UK newspaper review: Data claims and Hull's happy hour

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-25027826

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Fresh claims about the practices of US surveillance officers lead both the i and the Guardian, which claims to have a memo proving that phone, internet and email records of Britons were stored.

The documents - obtained from "whistleblower" Edward Snowden - suggests the data was analysed even though the subjects were not suspected of wrongdoing, it says.

For Neil Wallis, reviewing the papers for the BBC News Channel, it's not such a big deal. "The British public in the main take the view that they don't really mind. What they really care about is the idea that the powers-that-be are trying to prevent a repeat of 7/7," he said.

However, Independent columnist Owen Jones argued: "What we're talking about here is Britons who aren't suspected of any crime. Both the Guardian and i emphasize this."

A Monroe moment?

The sub-editors enjoy a photograph of the wind catching the Duchess of Cambridge's skirt, with three papers referring to the future queen as our "Royal Thighness".

Several call it a "Marilyn Monroe moment", digging out the famous image - above - of the film star's dress billowing above a subway grate.

But the Mirror goes furthest, choosing to reproduce images of similar incidents to have befallen the duchess in previous years.

One or two papers mention what she was doing in east London when the wind caught her unawares. The Daily Telegraph's front page features a sober-looking duchess, listening to youngsters at a forum organised by anti-bullying charity Place2Be.

She discussed cyberbullying and "sexting", says the paper, noting that she was "a victim of school tormentors" as a child.

The Times says that, although Catherine has never spoken publicly about being bullied, she "revealed her empathy with children who suffer bullying or emotional difficulties" and spent 30 minutes longer than scheduled at the event.

Image problems?

The Telegraph describes Conservative ministers backing colleague Nick Boles, who angered some in his party by suggesting many young people regard the Tories as "alien" and "the party of the rich".

And it sends Joe Shute to Baroness Thatcher's former Finchley constituency to seek the truth.

He receives divided opinions but concludes: "The youth of today say that the party now must be... decisive about what it stands for, and that it is time to start getting that message across."

But Labour also needs to decide who it represents, according to its Tottenham MP David Lammy.

He's quoted by the Times warning the party not to forget its working-class voters by simply listening to the chattering classes: "It can't just be the party of Primrose Hill and Parliament Hill."

Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror lays into Baroness Thatcher's former press secretary, Bernard Ingham, for suggesting that the 40% of northerners who told a recent poll they wouldn't vote Tory displayed "bovine stupidity" and "demented - economically suicidal" tendencies.

"Just ignore him," is columnist Paul Routledge's verdict.

Happy hour

T-shirts reading "It's never dull in Hull" have long been sold at its tourist information office and - after the city "defied snooty critics" to be named UK City of Culture 2017 - the Sun lists 20 facts to prove the slogan right.

They include that the boiled sweet was invented there, that it's home to the world's largest Yorkshire pudding factory and that a restaurant has a wall dedicated to pictures of former deputy PM John Prescott.

In its leader column, the Daily Express congratulates the city, before managing a backhanded compliment by saying: "Hull folk should ignore the sniping from ignoramuses who have never set foot in their fine city and get ready for a truly novel experience: becoming fashionable."

The Guardian borrows a lyric from one of the city's best-known products - 80s band The Housemartins - to describe it as "happy hour" in the city, before charting its rise from "crap town to city of culture in just 10 years" - a reference to its top spot in the 2003 book Crap Towns.

Robert Crampton, in the Times, is fed up with lists referring to white phone boxes, ex-poet laureate Philip Larkin, anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, actress Maureen Lipman, and bands like Everything but the Girl or the Spiders from Mars. He says the city shouldn't be embarrassed by its working-class culture, adding: "Hull is not the wasteland that critics would like to imagine... Who knows, maybe some of the people who routinely slag the place off might now actually go there."

Rosie Millard pays tribute to Hull's "hidden charms" in the Telegraph, saying the city "gets underneath people's skin", while the Mirror enlists Housemartins singer Paul Heaton to describe his love for his adopted hometown - "a superb place to live".

One Hull pensioner has already noticed a side-effect of the added attention, it seems. Dave Pearce, 72, tells Sun reporter Martin Daubney: "I suppose we'd better get used to a few more of you ponces around these parts."

Fitting legacy?

"Scene of 2012 Olympic triumphs gutted," notes the Guardian's back page, showing the arena of Team GB's "Super Saturday" athletics glory, but with the track and infield replaced by mud, building paraphernalia and a crane.

It says the "door has been left open" for football club Leyton Orient to share the ground with main tenants West Ham United, after the chairman of a Lords committee told the two clubs to "stop squabbling".

Meanwhile, the Sun examines a different aspect of the 2012 legacy. It says almost three-quarters of the £2.5bn foreign investment in the Games was ploughed into London and southern England, creating nearly 15,000 jobs. In England's north-east, however, it produced just seven new jobs.