Newspapers keep focus on expenses

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Twenty-four days after the Daily Telegraph first opened its MPs Expenses Files, the allegations are continuing.

The Sunday Telegraph reports on MPs who have sought public money for items ranging from carpets to teddy bears.

Labour MP <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5413894/MPs-expenses-Labours-Frank-Cook-claimed-5-for-church-collection.html">Frank Cook claimed for a £5 church donation he made at a Battle of Britain memorial service, it says. </a> He says it was a "genuine mistake".

And former Tory minister Tim Yeo reportedly claimed more than £900 for a pink laptop before Christmas in 2007.

'Gold-plated pensions'

Conservative leader David Cameron has been explaining his second home claim.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1189788/Cameron-took-maximum-taxpayer-funded-mortgage--paid-75k-loan-months-later.html">Mail on Sunday reports he paid off the remaining £75,000 of a mortgage</a> on his London home using his own money, shortly after taking out a £350,000 mortgage on his constituency home in 2001.

Mr Cameron did not break any rules and his office said the taxpayer had not lost any money, the paper reports.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/104460/Shamed-MPs-1m-golden-parachutes-">Sunday Express says MPs shamed into quitting over their expenses could walk away with "gold-plated" pensions </a> worth up to £1m each.

Assisted suicide

A record number of <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/may/31/assisted-suicide-reform-uk-switzerland">terminally-ill Britons are queuing up to be admitted to a Swiss assisted suicide clinic, the Observer</a> reports.

The newspaper says almost 800 people have become members of the Dignitas centre.

It says 34 men and women are ready to travel there to be helped to die.

The former Lord Chancellor <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6395949.ece">Lord Falconer has called for legal protection for people who travel to help their loved ones die, the Sunday Times</a> says.

Off the Boyle

She may not have won Britain's Got Talent, but Susan Boyle still occupies pole position in the tabloids.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/05/30/susan-boyle-set-for-6million-fortune-with-hit-album-and-blitz-on-america-115875-21401879/">Sunday Mirror says she is expected to earn £6m</a> trying to break the US.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/334609/Susan-Boyle-fails-to-win-Britains-Got-Talent.html">News of the World puts the figure at £8m</a> - money she will earn through a record deal, a film of her story and a book of memoirs.

There is also much reflection about why this woman with learning difficulties from a small Scottish town so quickly rose to fame and then fell from glory.