising public debt and falling tax revenues.

Mutilated manuscripts

The broadsheets are shocked at an Iranian millionaire who cut pages out of 150 precious books from the British Library and Oxford University.

The Guardian says the manuscripts had been "mutilated" and the damage done to them was "irreversible".

The Daily Telegraph explains that Farhad Hakimzadeh cut pages from "priceless" works and took them home to slip inside inferior books in his own collection.

A source tells the Times: "We will never know the full range of his motivation. It is such an unusual thing to do."

Hope for Congo

The Independent front page carries a powerful image of a Congolese man cradling his son, as UK charities launch a disaster appeal for the war torn country.

The paper says that a UN vote to send more peacekeepers to the state offers "a touch of hope in the war without end".

The Daily Express, meanwhile, continues its campaign on behalf of Gurkhas desperate to be allowed to settle in the UK.

"Of all the foreign nationals who really have earned the right to live among us, they are out on their own at the front of the queue," it writes.

Royal 'strides'

Pictures of what the Daily Mirror calls "The Queen Unseen" make their way into most of the papers.

They show her on a beach in the 1970s wearing flared trousers and what the Daily Telegraph calls "a somewhat garish Oriental blouse".

The Times, on the hand, praises the trousers, saying "she looks good in them."

"She would not dream of opening Parliament in a pair of strides, but even a head of state is allowed the odd day off when she can dress as she pleases."