Brown's position put into focus

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The Sun presents Conservative leader David Cameron as the winning scorer in his match against Gordon Brown in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.

Labour is "gutted" by its poll defeat which leaves Mr Brown's leadership in crisis, the paper says.

Wake-up calls do not come much louder than the alarm of this by-election, warns the Daily Mirror.

The Daily Express calls for Mr Brown to leave Number 10 "at once", insisting "Britain deserves much, much better".

Tories told

There are words of warning for the Conservatives in the wake of their victory in Crewe and Nantwich.

The Times suggests leader David Cameron has his foot in the door of Number 10 - but must take care to avoid a slip.

The Daily Telegraph calls on the Tories to offer an attractive alternative - not just rely on anti-government feeling to win a general election.

"A winning start, now for the hard work" is how the Daily Mail sums up the position of the Conservatives.

'National embarrassment'

The Ministry of Defence's rejection of a coroner's call to ground the aging Nimrod aircraft fleet because of a design fault is widely reported.

The newspapers' experts are divided on the decision.

The Sun's defence editor says it is a "national embarrassment" that airmen fly a 1960s plane in today's wars.

The Times' specialist says crew safety must come first, but notes how grounding the planes would have serious strategic implications for UK troops.

Land grab

The Guardian reports that the UK has formally laid claim to 200,000 sq km of Atlantic seabed near Ascension Island.

The submission comes as the race to establish sovereignty over underwater territories gathers momentum, it says.

Also in the Atlantic, the man who found the Titanic in 1985 has revealed it was a cover story for the real mission of inspecting two Cold War US submarines.

The Times says Bob Ballard's main task was finding out what happened to the vessels which sank in the 1960s.