What the papers say

Journalist Mike Philpott takes a look at what is making the headlines in Thursday's morning papers.

There's a great deal of anger in the English papers about the latest price increase announced by British Gas, but for once it's good news on this side of the water.

The Belfast Telegraph says Northern Ireland motorists are enjoying the benefits of a "fuel war" between the big supermarkets.

The paper says it brings prices here into line with the rest of the UK, and one supermarket spokesman is quoted as saying that there's no need for a variation in prices between different regions.

The News Letter is not impressed with the US government. It says the Bush administration is finalising a deal with Libya that would see compensation being paid to Americans who were the victims of terror attacks.

But the paper says the deal excludes non-US citizens who were the victims of Libyan-supplied weapons. Its headline accuses President Bush of "turning his back on IRA terror victims".

The Irish News reports under its main headline that a specialist team of detectives has been given £1m to investigate the alleged involvement of Special Branch agent Mark Haddock and the Mount Vernon UVF gang in more than 16 murders. It describes it as a "u-turn" by the government.

The Irish Times reports that the government in the Republic is under fire from the main opposition parties over what it calls "a rising tide of unemployment".

It says the latest figures show the biggest year-on-year increase since records began.

The Irish Independent goes for a very different story.

It reports that the former taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, won't be called to give evidence to the Mahon planning tribunal because he's suffering from a serious cognitive impairment.

The paper says the diagnosis, which may point to memory loss, has been confirmed by five separate medical experts.

Mr Reynolds is pictured on its front page enjoying a day out at the Galway Races.

Labour war?

If Gordon Brown is reading the papers on holiday in Suffolk - and he's sure to be - then he'll be greeted almost everywhere with a picture of a smiling David Miliband outside 10 Downing Street.

None of the papers are in any doubt that he has set out to become its new occupant.

The Independent wonders if his smile "is that of an assassin". Carrying on the metaphor, the Daily Telegraph is interested to know if he's "a lone gunman or merely part of a larger conspiracy".

His failure to mention Mr Brown at all in his Guardian article yesterday was not a mistake, according to the Independent. The Telegraph says "Labour is now at war".

Finally, several papers have the story of the police officer who was wrongly accused of growing drugs in her attic.

Zally Huseyin was at home one night in Cambridgeshire when two colleagues knocked on the door.

She tells the Daily Mail that she thought they had called in for a cup of tea. But no.

Her house had been picked up by an infra-red camera on board a helicopter and identified it as a building where bright lights were being used to grow cannabis.

It turned out that her roof was glowing in the dark because it was badly insulated - or as the Mail puts it, her insulation had gone to pot.