What the papers say

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

Flooding is still very much in the headlines.

The front of the Belfast Telegraph is taken up with a remarkable aerial photograph of a barn in Fermanagh, with only its roof poking out from the floods. As the paper says, it became an island in a county under water.

The Irish News says the search for a gun used in the alleged attempted murder of a trainee policeman in Garrison is being hampered by the flooding.

In Dublin, the Irish Times and Irish Independent both lead with a warning from Taoiseach Brian Cowen that the deluge affecting towns and villages around the River Shannon could become worse.

The Independent says a third of the average annual rainfall has fallen in November alone.

The News Letter leads with a sad account of how an 88-year-old man has been found dead in a lough near Enniskillen only a short time after his wife was found dead in their home.

The paper says Bill Barbour had cared for his wife Ann, who suffered from a long-term illness.

The fact that the banks can continue to impose inflated charges flies in the face of natural justice The Guardian

It adds that the police are investigating the circumstances of the two deaths. The story also makes the lead in the local editions of the Sun and the Mirror.

Several papers are angry over the Supreme Court ruling over bank charges.

The Times says the bankers received a double boost. First they were told that their often punitive overdraft charges weren't illegal. Then it emerged that new rules on pay and bonuses weren't as tough as had been feared.

The Guardian sums it up with the headline: "Bankers 2, Public Nil". The paper says "the fact that the banks can continue to impose inflated charges flies in the face of natural justice".

The Sun describes it as daylight robbery, and says the charges must be made fairer. The Daily Mail echoes Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist by declaring that in this case "the law is an ass, an idiot" and must be changed.

Iraq inquiry

The Daily Mirror reports on evidence indicating that the government was aware Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

It says "Tony Blair knew the weapons were a myth", and calls them "the weapons of mass deception".

The Mail says the full extent of how the public was misled has been laid bare. But another aspect of the Iraq inquiry is given wider coverage. It's the fact that the government has given Whitehall departments the right to block the release of secret documents about the war. The paper calls it an insult to the dead.

The Independent says Gordon Brown has been accused of "strangling the inquiry at birth", and it predicts that the outcome will be a cover-up that leaves us all in the dark.

Finally, there are many photographs of the jetman whose record attempt came to grief in the sea.

Yves Rossy was attempting to fly from Morocco to Spain. Sadly, as several papers report, he hit turbulence in a bank of cloud at 150 miles an hour and had to be rescued from the water.

He provides the cartoonists with some material. Matt in the Daily Telegraph has a drawing of a couple watching the jet man in action, held aloft only by a wing strapped to his back. One of them is asking: "Is that one of those no-frills airlines?"