20/11 The Saturday Papers

The Front Pages

‘Fianna Fail meltdown fears over IMF arrival’ reads this morning’s cheery headline in the Irish Independent, as the paper also reports that our embattled Taoiseach Brian Cowen is rejecting opposition calls to quit. Cowen’s ‘bizarre’ denials of any bailout have now apparently convinced party figures that Fianna Fail can’t move forward “with him as leader.” Inside the broadsheet, writer Bruce Arnold says ‘Europe does not care about us. Europe is here for Europe’s sake: to save a crumbling empire, a shaky currency and a smug bureaucracy. We are mere chaff.’ Sobering words indeed.

The Irish Times, meanwhile, runs with the headline ‘EU warns of ‘thorough assessment’ of four-year €15bn plan’, with some high-level commission figures apparently already questioning whether the plan, to be published next week, is unsustainable due to poor growth figures. Inside the paper’s Weekend Review, Fintan O’Toole writes that ‘Fear, rage, despair and distrust have been in the pot for two years. The new ingredient is shame.’ Fintan does however see the IMF’s arrival an opportunity for Ireland to reinvent our sovereignty.

Finally, the Irish Examiner stays on the same subject, naturally enough, reporting ‘Cabinet wins tax battle but faces bank war’, as the Government has won it’s battle to retain our low corporation tax for now, but the fate of our banks is in the balance as talks with the EU-IMF team intensify. An EU source told the Examiner that they had “realised the corporation tax issue was a casus belli [incident of war] for the Irish. We had something similar with the Greeks who did not want to touch their military spend, so it was not touched.”

Tales from the Tabs

The Irish Sun reports today that ‘X Factor check-out queen’ Mary Byrne will become a millionaire, according to Irish judge and her show mentor Louis Walsh. The Tesco crooner, despite a couple of rocky performances in recent weeks, will rake in at least €100,000 from the X Factor tour after Christmas, which is reserved for performers that reach the final eight of the competition, as Mary has done. The tabloid also reports that Marks and Spencers are ‘begging’ the Dublin diva to become a plus-sized model for an upcoming clothing campaign.

Proving that no matter what happens to this country is never as important as tonight’s X Factor broadcast, both The Irish Daily Mirror and Irish Daily Star are running their own separate X Factor-related headlines.

‘Cheryl’s A Chav!’ reads the Daily Mirror, as the tabloid reports that the solo singer and X Factor judge had a furious argument with fashion designer Julian McDonald, who referred to the former reality show contestant as a ‘chav’, telling her also that her newly-dyed hair looked like sh*t. We don’t know much about Mr McDonald but we like him already. The Star has a few choice quotes from ‘Our Mary’ as she thanks mentor Louis Walsh for ‘transforming her into a diva’, which we’re not sure is a good thing?

The Sports Pages

The Daily Star up the ante over tomorrow’s Fulham vs. Manchester City clash as former City boss Mark Hughes tells Roberto Mancini he has “no class”, referring to secret talks between the club and Mancini before Hughes was unceremoniously ousted from his position. The paper has cleverly juxtaposed the ‘No Class’ headline with a photo of the usually stylish Italian manager in a horrendous overcoat.

Ahead of today’s North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, Samir Nasri tells the Daily Mirror that he will not shake hands with ex-team-mate and ex-Arsenal captain William Gallas when they meet this afternoon. Beleaguered Danish striker Nicklas Bendtner tells The Sun that he is 100% fit to play for Arsenal and cannot understand why he is being kept out of the side. Our answer? Maroune Chamakh, Theo Walcott and a nearly fully recovered Robin Van Persie. Stop moaning Nicklas.

Finally, The Sun reports that Declan Kidney believes Ireland have what it takes to defeat New Zealand for the first time in 24 attempts at the Aviva Stadium later this evening, stating “We want to go out and play an attacking brand of rugby.”