After months of glowing coverage in the press, the Tory leader David Cameron takes a pasting today, albeit a mild one. The source of the embarrassment is his botched attempt to find a high-profile candidate for mayor of London.
The Financial Times reports that the idea "blew up in his face when hopes of getting Greg Dyke, the former BBC chief, to stand on a joint ticket with the Liberal Democrats collapsed".
It adds that in a "humiliating rebuff for the Tory leader", the plan was vetoed by the Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell.
"Mr Cameron's misjudgement will be a gift to Labour's Ken Livingstone in the run-up to next year's mayoral elections," the FT adds.
Apparently, Mr Dyke would only stand as a joint candidate. One Tory spokesman told the FT: "Greg Dyke has achieved a great deal in his life - but he is not and never will be a Conservative."
Meanwhile, the Independent's Simon Carr takes the Tories to task for failing to "nail" Gordon Brown over pensions this week.
He says:"That's quite a failure and it goes deep into the roots of Conservative thinking.
They indignantly charged the Chancellor with destroying pensions by abolishing the tax incentive for pensions. But they had no answer to the counter-charge that their own chancellors had been doing the same thing for years."
· This is an extract from the Wrap, Guardian Unlimited's emailed digest of the best of the daily papers. To sample a copy, click here.
