Confirmation that Tony Blair will indeed take up a new role as the Quartet's Middle East envoy - the departing PM apparently suggested himself to George Bush, who recommended him to the UN - causes consternation in the papers.
Gordon Brown has "privately welcomed" the move, according to the Guardian. The FT, however, says the incoming PM is "understood to be unhappy" about it - he had hoped to develop his own Middle Eastern strategy, centred on economic recovery - but has no desire for a final row. The Foreign Office is reportedly displeased too. "Some government figures question whether Mr Blair, more accustomed to high-level diplomacy, is the right man to lead the painstaking work of institution-building."
"The speed with which Blair's role has been written has left ambassadors and senior Foreign Office officials speechless in the past five days, gesturing with their canapes at garden parties to make up for an absence of words," says the Times.
"Blair may well feel that this paralysis plays to his strengths. The success of talks in Northern Ireland, arguably his greatest achievement, sprang from his skills as a broker. He has always been convinced, officials say, that if you lean over the table, in shirt sleeves, looking the other side in the eyes, you can extract a deal.
"But that technique can make too light of the deep changes needed to make the deals work. In Northern Ireland, Blair's regional devolution had paved the way. And no broker, however charismatic, will have the clout of a government head. In Blair's rush to fashion a new persona, in one of the world's most bitter conflicts, it is hard not to feel a personal urgency that is out of step with the crisis in the region."
* This is an extract from the Wrap, our digest of the daily papers.
