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Tuesday, 21 August, 2001, 06:03 GMT 07:03 UK

Thatcher sparks Tory furore


Lady Thatcher's letter to The Daily Telegraph in support of Iain Duncan-Smith is accompanied by a Telegraph leader column which declares Kenneth Clarke the candidate of the past and Mr Duncan-Smith the candidate of the future.

"Mr Clarke's is now the oldest face the Tories have in front-line politics," the paper says.

For good measure, it adds: "He made up his mind on almost everything by the early 1970s - and hasn't changed it."

The Daily Mail believes party activists can be pleased and encouraged by both the leadership candidates' manifestos, which were issued on Monday.

Despite coming from opposing wings of the party, the paper says, the manifestos are a useful reminder of how much common ground they still share.

It believes the contest hinges on the question of who seems the better bet to prevent his party squabbling itself into oblivion.

United Ireland

An ICM poll in The Guardian suggests a surge in public support for a united Ireland.

Forty-one percent of Britons apparently believe that Northern Ireland should be joined with the Irish Republic, while only 26% say it should continue as part of the UK.

Thirty-three percent said they did not know.

In an editorial, the paper says the poll seems to confirm the sneaking suspicion that Britons are pretty fed up with Northern Ireland and would rather be shot of the whole place.

The Sun highlights the plight of a woman from Essex who is expecting quads.

She says she has been warned by three NHS hospitals that they might not be able to cope with her.

The Sun contrasts her treatment with the case of a woman from Libya who gave to birth to sextuplets in an NHS hospital.

Deficit warning

The Mail leads on the case of a van driver fined £100 as a result of an accident in which a mother and father were killed.

The Mail prints a family portrait showing the couple with their six children, taken a few weeks before the crash.

An editorial in The Mirror notes that Britain's balance of trade last month was the worst on record - £3.2bn in the red.

"Once, that would have caused a run on the pound leading to a political crisis," the paper says, "but today, it raises barely a ripple."

The Mirror cautions the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, not to be complacent though, and warns: "a trade gap like this cannot continue for long. If it does, there will be a hard price for the country to pay."

The Independent appears not to share BA's enthusiasm for the impending return of Concorde to the skies.

"True, Concorde is a marvel of technology," it says, "but of 1960s technology. It only gets where it does by burning huge amounts of fuel."


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