Papers scrutinise Bank's 'gamble'

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Plans by the Bank of England to revive the economy via "quantitative easing" are the focus of most newspapers.

The Daily Telegraph warns that "adding as much as £150bn pounds to the money supply smacks of desperation".

For the Sun, the Bank's actions amount to a final gamble - and if Captain Brown fails, he goes down with the ship.

But the Financial Times is convinced that while the plans are experimental, they are a proportionate response to the severity of the crisis.

Dying wishes

The Times leads with the news that an elderly British couple with terminal cancer have committed suicide together.

The paper says 80-year-old Peter Duff and his wife, Penny, who was 70, died at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

It notes that their move comes after the Lord Chief Justice signalled that anyone who helped organise an assisted suicide abroad would not face trial.

According to the Daily Mirror, the couple's neighbours believed they had left their Bath home to visit Dorset.

Foul play

The Independent is alarmed by the scale of corrupt gambling in British sport.

It has learned that the Gambling Commission has investigated 47 cases of alleged match fixing and illegal betting over the past 17 months.

The governing bodies of football, horse racing tennis, cricket, and other sports could force every athlete to register their every bet, it adds.

The Daily Star also leads on shame in sport: Chelsea's Ashley Cole's arrest for being drunk and disorderly.

Beat it

Commentators are left decidedly underwhelmed by what was billed as a very special announcement in London.

Michael Jackson appeared at the O2 Arena to give details of forthcoming concert dates in the capital.

"This was nothing like the old days of Michael-mania", says Paul Harris writing in the Daily Mail.

A few fans sobbed into their souvenir scarves, says the Guardian, but it was nothing compared with the day Primark opened its doors on Oxford Street.