Sunday Papers 18 December

Between The Sheets: We've Read The Sunday Papers For You

It's the last set of Sunday newspapers before Christmas and two significant news stories for Monday have been previewed - or in one case leaked - in advance.

A confidential report on the UK Border Agency by the Home Office, due to be published at 11am on Monday, has been leaked to the Sunday Times [£]. The report will apparently show how delays in deporting foreign criminals have led to them committing futher offences, including rape.

The Sunday Telegraph has seen the contents of a speech due to be made by Nick Clegg tomorrow, in which he will criticise the Tories' proposal to give a tax break to married couples. Clegg will warn against holding up "the 1950s model of suit-wearing, breadwinning dad and aproned, homemaking mother, and try and preserve it in aspic."

This hasn't gone down too well with The Sunday Express, which accuses Clegg of "sneering at Mr & Mrs Britain".

Another interesting story in The Sunday Telegraph is one which claims that taxpayers are funding "union placemen" to the tune of £5m a year. These union officials are called "pilgrims" and they've been criticised by several Tories. A debate about them in the Commons last month turned fiery after Tory MP Aidan Burley called for a ban on taxpayers' money funding union officials.

And of course Aidan Burley is in the papers again this morning, for all the wrong reasons. The Mail On Sunday revealed that Burley had hired the Nazi uniforms used in the embarrassing stag party, revealed by the same paper last weekend. Now Burley, a young Tory who'd widely been seen as a rising star of the party, has lost his job as ministerial aide to the Transport Secretary, Justine Greening. So not a merry Christmas.

The Independent on Sunday reports that Ed Miliband is to make some major changes to his team's internal structure after woeful appearances at PMQs and apparent dips in the opinion polls for the party. The Indy also gives the three party leaders a "credit rating", in which Cameron gets, AA, Clegg gets BBB and Miliband suffers the indignity of being awarded CCC. That's the political equivalent of a junk bond, right?

Other stories in the papers include two separate stories about Prince Harry and lots of Strictly.

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