Afghan election focus for papers

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Afghanistan continues to be a focus for many news pages and editorial columns.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6378577/Hamid-Karzai-must-show-that-he-is-worth-fighting-for.html">Daily Telegraph says confirmation of evidence of election fraud</a> is a serious setback to attempts by the West to generate stability.

A solution might be for President Karzai to form a government of national unity with his defeated rival, it says.

<a class="inlineText" href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6881548.ece#">The Times believes the president must concede</a> the need for a second vote and says British troops "cannot continue to die to defend a corrupt regime".

Proxy fight

Considerable space across the papers is devoted to the row over Education Secretary Ed Balls' choice of a new Children's Commissioner for England.

<a class="inlineText" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1221565/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Ed-Balls-proves-cronyism-lives-Labour-Government.html">"Cronyism lives on," says the Daily Mail</a> of the choice of Maggie Atkinson.

<a class="inlineText" href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6881618.ece">Peter Riddell in the Times,</a> recalls an old adage: "Parliament has its say but the government gets its way."

In the Independent, <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/simon-carr/simon-carr-it-really-does-take-balls-to-do-the-right-thing-1805612.html">Simon Carr sees opposition to Mr Balls</a> from the Labour chairman of the Education Committee "as a proxy for a fight with the PM".

Trafficking statistics

The Daily Mirror reports an independent panel is to carry out an <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/10/19/hillsborough-families-to-see-secret-documents-this-year-115875-21759605/">inquiry into 1989's Hillsborough Stadium disaster.</a>

In an editorial, the paper calls it a "big step forward" for justice.

According to the <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails">Guardian, the UK's biggest inquiry into sex trafficking failed to find</a> a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution.

The paper says its own investigation suggests the scale and nature of the crime has been exaggerated by politicians and the media.

'Spiritually unwanted'

<a class="inlineText" href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2690244/70-stone-Briton-Paul-Mason-is-worlds-heaviest-man.html">The Sun leads on the problems health chiefs face</a> in getting the reported heaviest man in the world to hospital.

It says a five-ton ambulance will take Paul Mason, from Ipswich, the 152 miles after an RAF Chinook was ruled out.

Meanwhile, the <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/135033/Funerals-that-blare-out-Tina-Turner-make-me-feel-a-lemon-says-vicar">Daily Express is among the papers to air the complaints of a vicar</a> from Kent who feels "spiritually unwanted" at many funerals.

Father Ed Tomlinson rails against the occasions where pop songs by the likes of Tina Turner replace sacred music.