Paper Monitor
10:38 UK time, Tuesday, 19 September 2006
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Poor old Ming Campbell. With old being the key word. The papers have a token stab at previewing Lib Dem tax policy, but it's his attempts to get down with the kids on conference opening day that grabs the coverage.
An awkward picture of the party leader on Brighton seafront with "Ming's minxes" occupies a full five-column spread in the Times, and six in the Telegraph. As Ann Treneman observes, the visual stunt is "an idea that is not going to work". Indeed, he looks less like a colleague and more like a granddad, zimmered-in from nearby Eastbourne.
But what of what he had to say? Unfortunately a question and answer session also displayed the cruel signs of ageing. In an "informal chat", Sir Menzies, made the predictable politician's attempt to look hip, by referencing the Arctic Monkeys. Plus there were some wild and inaccurate claims about their record sales outstripping the Beatles, false by-election wins, Coronation Street characters and West Wing viewing.
And all this with a slimline Charles Kennedy returning to the party. As the Daily Mail shows in a nice sideways shot of him, the reformed ex-leader is looking healthier for his spell "out of the limelight" - as in publicity, not pub.
Life stage troubles of an entirely different nature occupy the red tops as they pore over Chris Tarrant's marital breakdown. All go for a paparazzi-style splash with head-in-hand pictures of wife Ingrid as she left their home yesterday. All speculate that Tarrant will be less of a multi-millionaire if they divorce over his affair. There is a chink of light for the couple in the Mirror - Ingrid tells the paper claims that the marriage is over are "rubbish". But a dark cloud of female reckoning gathers at the Sun - it says she plans to hire Princess Diana and Heather Mills-McCartney's divorce lawyer.
The 
